Independence Day (1996) Starring: Will Smith, Vivica A. Fox Genre: Drama MPAA Rating: PG-13 Director: Roland Emmerich Screenplay: Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich Runtime: 153 minutes (Special Edition).

PLOT:
You're sitting there trying to figure out why this movie is being reviewed here, right? Well, by no means is ID4 a stripper movie. However, the first time I saw it, I noted the prominence of the Vivica A. Fox (Soul Food) stripper character in such a big budget movie. The plot is basically the usual science fiction plot of aliens coming to earth to destroy us and not like cute E.T. Vivica A. Fox plays Jasmine Debrow, a stripper and girlfriend of a soldier, played by Will Smith (The Legend of Bagger Vance), who is basically the main character in the movie. Of course, at the end, we, the earth people kick alien ass. What did you expect?

Once we see that the aliens have positioned their space crafts around the world, Jasmine, the stripper character, still has to go to work at a strip club during the day. The show must go on, I guess. The stage scene was shot at the Jet Strip and Jasmine is doing her set on stage to an empty house. I'm sure more than a few dancers can relate to this scene. The 2 customers are glued to the TV watching the news about the alien ships.

After her set, we see her going backstage to the dressing room. This is not the Jet Strip dressing room that they used for this scene. It looks more like a set for a regular dressing room. Although I have not been in every strip club dressing room, it does not look like most that I have seen. The only elaborate dressing room I have seen was the one on the second floor of the Tropicana which is no longer used for that.

In this scene, one of the dancers has her own little TV which she is using to watch the news about the aliens. She is the more traditional dizzy blond type dancer who thinks the aliens are there to take her away. Jasmine warns her to stay away and not to go and meet the aliens. Of course, she doesn't listen to her and gets killed later when the aliens attack.

Later, Jasmine goes into the "office" to pickup her son. Once again, this is not the real office but probably a set. There are what appears to be alcoholic beverages on the shelf in the office, which would not be a smart thing to have in a real nude club because authorities could accuse the manager of serving alcohol at the club. However, the type of club (nude or topless) is not really made clear in the movie.

Next, we see the manager or owner being pushy with the dancers. He's the typical hard nosed gruff boss type that you would expect in this type of a scene. He is played so that the audience doesn't completely hate him because you want to think that he might have some heart behind that hard surface, but it's a very one dimensional character.

After he tells one of the dancers to get off the phone, he gets into an argument with Jasmine about leaving the club. He says he needs her to stay and work. Jasmime explains to him that she must leave but he tells her that if she leaves, she's fired. Jasmine, being the strong willed character, just gives him the "hand" and leaves with her son.

Although this scene is a typical boss/employee confrontation, it's actually very common with dancers to get fired for leaving in this way. Of course, it's not everyday that aliens are hovering over the earth, ready to blow us to pieces.

After Jasmine leaves the strip club, things start to go wrong for us poor earthlings. The aliens start their attack and start blowing up buildings and anything they can point their weapons at. The President must evacuate the White House and the First Lady's helicopter crashes and she is injured with nobody to save her. Basically, the military is in chaos and it's everybody for themselves. In a completely unbelievable scene, Jasmine saves her son, dog and herself from a fire coming into the tunnel simply by hiding in a crevice. I guess fire doesn't turn corners. She finds a truck and decides she will drive to the military base where she was to meet her boyfriend before all the alien commotion.

While driving around the decimated city, she saves and picks up survivors of the attack. After more driving, she comes across the wreckage of the First Lady's helicopter and rescues her. Later, they are resting in front of a fire before they continue their trip and the First Lady and Jasmine have a moment to talk.

First Lady: So what do you do for a living?
Jasmine: I'm a dancer.
First Lady: Oh, Ballet?
Jasmine: No, exotic.
First Lady: Oh, sorry.
Jasmine: Don't be. I'm not. It's good money. Besides, my baby is worth it.

In the middle of this seemingly trite science fiction movie, there was this hint of some understanding by the writer that being an exotic dancer is difficult, with prejudices, and most are just struggling to keep things afloat for their family. I liked the fact that Jasmine was strong willed and not apologetic for her occupation.

MUSIC:
The dancing scene was so short, I don't remember what music Jasmine was dancing to. There are no other strip club scenes where music was playing. The movie itself uses movie scores and not any recognizable songs.

DANCE SEQUENCES:
Basically, there is only one very short dancing sequence on stage at the Jet. Jasmine does what appears to be some sort of pole trick but the sequence is cut very quickly. After examining the video several times, it appears that Ms. Fox may not actually be doing the dancing and most likely, it is a stunt dancer or body double.

I guess since it's not really a stripping movie, it wasn't worth Vivica's time to learn a few pole tricks.

SUMMARY:
Let's face it. ID4 is not a good science fiction movie, and there are too many problems with the plot to even list. However, this review is for the stripping scenes and although the actual strip club scene is very short and uneventful, the Vivica Fox stripper character is portrayed in a very unusually positive image by Hollywood standards. I think that alone warrants this review and mention.

By no means a stripping movie but positive stripper image and message.