John Dixon | Aliens 'R' Us: A Gritique of D4 John Dixon Boston University Aliens 4R' Us: A Gritique of D4 Video availible from Twentieth Century Fox. NewYork City receives an unexpected visitor in the epic adventure film Independence Day. It did not take people long to realize that Independence Day would be the hit movie ofthe summer. It earned $100-miIIion in only six days, surpassing the nine-day record set byJurassic Park in 1993. Since then, commentators have been trying to explain its popularity. Some have attributed its success to the perfect opening-day timing and the shrewd marketing campaign ; others to the way it satisfies the public's supposed deeprooted desire to unite against a common enemy. In a variation on this latter point, many people I have talked to have called it jingoistic, mere propaganda for the "New World Order," and have objected to its stereotyped portrayal ofwomen,Jews, and gays. Others, though, have praised its multicultural vision, pointing to the featured roles it gives to minorities. There is clearly truth in all ofthese takes on the movie. But I don't think any one ofthem satisfactorily explains why the film is so popular . Why has it struck such a chord with the public at this time? I'd like to try my hand at answering this question. I confess to having cheered involuntarily on a number ofoccasions during the film, so ifnothing else, the following can be considered an attempt at self-analysis. This movie has appeared at a moment ofwidespread anxiety about job security in a culture in which downward mobility is experienced, particularly by men, as personal failure and impotence. The male characters introduced in the opening scenes all speak to this anxiety. There is Jeff Goldblum as David, an MIT-educated satellite technician whose former girlfriend Constance (Margaret Colin), fed up with his lack of ambition, has left him to become an adviser to the President. There is Randy Quaid as Russell, a boozy former Vietnam pilot now working as a crop-duster and suffering mental problems since he was abducted and molested by aliens. And finally there is Will Smith as Capt. Steven Hiller, an Marine pilot who has failed to realize his dream of becoming an astronaut. He is in a relationship with Jasmine (Vivica Fox), a black, single mother who works as a stripper (apparently the only job left for Hollywood working-class 92 I Film & History Regular Feature | Film Reviews moms!). His fellow pilot tells him, "Nowyou're never gonna get to fly the space shuttle ifyou marry a stripper!" Even President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is worrying if he has the right stuff. The press accuse him of being too boyish to stand up to Congress. The arrival of the aliens sets a plot in motion in which all the above characters will eventually triumph over their inadequacies. At first, however, the alien invasion only exacerbates their sense ofimpotence , rendering the nation powerless at the hands of an inscrutable force. Breaking offfrom their "mother ship," the alien crafts descend from the moon, vast, dark ovals which spread out across the globe, taking up positions over all the major world capitals and hijacking the global satellite system to coordinate their attack. All human efforts to establish contact with the aliens fail. On cue they commence destroying cities, moving from one to another, blasting them with a ray from the underbelly of the craft. Their sole governing purpose, we learn, is to travel from one planet to another, consuming all available resources. I think this vision generates such an effective sense of dread because of the strong element of paranoia in it. In a state ofparanoia we invest the external world with all our worst tendencies and qualities to maintain the fiction of our own wholeness and perfection. In this movie the aliens are a paranoid projection of the nation's destructive and threatening aspects. In their blind pursuit of self-interest, their global reach and control of satellite communication, their capacity to paralyze nation states, and their environmental destructiveness, the alien crafts bear an uncanny resemblance to multinational corporations (which include Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation , which owns Fox, which...