Under The Skin - Reviews (part 2)

The Guardian -

• Considers her to be a ‘watcher and predator’
• ‘Brings nothing [to society] besides a body’ 
• ‘A sex object’
• ‘Disparity in excitement between the male characters’ reactions to The Female and that of the camera’

Deletionscifi:

• ‘Appeals to both feminine and alien allegories’ 
• ‘Positions the spectator to adopt her perspective’
• ‘The heroine’s pursuit of the male prey’
• ‘the alien conceit allows for the aggressive female pursuit rendered, and vice versa’
• ‘for a woman to act in this way (and get away with it), she must be alien.’
• ‘A figure ‘defined by [her] sexuality, which is presented as desirable but dangerous to men’’
• ‘She never really is what she seems to be’ - showcasing the threat of a woman to be secret which should be discovered.
• Barbara Creed: ‘femme fatale manipulates structures of human sexual selection by using her allure to ‘arouse and control male desire’
• ‘femme fatale’s inhuman capabilities often not only problematize male power but also endanger the human species’
• ‘The heroine is subsequently depicted in her human suit of skin as she dons the clothing of a female corpse’
• ‘Her womanly figure is utilized here as a reductive image of femininity’
• ‘the peculiarity of viewing unsuspecting men as objects for female disposal underscores the omnipresence of the male gaze under which women are scrutinized’
• ‘the heroine feigns the womanly disposition of helplessness’
• ‘she is visually evocative of a werewolf’ - ‘both human and animal—the one ideally communal and sociable, the other solitary and fierce’
• ‘Jacques Lacan’s ‘mirror stage’, the formative moment where the infant child recognizes their image in a mirror and begins to establish an independent relation to reality’
• ‘the fact that she is no longer in control; now driven by someone else’ - bus driver tells her dressing inappropriate 
• ‘sexuality is commoditized to the point where her pleasure is eliminated from the scenario’
• ‘The heroine’s evinced inability to function sexually underlines the inexorability of female oppression under patriarchy’

Under The Skin is more difficult to agree on due to the explicitness of the situations. The way in which The Female preyed at the beginning mirrors the one which the man did at the end, save for the increased aggression and non-consensual manner. It is controversial since she does exactly what the men does yet due to gender stereotypes she is seen as different. She is only portrayed as a sexual object within the first half, considered her to be alien-like, however when she becomes human she is instantly turned into the victim, showing the lack of power.