Thoughts That I Had After Watching "Independence Day"

This past Saturday, I decided to sit down and watch the film "Independence Day" for the first time in my life because I was bored and looking for something to do to pass some time. I found the film, which is about aliens coming down to Earth in order to take it for themselves, to be quite simplistic and extremely mediocre. Despite the fact that I was left underwhelmed by the film, it left me with a lot of thoughts.

One thing that I took away from the movie after watching it was that the aliens' actions when invading Earth and attempting to take it for themselves did not make much sense to me. The aliens in the movie were intelligent enough to build extremely advanced technology, yet they somehow failed to see that destroying Earth and annihilating everybody on it just to take Earth's natural resources for themselves was quite a dumb move. If you're part of an intelligent alien race and you want to extract natural resources from a planet you plan on landing on, then you surely must know that destroying those natural resources by blowing up cities (thus spreading debris everywhere and contaminating the planet) and refusing to communicate with the beings that already inhabit the planet you plan on taking over, who likely know a lot about said planet's natural resources than you, is an extremely naïve move.

The second thing that I took away from the movie after watching it was that the way we view aliens in movies mirrors the way we view strange "others" in our own society, especially strange "others" who commit acts of violence. As I previously mentioned, the reason for the aliens' violent actions in the movie "Independence Day" are extremely simplistic. In our own society, whenever acts of violence are committed by those we view as "others", we immediately think that those acts of violence were committed for either no reason or for very simplistic, possibly stupid reasons. Think back to 9/11: After 9/11 occurred, Americans immediately believed that Al-Qaeda committed the 9/11 attacks merely because they hated America without thinking about why they might have hated America. Of course, hating America is not a reason to commit a large scale terrorist attack against civilians, but there is a reason behind why Al-Qaeda did what they did that day. In our society, what we fail to see is that violence is often not committed for violence's sake. Violence, more often than not, emerges from deprivation. Food, water, healthcare (including mental health care), shelter... All of these things (and more) are needed for survival. When one is deprived of something they desperately need to survive, then of course they're going to act out. 

Now here comes the part where I swerve off the track a little and rant about capitalism. Capitalism is a system that values profit above people. Therefore, capitalism is a system that does not value healthcare, food, shelter, water, and everything else that humans need to survive on this planet (nor does it value the environment). I believe that all people are good deep down, but that the deprivation caused by capitalism causes our bad sides to emerge. Colonialism and imperialism have similar effects on the people of the world. Taking over places where people were once living (mostly) peacefully and then proceeding to extract from those places and deprive those living in them is going to make the people living there extremely angry. Violence is inevitable when people are facing deprivation. It is even more inevitable when people have been misled to believe that the people who benefit from capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, etc. (a.k.a the people who are causing deprivation to occur) are not the ones they should be fighting against. Capitalism in particular sees the Earth as something to be extracted from and humans as mere pawns in a competitive game. The people who benefit from capitalism want those they view as being below them to fight amongst themselves so that they don't rise up and fight them.

Now, let me go back to the topic of the film "Independence Day". The final thing that came to my mind after watching the movie was that it was very Americentrist. In the movie, it is America that saves the rest of the world. The Americans in the movie act like parental figures of sorts, figuring things out first and then passing along information to other countries like they are children. The fact that the world managed to defeat the aliens in the movie on July 4th, the U.S.' independence day, also is an example of why the movie is so Americentric. I honestly found the fact that the world managed to defeat the aliens on July 4th, only two days after they came to Earth, to be quite corny. In real life, a problem as big as a worldwide alien invasion would not be solved in two days. Such a problem would likely end in disaster.

If you have read this blog post in its entirety, thanks for reading my unstructured thoughts about "Independence Day". I know that this movie is one that most people do not think too deeply about, but it is one that left me with a lot of thoughts that I felt needed to be expressed. I am somebody who likes to think deeply about subjects that most do not think deeply about, and I am hoping that if you're like me you found this blog post to be an interesting one. Peace out!