I was just about to comment on the odd way she has been overlooked as a lesbian icon despite the reams of academic papers that have been written about the Alien series as feminist allegory (I've written some of them myself); however, I thought I'd check the WWW first. It's not necessarily a comment regarding lesbianism or feminism, but most of the Sigourney Weaver homepages have been put up by females. She was quoted during the publicity rounds for Copycat (1995)as bemoaning the fact that she had never heard from -or of- an obsessed fan. Around a year later, certain news programmes reported that this situation had changed. A curious blend of Amazonian elegance and God-given goofiness comes across in her interviews, making her one of the most likable public personalities featured on this site, as attested to by the slightly stunned tone of this quote, from USA Today (26/11/97): "Comedy is the one thing I'm really good at. I don't know why I've had such a serious career. I've had the most serious career."

SEX APPEAL

She's not aging gracefully; far as most of us can tell, she's not aging at all, nor has she developed that 'permanently surprised' look that underlies the old joke: 'If she went into hospital for a broken ankle, why are her tits so much bigger?'. The essence of sexual appeal being intrigue, she's overkill: 5 "11 in her bare feet with delicate, very feminine features; the same deep brown eyes that lower Sylvester Stallone's IQ (see Judge Dredd for proof), in her, bespeak curiosity and high intelligence. There's something -there is something; masculine about her that may explain the relative reticence of her huge male fan base; a quality which has nothing to do with the feminist apotheosis of Ripley in the Alien strand, but rather with our notion of the angelic, of sexless beauty - in this world, of androgyny. Archetypes? With the magnetism of The Witch, the vulnerability of The Maiden and the contemplative air of The Virginal Muse, Jung would be stumped.