Much has been made about the status ofSigourney Weaveras a patron saint of the science fiction genre. With her continued presence intheAvatarfranchiseand her role in the upcomingStar WarsfilmThe Mandalorian & Grogu, despite the constant diversity of her film choices,her legacy has always been closely married to her ties to sci-fi films. Since starting her film career withAlienand continuing to self-reflexively poke at her history with appearances in films likeGalaxy Quest,Wall-E, andPaul, Weaver has given back just as much love as she’s received. No greater sign of how much people appreciated her contribution to the sci-fi genre exists than whenshe was nominated forthe Oscar for Best Actressfor playing Ellen Ripley inAliens, which is one of the most batshit bonkers things the Academy has ever done,and I mean this in the best way possible.
Sigourney Weaver’s ‘Aliens’ Performance Stands Out Among the Other Oscar Nominees
If you’ve spent enough years on the nerdy side of the Internet, then you’re already well aware ofhow titanic Weaver’s performance as Ripley is inAliens, widely considered a benchmark in the canon of action heroes, as well as a true watershed moment for gender representation in the predominantly masculine genre of action blockbusters. Her combination of irate indignation, steely determination, and a surprisingly warm maternal instinctholds the same power nowas it did back then, and she still stands tall above many attempts at building a leading action hero we get today.
In order to convey how strange it is that even a performance this near-mythical could be up for Oscar consideration, it’s more effective to look at her performance in contrast to the other nominees for Best Actress at the 1986 Oscars. These includedJane FondaforThe Morning After,Sissy SpacekforCrimes of the Heart,Kathleen TurnerforPeggy Sue Got Married, and the winner,Marlee MatlinforChildren of a Lesser God. Minus Fonda’s baffling inclusion in one ofSidney Lumet’s worst junk thrillers, all the other three nominees are the type of leading actress performance the Academy usually goes for: complicated and mature modern women who learn more about their wants and needs and confront buried truths through traditionally dramatic stories.Ripley is a character in a story that caters to none of those genre conventions or classical tastes, and delving into why is where we see how unique of an honor Sigourney Weaver was given.
Ripley Is a Character Built More on Action Than Words
First off,Ripley is a woman of action much more than she is of words. Generally, she talks only if she needs to acquire information or if she needs to berate the confederacy of dunces that she’s surrounded by, spitting out that brashJames Camerondialogue with brio. The only time her performance takes on more of a conventionally revealing approach is in how her relationship with each of the characters evolve, providing insight into her prejudice, her mistrust of authority, and how the trauma ofher previous encounter with a Xenomorphstill lives in her. SinceAliens’ writing style doesn’t lend itself tomonologues, and is more committed to keeping the pace up, Ripley is not given many opportunities to “explain” herself in the typical sense, as she has no time to be introspective when she’s too busy having to be the only competent leader in the room.
Therefore,Weaver’s performance is one that isn’t afforded any of the standard “Oscar clip” moments— no speech that gives voters a broadly obvious indication of how effective her performance is. It’s a performance that has to be better appreciated by looking at all the things she isn’t saying: the way she watches everyone she doesn’t trust, the exhaustion in her body when she’s compelled to think she’s lost someone on her watch, and the exasperated patience with which she handles Newt. Furthermore, given how much of her screentime is spent being sweaty and fighting and yelling at people, you would think Weaver’s portrayal would be considered too “unappealing” for the voters, looking at what they typically liked to award.
Oscar Nominees in the 1980s Were Predictable
Alienswas released in the middle of a decade that’s possibly more responsible for the Oscars' bad reputation for being stuffy and out-of-touch than any other decade in cinema history.The 1980s saw the Oscars repeatedly try to protect their status as the arbiters of good taste, preferring to reward well-crafted yet sociopolitically stunted and aesthetically passé films likeChariots of Fire,Out of Africa, andDriving Miss Daisybeing anointed as the peak of what the industry could offer. Such self-perception trickled down to its acting recognition, as looking at Best Actress selections alone, you see a hard preference for the kind of histrionic speechifying that defined “great acting” for a generation of filmgoers.
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Sure, there are more “right calls” than wrong, like recognizing thatMeryl Streep’s performance inSophie’s Choiceis one of the defining pieces of acting in cinema history, or Sissy Spacekbrilliantly codifying the biopic formula withCoal Miner’s Daughter. But for every one of those wins, there’s a win that feels in service of upholding the “good old days” standard tradition, eager to put veneer on a window that should have long closed.Weaver’s inclusion in this era of nominees is not only a refreshing surprise, but it’s a downright statistical miracle, one that has almost no logic or conventional reason behind it other than voters just being that captivated by the performance of a relatively newly formed star who they clearly wanted to position as someone important for the future. Couple that with the other bigger elephant in the room, and Weaver’s nomination truly becomes the stuff of legend.
The Academy Rarely Respects Sci-Fi Movies
To this very day,the Academy doesn’t respect acting in thesci-fi or horror genre, and rarely ever has. Though there are some notable exceptions, likeFredric Marchwinning Best Actor forDr. Jekyll & Mr. HydeorAnthony HopkinsandJodie Fosterboth winning Lead acting Oscars forThe Silence of the Lambs, acting in a sci-fi or horror film usually gets the shaft for being considered too lightweight and in service of a “lesser” genre. We still live with the trauma ofToni Collettenot being nominated forHereditary, and the Academy leavingAmy Adamsout to dry for giving possibly her best performance ever inArrival. Before Sigourney Weaver’s nomination, only one actress' performance had been nominated for a true science-fiction film, and that wasMelinda Dillonin Best Supporting Actress forClose Encounters of the Third Kindnearly a decade prior. Her being nominated by the largest and most public film-based organization in the country for a science-fiction action film in which she becomes essentially a demonstration of Cameron’s anti-capitalist, anti-bureaucracy principles in the middle ofRonald Reagan’s Americais a level of flexing that only primeArnold Schwarzeneggercould match.
Furthermore,they nominated her for playing a character a second time in a sequel, which is a whole other can of worms that the Academy tends not to deal with. Typically, they’ll nominate someone for playing a character the first time, and then largely ignore their subsequent performances, like withIan McKellenbeing nominated for playing Gandalf in onlyThe Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the RingorJohnny Deppfor playing Jack Sparrow in onlyThe Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The alternative is they’ll nominate a second performance only if it feels like a momentous and legacy-defining chance, like whenSylvester StalloneplayedRocky Balboa inCreed, but that opportunity rarely happens.
We know Academy voters saw the firstAlien, since it won an Oscar for visual effects, so they had a familiarity with Weaver and her first time around as Ellen Ripley. It could have been that under James Cameron’s writing and direction, Ripley felt like a more fleshed out and self-assured character, therefore giving Weaver more to work with and more avenues to explore her. It could have been that the chemistry she shared with her cast members was so potent that it helped elevate her work. Whatever it was, Sigourney Weaver’s performance became something so structurally perfect that the Academy had to make room — and history — for her.
Decades after surviving the Nostromo incident, Ellen Ripley is sent out to re-establish contact with a terraforming colony but finds herself battling the Alien Queen and her offspring.
