now go to sleep, and don't dream.
sigourney weaver, fictional heroines, and my newly adopted dog
There are spoilers for the 1979 classic horror film Alien below. If you haven’t seen it during these past four decades…spoiler alert, I guess.
I adopted a dog, a two-year-old rescued Chihuahua mix, two days before the U.S. election.
My boyfriend and I named the dog Ripley after the protagonist of one of our favorite movies, Alien. About a month before we took him home, we’d rewatched the iconic movie, in which Sigourney Weaver plans Ellen Ripley. The character is one of the first gender-neutral casted roles in film history.
It was comforting to return to the movie during quarantine and election chaos, and not just because I happen to love horror movies. Ripley was someone trying to do everything right and stay alive when no one else would listen. She was a voice of reason and cool logic.
Despite her warnings that no one should break quarantine when a crew member is attacked by an extraterrestrial life form on an unknown planet, her orders are ignored. But as the alien slowly devours her fellow crew members on the cargo ship Nostromo, Ripley and the space ship’s cat Jonesie slowly outwit the horrifying monstrosity with her calm, cool, collected attitude, eventually escaping the ship. My boyfriend and I looked at each other halfway through the movie and agreed: Ripley would be a great dog name.
Friends and family members joked that our timing for adopting a dog could not have been better. The nonstop news cycle and existential terror of living under Trump for another four years felt unbearable and impossible to turn away from, except for when we got Ripley. Suddenly, we could focus on him.
We could focus on wrestling him into his harness for a walk, or watching him burrow his way into all of our blankets and sweaters, or find all of his favorite belly rub spots. I could focus on viewing my neighborhood from his point of view, far smaller and closer to the ground, when we went on walks. I could focus on his likes and dislikes: yes to a squeaky stuffed lamb toy, no to tennis balls.
The truth is, I’ve tried a lot of anxiety “cures,” most of which only work somewhat. Or they work for a while until they don’t anymore. That’s the thing about anxiety—it’s the alien that’s taken root in your sternum, and even if you’re feeling better, it’s eventually going to grow and evolve, threatening to destroy you in the process. It creeps around, inexplicably wet, hiding in plain sight, able to sneak up when you’re not looking. (I’m far from the only person who has likened the alien to bodily issues like childbirth and infertility. Alien screenwriter Dan O’Bannon was inspired in part by his battle with Crohn’s disease).
A dog not an anxiety fix, but having a dog companion has provided a comforting distraction, a living thing to focus on when the world feels as though it is closing in on you.
No one listened to Ellen Ripley at first. Everyone wanted to believe that the creepily phallic-looking alien monster who disappeared into the dark corners of the ship was simply gone. But it’s Ripley and her cool, calm, collected approach to survival that bring her through, despite the fact that none of her fellow crew mates (aside from the vessel’s cat) make it out.
I’ve always found the final scenes of Alien a simultaneously melancholic and inspiring end. It’s a reminder to stick to your gut feeling. As one friend reminded us, Ellen Ripley warned us of exactly this with her ominous quote, “If we break quarantine, we’re all gonna die.”
As I got to know Ripley The Dog his first week in our home, I too tried to pretend that the monstrous uncertainty our country faced (and still faces) was gone. I felt guilty for checking out and allowing myself to get distracted. It felt like an unearned privilege, a stroke of luck, and in many ways, Ripley The Dog is indeed a very sweet little stroke of luck. And he was present when we made it out of Trump’s one-term presidency alive (or, rather, when Joe Biden’s victory was announced by the news media), barking in unison with the honking cars and shrieks of joy echoing in the playground outside our window.
But the absolute truth of the matter is: we didn’t all make it out—we’re close to having lost a quarter of a million people to COVID-19—and there’s still so much to do. There’s a run-off imminent in Georgia. Trump has not conceded and the Republicans are playacting along with his charade. We’ve barely escaped the burning ship, but now we have to find home again. Just like Ripley in Alien, recording her final transmission alone with Jonesie the cat, we’re safe but still drifting, hoping we’ll be picked up sometime soon.
