UNDER THE SKIN: Representations

●     The representation of women is complex in this film, particularly in the use of Johansson’s body and the gaze we adopt towards it. In the seduction of her victims the alien uses stereotypical representations of female sexuality; the red lipstick, the fur coat, undressing slowly for the sexual pleasure of the male gaze. However we also know she is consuming these male victims and is not necessarily female.

●     The representations of men tend to be stereotypical but men are also objectified and represented as lonely in this film. We see the drunken, yobbish and arrogant young men, motivated by sexual desire but also by a need for company. It is they who are viewed naked before being killed.

●     There is a reversal of gender representations in the second half of the film as the alien becomes the prey for men. We see her hunted by the men on motorcycles, romantically wooed by a man she meets and disturbingly assaulted and killed by a violent sexual predator at the end of the film. It could be argued that the empowered woman is punished, confirming patriarchal power.