Aliens in an Alien World: The Portrayal of the Aliens and Humans in the Man Who Fell to Earth by Nicholas Roeg and Under the Skin by Jonathan Glazer

• Main Authors: Suppia Alfredo, Mazierska Ewa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2018-10-01
• Series: Open Cultural Studies
• Subjects: science fiction film; nicholas roeg; the man who fell to earth; jonathan glazer; under the skin; infiltration narrative
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2018-0026

The article examines The Man Who Fell to Earth by Nicholas Roeg and Under the Skin by Jonathan Glazer, comparing them with each other and their respective literary originals (hypotexts), in order to establish how aliens and humans are represented in these films and how these representations reflect their respective ideologies. The authors argue that while Roeg’s film, in common with its original, uses the story of Newton to criticise corporate capitalism, Glazer’s film plays down the political aspect of the film, concerning industrial farming and exploitation of the underclass by the political elites, pertaining to neoliberalism, to focus on the problems of identity.