Blog Post #5

 The 2009 film District 9 directed by Neil Blomkamp follows a dystopian setting of Johannesburg, South Africa where an alien spaceship settled and South African scientists discover a million under-nurtured aliens taking refuge in the spaceship. Therefore, the government creates an alien refugee camp in the heart of Johannesburg where many of the South African residents are residents are resentful and frustrated with the government giving financial resources for providing for the aliens. The social tensions escalated to the point of riots, surges of violence, and general hostility between the aliens and humans. People created the derogatory slang/slur of “prawns” to refer to the aliens as bottomfeeders. The scientist struggled to understand why the aliens docked on earth, many brought attention to the fact that a command control of the spaceship fell and thus the mothership was docked for decades without any sign of activity. Wickus a shallow-minded human is appointed by the Multinational United to forcibly remove the aliens to what is essentially and concentration camp. Many prawns are killed and or injured during this process, and unknowingly Wikus stumbles upon an alien lab and sprays a strange liquid on his face which slowly turns him into an alien, as he inhaled alien D.N.A in that strange substance. Wikus makes an agreement with an alien named Christopher that if Christopher receives the same fuel which transformed him into an alien, that will power the mothership and Christopher will be able to undo Wikus’ transformation. Ultimately, Christopher and his son activate the mothership and promise to return in 3 years to fulfill their promise, and it is revealed that Wikus fully transformed into a prawn. I, unfortunately, found this movie in its entirety off-putting, borderline disturbing, and racially problematic. I still struggle to understand what message this movie had. District 9 can historically be equated to District 6 which served as a refugee camp in South Africa and housed mostly brown and black people. The aliens can serve as an analogy for the “other” and the dehumanization that follows that kind of labeling in the macro societal framework. I struggled to understand Wikus's character, as he displayed through his behavior his white privilege–as he spoke frequently derogatory to the black police officers and side characters. When Wikus slowly began to transform into an alien himself, people immediately saw him as the other. As when it was discovered he was turning into an alien himself, the science lab was ready to harvest his organs without putting him under proper anesthesia. While the aliens were obviously portraying marginalized and subjugated minority groups, the white bureaucracy was depicted as gluttonous capitalistic and benefitting from the caste system's pre-arranged system of hierarchy. I think overall, my issue stems from the lack of character complexity and societal generalizations that fails to shed a light on the socio-political intricacies of the racialized experiences.