Bechdel Test Movie List

The three female characters in this movie discuss their mission (which is not how to get a man) and a surgery/investigation of the humanoid remains they found (albeit male, that was irrelevant to the discussion).

The named women are Shaw, Vickers, and Ford.
It passes on at least two scenes:
1) Shaw: We're on our way/ Vickers: You have 15 seconds.
2) Shaw and Ford discuss their investigation of the alien specimen.

The first scene in which they discuss their mission may not be a pass- Vickers doesn't reply to Shaw's statement, and then when Shaw does ask a question, it's after Vickers talks about a man- and Vickers' answer is again about Weyland, a man. So they don't actually exchange a line of dialogue each without one of them talking about a man.

If anyone's interested in other aspects, "mankind," "men," and "he" are constantly used generically to mean humans; the Ice Queen is put in her place (her "no" to sex really means she wants to sleep with someone who insults her, and minor male characters talk about getting a lap dance from her;) and

(spoiler alert)


they cannot bear to call an abortion an abortion, even when there's literally a monster killing the mother- rather, they refer to it as a Caesarean...which would imply carefully taking the alien out without harming it. Maybe if the machine was programmed right, Shaw's request would have given us a scene where the gently swaddled alien ate her face.

I agree with your rating and analysis wholeheartedly, until (spoilers) you discuss the "Caesarean" scene. Removing an alien from inside someone doesn't fit the criteria of an abortion any more than it fits the criteria of a Caesarean.

If it were referred to as an abortion in the film, it would actually be somewhat offensive. That scene was visceral and disgusting, and would give and awful impression of abortive medical procedures to wide audiences. Think about it, you'd probably be criticizing that scene for demonizing abortion if they referred to it as such.

I wondered if the surgery machine's statement, "this unit is calibrated for males only," wasn't a subtle commentary on societal assumptions about default gender.

On the other hand, I also wonder if "abortion" was vetoed from an original script (by the studio or somebody else with that kind of power) and replaced with "Caesarean," but then someone pointed out that a machine capable of delivering a Caesarean could certainly perform an abortion, and so the only way to get around the issue was to make the machine calibrated for male bodies only.

Either way, it was definitely an interesting scene.

With regards to your spoiler:



Calling it an cesarean is medically correct. It was clearly equivalent to either a full term or viable preterm induction, although she certainly attempted to euthanize the alien child afterwards. Beyond that, she was told by the machine that it wasn't programmed for use by a woman(which implies that Vickers was not the intended user, Weyland was) and as such no procedures unneeded by a male were needed to be programmed. Given that knowledge, she opts for a foreign object removal from the abdomen, which is about the closest you'd get to a c-section.

SPOILER ALERT!

Didn't David tell Shaw that she was in her 3rd month (the fetus is somehow growing super-fast)? If I know correctly, abortions are carried out only in the first 3 months or so... Maybe Shaw thought the monster-fetus was too big for an abortion by then and didn't want to take any chances at that stage.

Considering the violence of the "cesarian" scene I agree that calling it an abortion might have been a bit demonizing to a procedure that is already controversial enough. I think cesarian is a more accurate term because it reefers to a general sort of procedure that involves making an incision into the uterus to remove whatever is inside it.
Initially, I thought the male only setting on the surgery pod was sexist, but someone pointed out to me that the machine was specially made for the old man and not meant as a resource for anyone else. So that doges an outright sexist label. Besides, I guess that fact that Shaw has to program the machine herself heightens the drama and makes her seem even cooler.

*SPOILERS*

1. It's possible that in the future the government is ruled by some crazy religious zealots who would never allow Abortion to be a command on a surgical machine.

2. Continuity win! Aliens have acid for blood. Had she selected Abortion, the movie would have been completely over because she and the machine would have been a puddle.

am i the only one who noticed that "foreign body removal" is what removed the alien?

ok wow people are making WAY too big o a deal out of the abortion/caesarian scene, seriously, we are talking about a giant octopus inside her, also, caesarian is more accurate because the alien didn't die, and eventually saved its mother

PLEASE: The machine was programmed for male use only because it was to cater to Weyland's care -- EXCLUSIVELY. It's fucking explained in the movie, albeit before the scene in question. There's no religious or sexist intentions, if anything just an emphasys on how powerfully selfish Weyland was.

Further, the term abortion would imply that they intended to remove the object vaginally, which is probably not what anyone had in mind. What actually happened was a lot closer to a Cesarian than an abortion. I don't think there was a political statement there.

SPOILER: Also, Shaw specifies the nature of the "Cesarian" by selecting the 'foreign body' option. Nothing about a baby mentioned by the programme or by her.

Late comer here, but in addition to all the comments posted above:

There's actually a very simple reason Shaw shouts out that she needs a Caesarian rather than an abortion. The alien fetus/octo-baby was already flailing around and trying to burst out of her uterus when she climbed in there. At that point it's a little late for an abortion, especially any kind of careful vacuum aspiration or a D&C/D&E (which would, as pjdkrunkt said above, result in a hole eaten through not only the medical pod and hull of the ship, but also Shaw's entire lower body. How's that for a grisly anti-abortion theme?)

Not to beat a dead horse here but:

Shaw was not trying to "abort" the creature, she was trying to remove it from her body, hence requesting a cesarean. Remember, she asked David to "get it out of me" not "kill it".

SPOILER
The machine being calibrated to males only is a hint that there's another unknown passanger on the ship, which is later reveleade to be Weyland