Dude, you totally missed the point of the movie. The arc isn’t really narrative as much as thematic. In the first part of the movie the aliens seem well, ‘alien’; disgusting, weird, incomprehensible. We gradually come to understand them, to pick apart the pathologies induced by the situation from the strangeness of their being. The scrabbling in the dumps is, at least for some of them, part of a long-term sophisticated plan to change their situation for the better. They have been victimized by circumstances beyond their control and understanding.

At the same time, in the beginning of the movie, the mostly white South Africans are a decidedly mixed lot. The lead character is an unappealing bumbler who appears to have been set up as the fall guy for what his bosses see as a necessary but certain to be unpopular operation. The most of the MNU employees display a deliberate ignorance of their company’s motives that should be shocking, but isn’t because we see it everyday.

The key thing that I think you’re missing from the movie is that the contrast between the ‘uncivilized’ Nigerians and the ‘civilized’ MNU is the point of the whole movie. Each and every excess committed by the barbaric and superstitious Nigerians is specifically topped by the MNU and the broader society that empowers them. The parallelism is really quite interesting.

By the end of the movie, we’re left with a pathetic loser driven by his love for a wife who seems not quite worth it and father determined to make life better for his son and his people (most of whom don’t seem to have that much in common with him). And of course wondering whether he’ll live up to that battlefield promise even though there’s no rational basis for him to do so. Christopher Johnson is coming back all right. Is he coming back with an army or a cure?

I’m not sure what I thought about the movie. Other than setting up for a sequel, what was the point of everything that happened? It tried to be deep but I don’t think it worked, the main guy was an idiot. He tried to steal the alien ship, for what exactly? What exactly was his plan even if he got to to the larger ship? Yeah let me kick off the one person who could actually help me.

The Nigerians were a bit over the top but it is true that MNU was far worse.

These are all good points and are making me reconsider my perspective.

One of the most interesting parts of the film for me is when Wikus betrays Christopher against his own interests. That seemed to be a pretty definitive statement of doomed humanity.

What was the point of anybody’s plan? Everybody in that movie (Wikus, his bosses, MNU’s mercenaries, the Nigerians, even Christopher Johnson) does things that are inimical to their own best interest out of fear and mistrust. At least Wikus and Christopher mostly overcome that to work together. MNU and the Nigerians had a much more rational basis for cooperation, but nobody expected them to ally.

I wasn’t super happy about with the portrayal of the Nigerians either, but their inclusion in the movie was about a lot more than white anxiety. In addition to WilliamOkham’s good points, I think the inclusion of the Nigerians showed two related things: first, the level of criminality that the aliens were subject to as a matter of course in their lives; and second, the way that oppression of marginalized groups often results in one marginalized group praying on an even more marginalized group. And moreover, oppressors use those dynamics as justifications for further oppression. (Why shouldn’t MNU keep the aliens in District 9? Look at how lawless they are!)

Relatedly, the scenes with poor black South Africans bad-mouthing the aliens reminded me of King’s claim that the purpose of segregation was the oppression of poor, southern whites. Even these extremely marginalized people had someone to look down on.

I thought District 9 offered a richer, more detailed representation of the detailed mechanics of oppression (and occupation) than anything I’ve seen in a popular movie since, well, maybe ever. Here’s a couple of points:

One. The aliens seem sub-human–violent, lawless scavengers–and so keeping them in camps seems sort of justified. Until, that is, we start to see that maybe being kept in camps is what makes them violent, lawless scavengers in the first place.

Two. We see a massive bureaucracy, with its rules and clipboards and middle-managers, creating a patina of legality. But really all the rules are just a civilized-looking way to bully aliens who don’t understand them. And when Wikus encounters an alien who does understand the rules, then there’s more rules (backed with the threat of force) to make any alien do whatever Wikus wants him to do. Have you ever seen a better pop-cultural rendering of the nitty-gritty mechanics of the oppressive use of bureaucracy? Like, the sort of thing Arendt’s on about in her Eichmann book? I haven’t. I’m serious.

And then there’s the Nigerian gangs and the poor black South Africans. So, while the Nigerians could have been a lot less “scary black people” and you’re right that Christopher is sort of a magic prawn, the movie still really worked for me as an attempt to come to grips with certain forms of oppression, maybe most obviously, occupation.

I’m with William, although to tell you the truth I didn’t really attempt to get any real social message out of the film. I just enjoyed the ride, the utterly fantastic special effects, but was thrown by the ending a little (but open-ended works for me).

I like the comment about the parallelism between the white SAs and the Nigerians. Especially comes together at the end as both fight for the “prize” – neither is better than the other.

My biggest question – it’s FRIGGIN’ SPACE SHIP. Where’s the United States and Russia? United Nations, anyone? If I were a superpower and a damn huge space ship plops down in South Africa, I can tell you where I would be sending at least two carrier task forces and a very large task force to reverse-engineer the ship. Was completely floored by the idea that the biggest event of the century would be left to the SAs to manage. Come on.

Did Christopher really act selflessly though?

We don’t know that he was telling the truth when he told Wilkus he could help him. It could have been a ploy to get Wilkus’s help in recovering the fluid.

Unless there’s a sequel where Christopher comes back, we’ll never really know.

A better question: the fuel (or necessary reagent, or whatever) for the prawn drop-ship is also a mutagen that turns humans into prawns? Really? And the Nigerians were perfectly happy to sell the prawns catfood in return for amassing a stockpile of completely useless weapons, but they weren’t willing to just hire a few Alpo-addicted prawns as triggermen, because they expected any day now to be able to eat enough prawn parts to magically use the weapons themselves? (For that matter, nobody at MNU or any of the world’s militaries was willing to consider forming their own all-prawn battalion, in return for a one-way ticket out of the districts?)

I appreciated District 9 as bravura seat-of-the-pants (well, by studio standards anyway) filmmaking, but the script really could have used one or two more rounds of editing and revision.

For structural reasons the film can’t tell us what it wants us to know. They did a bad job deciding about whether it was a compilation of footage or an omniscient film. The move slips at its own convenience between heroic presentation and after-the-fact video artifact, which threatens the integrity of the premise but, much worse, leaves us kind of stranded as viewers. Is this supposed to be a reliable presentation of the facts? Or is it a highly edited, manicured presentation a la Starship Troopers?

It becomes a real problem in light of this comment: Each and every excess committed by the barbaric and superstitious Nigerians is specifically topped by the MNU and the broader society that empowers them.

Yet Neill Blomkamp has established this narrator through whom all motives must be filtered. Because it isn’t supposed to be a filmed movie in a cinematic sense but an edited compilation of video artifacts. Presumably some post-MNU bureaucracy or media outfit is stitching together all these clips: Perhaps, in light of events and revelations at the end of the film, press were able to acquire access to extraordinary video accounts and so on. I don’t know — it’s really confusing to figure out who’s talking.

The structural aspects notwithstanding (which really ruined the film for me) I thought it was a negative racist message encoded within a positive racial message. As if the film were saying, “Yes, this is a film about positive mutual understanding between black and white Africans. No-no—not Nigerians, no. You know how they are.”

While I do think some of the “Nigerian” actors went a bit over the top, I don’t see the gang or their leader as without logic or acting out of proportion. A gang in a lawless slum is after profit and power, and using violence to maintain them is a real life given. The shaman, while perhaps not representative of her peers across southern Africa, isn’t without precedent in war zones. Or peacetime, as Tanzanian albinos can attest.

But, Kriston Capps may be right about the POV. On the other hand, I don’t find it unexpected that a white South African might view his fellow citizens differently than the “alien” cultures further north. It wasn’t too long ago that I listened to Anglo-Americans making much the same distinction between other Europeans and Bosniacs, because you know how they are.

Discussion elsewhere reminded me of my impression during the film: that within the story it was (local) black anxiety that was pushing the aliens out of Jo’burg. Someone will have to ask Blomkamp after getting a few too many beers down.

Thank you so much for your review, Spencer. My friend and I watched the movie last night and were appalled by its racism and equally astounded that most people fail to see through its insidiousness.

It was interesting to note that in the theater we visited, the part where the Nigerian gang leader was killed got louder applause than when the crazed MSU chap was ripped apart by the aliens.

There are several things that just don’t sit right with me. Why would director Neill Blomkamp, a white South African filmmaker make a movie that perpetuates stereotypes and denigrates an entire nation of black people? The Nigerians had absolutely no redeeming qualities. Why not Russians, Hungarians, Italians, Israelis, Chinese, British…? Why did the aliens who most people found destructive and disgusting have to speak in clicks like the Xhosa tribe of South Africa? Why were the South Africans patrons of a restaurant named Gunthers? Gunther is the name of a king of Burgundy and means “warrior” or “soldier.” In effect, the South African blacks had a white warrior to thank for their sustenance.

Like most of Peter Jackson’s movies, the evil doers are always menacing dark creatures. This reeks of nothing short of Orientalism.

I’m not typically a conspiracy theorist, but I find it curious that Peter Jackson’s production studio is called, “Wingnut Interactive”–a clever subterfuge in my opinion.

Anyhow, I commend your discerning mind and hope that more thinking people would take a closer look at the message of District 9 which to me, is racist fare cleverly packaged as an anti racist movie.

Much like WholeFoods, something doesn’t smell right!

Shwing you are so right on. Not only was Gunther a white European warrior, but he was killed by henchmen of Attila the Hun. Another manifestation of the fear of the Other; the black South Africans may get their grub from the white soldier, but they are not to be trusted; they’ll throw him in the snakepit the first chance they get. This film was definitely shot through a colonialist lens.

Worse still, Günther could refer to racial anthropologist/race scientist Hans Günther.

“…they are not to be trusted; they’ll throw him in the snakepit the first chance they get.”
Geoff, that is exactly what I got from the movie–that the black South Africans could not be trusted with their new found power and they were racists because they wanted the aliens to leave. Another issue was that the only white South Aficans we saw in the movie were in positions of power. I don’t remember seeing any white South Africans in Günthers.

How I would love to have tea with Nadine Gordimer to get her views on District 9! I imagine she would be equally appalled.

It’s hard to believe that the filmmakers were not aware of the symbolism of “Gunther.”

A recent study has suggested that “if any one book could be said to be the Bible of the Nordic school it would be Günther’s Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes, which was published in 1922 and rapidly gained an immense readership”.(12) In this work, as in his other widely read books like The Racial Elements of European History, Günther outlined his theories about the worth of Nordic racial purity and the perils of Jewish contamination: “The influence of the Jewish spirit, and influence won through economic preponderance, brings with it the very greatest danger for the life of the European peoples and the North American peoples alike”.(13)

http://attackerman.firedoglake…..e-anxiety/

ooops! sorry, wrong link.
http://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/ot…..apter1.htm

Cultural critic and literary theorist Edward Said describes orientalism as “the manufacture of the other” mainly done for purposes of domination. He locates this philosophy within the history of military and ideological imperialism and describes it as an attempt to acquire information in a way that is neither innocent nor objective, but driven by special interests such as the control of oil resources.

Even Christopher is operating from self-interest. When does Wikus flip out and grab the command module? When Christopher lets on that helping Wikus is going to be three years down the road. Would Wikus have helped Christopher if he’d known that? No, and Christopher knew it. He’s no Magic Prawn. He’s the most sympathetic character in the movie, true – except for his son. But he’s hardly perfect.

And I disagree with saying the movie is seriously indicting an entire country. We learn to call that group the “Nigerians” during the initial set-up, within the frame of the documentary. I think Neil leaves it up to us to make the withdrawal from that complete identification, to be intelligent viewers, to recognize that even the narrator of this film is flawed. It’s out of this culture, this sense of hopelessness on these issues, that we see Wikus and Christopher learn to trust each other.

We do know, after all, that that level of superstition exists in the world, especially in a group of people denied the opportunity to better themselves for so long by a ruling power. That a group exploiting the aliens at that level would be consumed by such superstition isn’t so far-fetched, either. And the reverse problem of the Magic Negro is not letting a black character be irredeemably evil anymore.

The film, I think, is training us to deal with people not as members of a group, but as individuals. Thinking of the aliens as prawns led to the atrocity of the genetics lab. If the movie convinces us to look at the Nigerian gang members as “Nigerians,” is the movie that’s failed, or us?

The film, I think, is training us to deal with people not as members of a group, but as individuals. Thinking of the aliens as prawns led to the atrocity of the genetics lab. If the movie convinces us to look at the Nigerian gang members as “Nigerians,” is the movie that’s failed, or us

I’m sorry boloboffin, but I’m not buying that premise. If the movie calls the gangsters Nigerians, then that is how they’re meant to be perceived. They could have been called “Woowoos” and the story would not have changed.

I don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of schwing’s criticisms, but:

“Like most of Peter Jackson’s movies, the evil doers are always menacing dark creatures.”

Er, “most”? Peter Jackson has directed many more films than “Lord of the Rings” and “King Kong” — I don’t think this is a convincing analysis of “Heavenly Creatures”, nevermind “Meet the Feebles”…

“I find it curious that Peter Jackson’s production studio is called, “Wingnut Interactive”–a clever subterfuge in my opinion.”

Jackson has been using the “Wingnut” label for his films since at least 1987’s “Bad Taste” — predating the american political use of the term “wingnut” by at least a decade. Also, of note, Jackson is from New Zealand: whatever the NZ slang for deranged right-winger is, I’m guessing it’s not the same as ours.

No, no, no.

The Nigerians are quasi-heroes. The Nigerians are rough men, living in a state of nature, Rousseauians. They take, they kill, they eat, they screw. They live with the Prawns and they exploit the Prawns, in short, they are bad to the Prawns. However, they exist as a contrast to Wikus and the MNU (the UN, I suppose people are starting to get that by now) in that, even as criminals, they have not the desire nor wherewithal to even consider exterminating anyone.

Wikus stands for all Northern Europeans who ever tried to impose a clean, efficient and terrible system on an unclean and inefficient (and dark skinned) world. Wikus is a good Nazi who is doing what the organization has told him to do, is advancing in his job, and is perfectly and violently racist.

The whole genius of the Wikus character comes out in the juxtaposition of the “abortion” scene with the “little prawn” scene at the Johnson shack. Wikus, the white man, is in charge. He has just killed dozens of baby prawns in the name of efficient control of the population of undesirables. You can see Nazism all over that scene. Then, in front of the shack, the black soldier says “do you want me to kill this one, too?” and the white man has to condescendingly explain the convoluted, irrational morality of the UN to the black man. The black soldier is not indoctrinated with the irrationality of “embryo fair game, child off limits” and simply sees it all as a job.

This is absolutely devastating commentary on the actions of the UN toward dark-skinned ethnic groups. Wikus isn’t exactly a Nazi, in the same way that modern European meddlers in the 3rd world aren’t *exactly* Nazis…they only kill unborn undesireables.

The Nigerians may be bad, but they’re not after exterminating anyone. The film is pointing out that no one (not even a violent criminal) is as dangerous as *a true believer*, especially a Dutch one. Bravo! Someone has actually studied 20th century history.

The other cool thing about the movie is that it casts the slum dwellers as “workers without leadership”…not as defects, but as creatures denied their rightful order. The intimation is that these creatures, in their proper context can “reach the stars”. Ergo, actual slum dwellers are not defective humans, but humans without effective leadership and without context. It points out the capriciousness of all racism: If your tribe had the same history this other tribe had, your positions would be reversed.

All in all, glorious commentary on the 20th century.

Flame away.

This movie showed that we as a race are all basicaly the same, do what ever you want to against those who are not the same as you.

We need to learn to be more understanding of our differences.