Blowing Up the White House and Other Apocalyptic Violence in Independence Day

In the summer “blockbuster” movie, Independence Day, apocalyptic flames devour and blow up the White House. The movie shows the aliens destroying Washington, New York, and Los Angeles in great fireballs and tells us there was a simultaneous, world-wide assault against other major cities.

Clearly, this movie celebrated the Fourth of July with a bang. It made a financial and political bang as well: six days after this extravaganza of violence, costing 65 million dollars, was released on July 2nd, it was being touted as already having taken in 100 million dollars at the box office. The

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movie even drew political audiences. In the last week of July, Bob Dole, in preparation for facing Hollywood the next day, went to see Independence Day. It was his kind of movie since there was an alien enemy to hate — he proclaimed it to be the type of movie which “lifts up our country instead of dragging it down.” The next week, in unleashing his supply-side economic package (which he previously denigrated), he drew on the film to make Bill Clinton the “economic enemy of all Americans.” He then turned on the IRS, promising to free the American people from IRS “tyranny” and “eliminate the IRS as we know it.” This is probably why the message of blowing up of the White House and the capital city fits in with the political campaign of Republicans who have been running against Washington even while occupying it.

Besides spectacular special effects suitable for Fourth of July viewing, the film has something for everyone: A black (Will Smith) and a Jew (Jeff Goldblum) team up to save the world, and each’s family will be healed and reunited in the process. (In a summer with a host of black leading men, Smith, in promotional materials, boasts of being the first black to save the world.) There is lots of comic relief. There is male bonding, with cigars, and female bonding of black and white. There are the children’s stories of the little black boy searching for a father and of Munchkin, the President’s daughter, who would lose her mother and be in danger of losing her father as well. A family’s pet dog is saved — while the people of Los Angeles perish.

The spectacular violence of the film almost necessitates comic relief. Judd Hirsch, as Jeff Goldblum’s father and a genuine New York Jewish character, puts a smile on the faces of the audience. Most smiled or smirked at is Randy Quaid as the drunken crop-duster suffering from Vietnam War-induced post traumatic stress syndrome and the aftermath of being “abducted by aliens.” He is the goat, but also comic, and in the end sacrifices himself to save his children and the world with a Kamikaze-type attack on the alien base. The audience laughs when Harvey Fierstein says “Oh, shit!” as he is about to be devoured by the New York City fireball while caught in traffic.

There is lots of implied sexuality in Independence Day, but none of it is genital or explicit. Harry Connick, Jr., and Will Smith are two pals who love each other as comrades in arms and joke about bisexuality. Harvey Fierstein, the drag queen type in the news room, cares so much for others that he is killed before he can escape. Will Smith’s girlfriend Vivica Fox, an exotic dancer, is a dynamic action woman who saves many, including the President’s wife (Mary McDonnell), who still dies in the end, off camera. When Bob Dole praised Independence Day specifically in opposition to Demi Moore’s Strip Tease, he obviously did not have her profession in mind.

There is much love in the film. There is the profound love the President has for his daughter and that Smith’s girlfriend has for her son. The audience is shown as much male-male and female-female love as opposite sex love. The whole family can go to the movie since there is no genital love even if the violence is so great millions of people die and the world is left with vast nuclear fallout. It is noteworthy that the deaths, which are clearly implied to be in the millions, are referred to as in the “thousands.”

The alien enemy is ant, octopus, and robot-like as well as enormously powerful and resilient. Somehow, it must be seen up close so its weaknesses can be uncovered. Access to the first alien comes when Will Smith, like a tough ghetto black, punches out the enemy. No such movie is complete without a crazy scientist type and this one’s is killed examining the alien, without the audience shedding any tears for him. There is great distrust of the U.S. government as having all sorts of secret information on aliens which it is withholding from Americans, including the President, ably played by Bill Pullman. The Secretary of Defense is an unsympathetic, caricature of a hawk. The President is a most sympathetic human being who is at the mercy of his advisors. The film starts out with his being denigrated as a wimp, much like Presidents Clinton and Bush, even though he is a hero fighter pilot from the Persian Gulf War (presumably of 1991). His older-looking wife is a professional woman, like Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Dole, with whom he appears to have an excellent relationship and who is away on business at the time of the invasion. By the end the President has become the warrior chief as if he were a leader of a tribe or of the Roman Empire.

The success of the American warriors at the grand finale, just split seconds before human destruction, leaves the world cheering: bushmen, Arabs, Russians, Brits, and everyone else join in celebrating the victory of Earth. Though one hero, Jeff Goldblum, shows enormous sensitivity to

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environmental issues, the question of nuclear fallout is glossed over by presenting it as July 4th fireworks. The seven-year-old and his family sitting near me seemed untroubled by this danger and the mood of the audience on July 3rd was exuberant. America again saves the world at the end of the movie and our Independence Day becomes the holiday of the entire world.

The film’s message is that the family, racial strife, and the world can be healed if only we have an external, alien enemy to bring us together. The popularity of the film demonstrates the success of this message in a world where the distinction between fantasy and reality is increasingly blurred. Already, I am looking forward to next summer’s movies, wondering if our emotional needs will dictate that extraterrestrials will be enemies or friendly, helpful creatures like E.T.

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