District 9

Fisher - District 9

District 9, produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Johannesburg native Neill Blomkamp, is a science fiction film used to portray a scene of a partide. The science fiction genre was chosen to press social and racial issues as well as problems with the government. Its takes on an informative standpoint being shot in a documentary style. The movie follows the path of Wikus Van Der Merwe. Wikus is charged with the task of overseeing the eviction of an extraterrestrial species labeled as "prawns."

Only ten minutes into the film, the viewer comes across two issues that correlate with previous topics. We see during the interviews at the beginning of the film a man refer to these aliens as "prawns." A woman explains later that this is a derogatory term used for the alien that references them to crustacean bottom-feeders or scavengers. Immediately after her comment, an officer (authority figure) says, "well that's what they look like right? They look like prawns." This can be linked to the movie Hotel Rwanda when then Hutus are constantly referring the Tutsis as "cockroaches" and treating them as such. Yet this is not the only time that and place that a derogatory term is used to label the "other" or outsider. Most every race and culture has a similar term for anyone other than themselves. It is no coincidence then that the human citizens in District 9 refer to the aliens as "prawns."

The other issue is the ensuing eviction of the aliens from District 9 in order to relocate them to another camp. This can refer back to Pow Wow Highway and the attempt to remove the Indians from their reserve, given to them by the government. The aliens own District 9 can be viewed as a reservation that was given to them by the earth's government and now they are to be evicted. Wikus even makes a statement that is similar to the colonial mindset toward the Native American saying, "they don't understand the concept or private property. So we have to come there and say, 'Hey, this is our land. Please, will you go.'" However, District 9 is less like Indian reservations and more like the Jewish ghettos or possibly Sarajevo in the sense of there slum state of living. Trash fills the streets and the housing is composed of shacks assorted from sheet metal and scraps of junk. Blomkamp made it to look like the apartheid in South Africa. In this version of apartheid we see the aliens treated as the Africans were in the 20th century; they were separated from the humans, just as the blacks were from the whites. The aliens were classified and labeled by MNU and the humans, this being a similar theme in everything that was covered in the class. The Nazis classified the Jews and homosexuals. The Hutus and Tutsis had classified one another. Africans during the apartheid were forced to carry identification at all times. Classification seems to be centered genocide and racist acts.