Militarism, Misanthropy and the Body Politic: - Brunel University

EnterText 6.2
culture. The alien, as mentioned above, is linked to all characters through imagery of race,
gender, and sexuality. We also see connections between people and machines and among
the machines. The equipment David uses to find Connie is a miniature version of the
spaceships’ flowery protuberance that opens out and descends before the aliens incinerate
the cities. The transponder attached to the alien spacecraft’s belly links the motifs of the
cigar and the phallus. At the film’s opening, before the aliens incinerate government and
public monuments, they send what might be exploratory flares, which are depicted as
white flash frames. During Steven and Jasmine’s marriage ceremony, David’s ring finger,
as Connie reaches over to touch his hand, triggers the film’s only other flash frame. The
supreme alien’s head resembles a death head, and the alien ship’s front face recalls a
vagina genitalia or crab. Our detonator bomb which uplinks the virus into the mothership
bears a laughing Jolly Roger pirate’s head with its jaw wagging up and down. The
rictuses face off. Ours wins.
ID4’s fine web of rhyming functions achieve three effects: first, condensation and
displacement turns ID4 into a dream text where phobias run rampant, second,
eccentricities or extremes of behaviour are perceived as “in the family,” and, therefore,
natural, and third, the viewer follows the rhyming links, thereby transferring his or her
identification from character to character rather than locking onto any one point of view.
Since the film never remains long with any one character, incomplete, stereotypical
representations become possible.
Carol Vernallis: Independence Day 90