War of the Worlds as a Reflection for Anxiety Anonymous College

Ostensibly an alien invasion movie, Independence Day is a movie that best exemplifies the gender politics of the 1990s, where feminism scared men into fearing for their masculinity. In the 1990s, Hilary Clinton was vilified, books like The Rules: Time Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right became bestsellers to push traditional gender roles and Robert Bly started the Men’s Movement in order to reclaim masculinity. “We no longer have images of ‘real men,’ Bly says, as the men continue the drum beat. Stereotypical sissies have replaced macho men.” (Faludi, 317) In many ways, Independence Day is the hero’s journey from emasculated sissy, running away from aliens to macho men willing to fight back to regain their masculinity. Genre

The genre of the alien invasion began with H.G. Wells’ book The War of the Worlds, in which Martians invade Earth, destroy many landmarks and are ultimately destroyed by germs. There are many interpretations of War of the Worlds. One of the more interesting ones is that the book is a critique of British Imperialism where the invaders give the earth a taste of their own medicine. In the beginning of the book H.G. Wells’ narrator points out that “in spite of their human likeness [the...