From Representation to Normalization: The Ideological Construction of the Global Threat in Hollywood Cinema Before September 11

This article examines the cultural construction and ideological normalization of global threat narratives in Hollywood cinema, focusing on the period before the 11 September 2001 attacks. Drawing on the concepts of ideology and representation, the study provides a semiotic analysis of Independence Day (1996) and argues that, through a narrative of conflict between America and an alien “Other”, the film rearticulates the East–West binaries of the post-Cold War era. According to the findings, the film portrays an irrational and destructive alien force against a morally superior American identity, which presents U.S. interventions and technological power as essential to humanity’s survival, thus normalizing the conception of a unipolar world order centered on U.S. leadership. Additionally, the film’s scenes of attacks and urban destruction contribute to the construction of large-scale catastrophic imaginaries in the public imagination prior to 9/11, which made the 9/11 attacks appear both shocking and “familiar” when they occurred. In conclusion, the study demonstrates that, by projecting the characteristics of former geopolitical enemies onto an extraterrestrial threat, both the film and Hollywood cinema reproduce ideological distinctions in a depoliticized manner while culturally and ideologically shaping perceptions of global threat.