Luftkrieg and alien invasion: Unacknowledged themes of German wartime suffering in the Hollywood blockbuster Independence Day

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1-2011

Publication Title

European Journal of American Culture

DOI

10.1386/ejac.30.1.19_1

ISSN

1466-0407

Abstract

West German native Roland Emmerich's Independence Day (1996) is considered the prototypical Hollywood blockbuster of a post-Cold War era of globalization in which new impulse was given to the diffusion of American cultural products across national borders. Michael Rogin's analysis of Independence Day as a resonant document of post-Cold War American anxieties and hopes illuminates the meaning of the film for American audiences but fails to note the film's relationship to post-unification German anxieties and hopes. Referencing a key text in the postCold War German reconsideration of (non-Jewish) German wartime suffering, W. G. Sebald's essay on the cultural effects of the Allied bombing campaign (Luftkrieg and Literatur), and singling out Sebald's argument about the suspect role of fantasy in depicting unprocessed trauma, this article suggests how narrative and visual elements of Independence Day evoked problematic notions of German victimhood. However inadvertently issues of German national identity and historical memory were broached by Emmerich and his many German collaborators, the product of their collective efforts offered a cinematic experience that could resonate in distinctive ways with post-unification German moviegoing audiences.

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