If you had told me, back when the trailers for FX’s Alien: Earth first dropped, that at this point in the season, with the finale just a week away, I’d be riveted, mesmerized—nay, possessed—not by clingy facehuggers or big-boy xenomorphs but instead by a determined, resourceful eyeball with octopus legs, I would have said: what.
But the world is a strange and surprising place, and what I’m saying today is: werk.
Since the genuinely fantastic series debuted back in August, many fans have pointed out that Alien: Earth’s eyeball monster—dubbed Trypanohyncha Ocellus and gendered female by her space safari captors—is stealing the show. She’s small, sure, and at first glance, her socketless, squishy form may suggest weakness. But woe to he who underestimates her gumption, for he may well find himself with, um, something in his eye.
After Tuesday night’s penultimate episode, I know mine are glowing with admiration. Lil’ T-Ossy has used those shockingly strong and adaptable tentacles to catapult herself across hilariously unsecured laboratories and into our hearts. She’s strategized against her oppressors (tap, tap, bitch), given a sheep the gift of absolutely devastating side-eye, and even slapped a nasty, chittering xeno around so successfully that it left the room to go eviscerate another lady instead. And now we have confirmed what real ones knew all along: Our girl is highly intelligent AND funny, having answered Boy Kavalier’s demeaning request for some further digits of pi with a 1, a 5, and a steaming pile of fuck you.
So, yes, the Eye is the breakout (multiple times!) star of Weyland-Yutani’s not-so-covert interstellar bioweapon competition. But while we’re giving her her flowers, there’s another honorific I think we should add: queer icon.
I know that many of you, like me, already feel the truth of this deep in your ocular nerve. But some may be protesting: Ma’am, this piece of undercooked calamari with an attitude may be “cute,” but she cannot be gay. To be sure, I would not presume to know T-bb’s sexuality, since we have not yet heard her speak for herself, not in human language anyway (though it seems to me she can pretty much get into whoever happens to be around). No, what I’m interested in is why, for me and many fellow fans I’ve talked to, Miz Ocerina feels queer—in much the same way the Babadook, now a venerated gay elder, once bravely dook-dook-dooked through boundaries of who our community looks to for inspiration, moral leadership, and style advice.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by FX and Getty Images Plus.
What makes me feel so seen when I peer into those undulating irises? Could a creature who survives by “[taking] over the ocular pathways to the brain, overriding the neuro transmissions throughout the body” (subversive!) be the role model we LGBTQs have been searching for?
Embodiment: I asked my queers on social media to think with me about this question, and they did not disappoint. In fact, they helped me organize this analysis into four categories. First, we’ve got body. Or face? Sclera? Whatever you want to call it, she’s giving it, whether she’s currently of feline, ovine, or grizzled old-guy experience. One co-theorist felt that “the way she walks” was queer-coded. It’s true: Queen Cornea, when she’s on the loose, does move as if she’s 2.5 iced coffees in and late for an audition. And she’s not afraid to draw on those old gymnastics lessons when a cartwheel is called for.
I also think it’s kinda fey how her internal experience of sight is a kaleidoscope. And here’s something else: Often, at least in gay male culture, cruising (dependent as it is on masculine performance) and drag (an embrace of femininity) are viewed in opposition—they say you can’t do both. But here, we see them united! This bitch will cruise you so hard you forget to put the lid on the vampire bugs, and THEN she will snatch your whole entire look and wear it flawlessly … well, a little asymmetrically, but certainly better than you ever did.
Sensibility: Another of my collaborators offered this reading: “SHE is a strong female lead! Which gays love!” And they were not alone: “She’s slick and smarter than everyone around her, and she’s def a little evil and we love brilliant evil women.” The notion of “evil” is an intriguing one. There’s no question that Regina Retina has a, let’s say, clear vision of how she’d like things to be. In this, she follows in the tradition of violent, intrusive makeovers pioneered by Queer Eye—which, naturally. But if I could push back a smidge, I’d like to suggest that her vibe is less evil and more stunt queen. She simply has a flair for drama! Let us not forget that in Episode 5 (the one where things don’t go well on the spaceship), she not only “takes over the engineer’s body,” but she also makes important, insightful dramatic choices with that body—like waiting three beats before turning to deliver the reveal, then using a tentacle to raise his upper lip into a sassy snarl. Icon behavior!
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Politics: OK, call me a radical Marxist, but if you believe that queerness ought to involve certain political commitments, Our Lady of the Lenses is a comrade. She is clearly invested in mutual aid projects: While working to free herself from the corporatocracy, she is sure to include her fellow prisoners the Nightmare Ticks and the Battery Acid Bugs in her plans, using her very body as a tool of rebellion so that they might finally, truly “eat the rich” (or their employees and property … revolution is a messy business!). Indeed, this visionary radical’s commitment to collective action and consciousness raising is so deep I have high hopes that Season 2 may see her organizing a union of monsters and tween bots alongside Wendy.
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Lived Experience: Lastly, I had to share this incredibly keen observation from another associate: “I think [the sense of queerness] has something to do with the way its survival depends on adopting other identities, and the way it seems to be in a constant state of hypervigilance. Meanwhile, we empathize because however hard it tries to pass, there’s that telltale sign that gives it away (i.e., the fact it’s still a giant bloodied eyeball).” I mean, y’all, what queer person is not intimately familiar with scanning our surroundings for threats, with doing whatever we can to fit in when we’re not safe, and then, when we have the chance, with just absolutely going ham on the big dumb alien that everyone’s always talking about but that we’re smarter than and one day they’ll see us for the gorgeous geniuses we really are, and … Alexa, play “Firework” by Katy Perry!
Look, she may not be the sort of figure that gets a GLAAD award, but I believe that Her Royal Highness Empress Trixie Ocellatious is the representation we queers need right now. If you don’t agree, feel free to focus your gay gaze elsewhere. I, for one, will be keeping an eye out for the next season of Alien: Earth in the hopes that she will continue to be our teacher, and we, her grateful pupils.
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