Yeah, I’m definitely not trying to diminish her as a character. Her sexuality is never explicitly stated, and the film doesn’t seem particularly interested in addressing it, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions. The fact that she’s a Marine at all is notable, since women weren’t allowed to hold combat roles when the film was made, and it’s awesome that Vasquez breaks gender norms without being demonized or treated like a punchline. All in all, she was an especially progressive character for 1986.

But there is definitely a theme of the film that masculinity (or what we would now call toxic masculinity) is inferior to femininity, specifically maternal femininity. All of these brash, hotshot marines spend the first act of the film belittling Ripley, despite her first hand knowledge of the threat. Ripley is also the only one to take the time to develop a relationship with Newt, despite the fact that she’s the only colonist to survive the Aliens, while the Marines see her as unimportant. They are then immediately massacred in their first encounter with aliens and crumble (especially Hudson) when their big guns and big talk are ineffective.

Besides Ripley and Newt, the only survivors are Bishop and Hicks. Bishop is a male presenting android, but he’s not like the Marines, being much more quiet, thoughtful, and diplomatic, stereotypically feminine attributes. Hicks is a much more traditionally masculine character, but despite becoming the ranking officer during the mission, he’s willing to be deferential to Ripley and allow her to lead.

The film is about Ripley, a grieving mother, finding a surrogate daughter and protecting her, and it is the characteristics of her role as a mother that allow her to overcome the threat of the Aliens. Meanwhile, the tough, masculine characters she’s paired with proved to be no match for that same threat, which in the third act is revealed to be another mother in the form of the Xenomorph Queen. It’s awesome that Vasquez represents a non-gender confirming character, especially one made 40 years ago, but that fact that she’s a masculine-coded character means she’s part of the gender spectrum being critiqued in the film.

Ripley and Vasquez are antithetical. Vasquez’s strength comes from enbracing masculinity. She’s in a traditionally male profession, she’s stereotypically, “butch,” (short hair, muscular, etc.), she’s aggressive, and she belittles Ripley with her male peers. The film even calls attention to this early on (“Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?”…“No. Have you?”). Meanwhile, Ripley is similarly a strong woman, but she doesn’t need to reject femininity to show strength. She weeps when she learns that her daughter died and later develops a maternal connection with Newt, but she’s more than capable of picking up a gun and giving orders when needed. She’s also in a traditionally male profession (which she demonstrates when she uses the power loader), but she doesn’t let that define her. She never seeks the approval of the male characters or behaves like them to achieve her goals.

I’ve heard it argued that Vasquez is a sort of queer coded sheild for Ripley, allowing audiences to enjoy Ripley as a strong female character without worrying about her sexuality (“No, Ripley’s not a lesbian; that’s a lesbian.”), but I don’t think that’s fair to either character. Vasquez is a heroic character in her own right, not wanting abandon teammates and ultimately sacrificing herself so that others can escape. But the film is about motherhood, and Vasquez, just like all the other marines, isn’t capable of maternal behavior. I think in the end, Vasquez’s character is meant to demonstrate that Ripley is a bad-ass because of her femininity, not in spite of it.

Relatable.

There’s a Lovecraft story about this exact thing. It doesn’t end well.

Same.

Sounds like she’s a pretty powerful witch if she ruined his marriage and his career.

True, but to be fair, if I’d been watching Mr. Rogers as a kid and Big Bird showed up, ripped his own head off, and revealed a middle-aged man hiding inside, I probably would have been traumatized.

I kinda assumed this was a cage-match, fight-to-the-death kind of thing. I think most animals would rather run away than fight you, unless you’re encroaching on their territory or look like an easy meal.

Mr. Rogers really wanted to encourage children’s imaginations, but he didn’t want them to confuse fantasy and reality. That’s why there’s such a strong delineation between his house and the Neighborhood of Make Believe. He also did more than one, “behind the scenes,” episode to show the neighborhood wasn’t real, and even mentioned on occasion that his, “house,” was just his, “television house,” where he would visit with the viewer, not his real house where he lived (which explains why he leaves at the end of every episode). When Big Bird was set to do a crossover episode, Rogers initially wanted the puppeteer to remove the costume and show children how it worked. The puppeteer didn’t want to destroy Big Bird for children, so they compromised by only having Big Bird visit the Neighborhood of Make Believe. However, there are two regular characters (Handyman Negri and Mr. McFeely) who appear in both the Neighborhood of Make Believe and the Mr Rogers house, which potentially blurs the line between real and make believe.

I had a goose come at me once. I held my jacket open like it was a giant set of wings and he ran like hell. I was not impressed.

I mean, Americans have huge obesity rates, but apparently, nearly 20% of us think we can take a chimp. I’m sure a rat couldn’t kill me, but I have no idea how I would catch one with my bare hands, so that feels like a draw to me.

Actually, this does explain why all those brits in Untitled Goose Game let the goose walk all over them.

Sure, us Americans are obviously delusional, but can we talk about the fact that almost half of all brits think they would lose to a goose? They’re 20 pounds, have no teeth or claws, and their bones are hollow. Have a little confidence, guys, I’m sure you can take poultry in a fight.

Fair point, but that’s a question for the mods. If you want some obscure Mr. Rogers facts though, or theories on the Daniel Tiger timeline, I’m your guy.

…so this is some real pedantic shit I’m about to do here, and I apologize in advance, but that’s the wrong picture. François Clemmons was on the show between 1968 and 1993. The original episode where they share a pool aired in 1969, and both men were much younger. The picture above is from Clemmons final appearance on the show in 1993, titled “Love,” where they again share a foot pool. I know this because my toddler has become Mr. Rogers obsessed and I’ve seen the 1993 episode 3 dozen times in the last month.

I think mods should remove misinformation, but to my mind, for something to rise to the level of, “misinformation,” it needs to be egregiously false and harmful, like vaccine skepticism or election denial. Removing a comment, which is effectively true but debatably incorrect from a wonkish perspective, and labeling it misinformation? That’s bullshit.

If they wanted to remove comment where he says, “blue Maga,” whatever. Not the way I would run a community, but whatever. If they want to ban him for posting screenshots from the automod, OK, I guess he was poking the bear at that point. But the only reason to pull that other comment is because it contradicted their worldview. That’s bad in most communities, but in a news community, it’s unacceptable.

Yeah, I checked the modlogs, and it was exactly the mod I thought it was. There are two mods on News and Political Memes that don’t like criticism of Democrats. Someone picked a fight with me on Political Memes, calling me a, “fucking moron,” and telling me I didn’t understand something. I showed him polling that disproved him, and he tried to prove that the Pew Research Center didn’t know how to conduct a survey. We were rude back and forth to each other for a while, but the kid who instigated the fight caught a 1 day ban for, “rudeness,” while I got a perma-ban for, “trolling.” They even left up separate comments on the same thread where he told another user they were, “too stupid,” and to, “shut the fuck up.” It’s best to just block the communities they mod.

For the record, it’s a disgrace that they pulled that one comment for, “misinformation.” The only thing I would dispute is the claim that, “Biden [sold] more protected land than any other president,” and, “[approved] more drilling for fraking than any other.” Oil production did boom under him, and he expanded drilling on federal lands after promising not to, but I think the rate of sale and approval was about the same as Trump. Either way, that’s not misinformation, it’s just nuance.

No matter who you are, no matter where you work, the facilities team is really in charge.

Wait, is that really it? Because that’s fucking awesome.

I’ve always assumed it was some sort of ornate, ceremonial hammer made of pure gold that they keep in a special chamber, but now that you mentioned it, I really hope it’s just a claw hammer they borrow from the maintenance guy.