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Joshua Rich Daily Arts Editor |
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Last week, rumor has it, Spain's very first coming attractions for the super-blockbuster-phenomenon "Indepen-dence Day" were met with a minor panic. It turns out that some twisted publicity person had made the familiar trailer showing a fleet of swollen spaceships into a stunt likely designed to gain the reaction it ultimately received. Clever.
Orson Welles just rolled in his grave.
After all, the only touch of genius in "Independence Day" is the fact that its distributors managed to pack so many theaters for so long.
In its first week alone, the film broke the gross sales record for a movie opening by selling about $100 million worth of tickets. It is destined to reach the impressive $300 million domestic earnings mark later this year.
I'll admit: I am guilty of filling "Independence Day"'s producer's pockets. I fell into 20th Century Fox's mousetrap. I ate up "Independence Day"'s catchy trailers all summer. I was in line early that first week in July when everyone imagined the film would be like the second coming of "Star Wars," and the giant-screen theater near my house was showing it 24 hours a day. I plopped down my $7.50 and got a prime seat in the balcony, waiting in nervous anticipation with the rest of the audience. I wanted to see magic. I wanted to be amazed.
But I was ripped off.
The utter treachery behind "Independence Day" lies in its manipulative conception. No question audiences have been endlessly drawn to theaters to see this film that, supposedly, is about a hostile alien invasion of the Earth and the retaliation of the planet's few remaining souls. And that's what we think we saw. Fair enough. Let's go see it again - it's sooo entertaining!
I don't think so. The age-old trap involved in this sort of movie is to forget that there are other countries in the world. Sure, "Independence Day"'s aliens arrive, but they only seem to threaten the United States (as the rest of the world waits, whimpering in the corner). Come on: If aliens were to land on the Earth with the simple intention of killing everyone, wouldn't you think that they'd arrive in more heavily populated areas in China or India before they hit Los Angeles?
Not in this case. The scenes of aliens destroying the Empire State Building and the White House are shown to provoke our anger. Damn the visitors, they bombed New York and Washington (which, ironically, received a pretty big cheer in the D.C. theater where I saw the film)! Let's fight back. Fact is: Had the Great Wall of China and the Kremlin been the structures left in shambles, we would not have thirsted for revenge.
Of course, "Independence Day" is a fantasy film; it is definitely not based in fact. And for that reason I'll accept the film's ridiculous notion that there is a top secret air force base in the desert that houses aliens and other things so secure that the president doesn't even know about them. I'll accept the implausible conclusion to the film when the humans send the aliens a diseased e-mail from a Macintosh computer. I'll even accept that while most everyone in the country is killed in the aliens' initial blast, all the central characters in the film survive and manage to convene in the desert out west. Sure, next time aliens land and blow everyone up, I'm driving to Nevada!
What is not acceptable is that the Americans run the show. The film takes place on or around the fourth of July, the leaders of the world's assault against the spaceships are a handful of American military and political types, the heroes of the battle are Americans and Americans are the ones who figure out how to win.
It is not just incidental that this all occurs as it does. Deep down we are led to feel that the Americans win because they are Americans. Will Smith can survive combat with the aliens because he is a tough-as-nails American fighter pilot which, for that reason, makes him an invincible badass. The world attacks back against its invaders and it is successful because the battle was fought on July 4, the American day of independence.
Since we are so set on thinking that being American is good, that American values are good, that Americans are the smartest and most heroic people in the world, we ignore the offensive notions that lie at the heart of "Independence Day." We are tricked into thinking we saw a better, deeper movie than we did.
Citizens in other countries spend more money on our movies than we do. They will spend much more money on this film than we did. So I am embarrassed to think that a Canadian - let alone someone from Africa or Asia - would watch this film that is like an over hyped, dramatized version of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
The frightened Spaniards may have had a good reason for their madness after all. "Independence Day" is after them. "Independence Day" only cares about their wallets. And it rampages with greater vengeance than one of those Pamplona bulls.
- Joshua Rich is an LSA junior. He can be contacted over e-mail at jmrich@umich.edu.