District 9 is very different from the other genocide and apartheid movies we’ve watched. No longer is it a conflict between two human groups instead the group in question is not even from planet Earth. They are extra terrestrial beings that are left stranded in South Africa after their space ship mysteriously breaks down right above the center of Johannesburg. What comes after though is nothing new when compared to the historical treatment of one human group against another opposing outsider or “Alien” group. The treatment of these aliens or “Prawns” as they are dubbed in the movie share the same elements of cruelty and dehumanization witnessed in almost every other instance of genocide.
The movie itself is depicted as an allegory for the South African Apartheid that segregated the population of South Africa in to three races; White (Afrikaans), Colored (Mixed blood or any non-white person who wasn’t Black) and Blacks (The ethnically African people). Although it’s not a movie We have looked at for this class I recently watched a movie called “Skin” which tells the real life story of Sandra Laing a girl born with dark skin and African features during the South African apartheid to White Afrikaans parents.
The brutal onslaught of racism and discrimination She had to endure due to this was shocking! The movie highlights very clearly the three different racial profiles and hierarchy similar to the way the article “Apartheid in South Africa, A forum” by Carol Thompson does. In both cases the wide poverty margin between Blacks and Whites due to South African Industry being completely dominated by White ownership makes it so that while Black South Africans make up about 2/3 rds. of the work force they will still make eight times less than a White South African.
Moving on, the director of District 9 Neil Blompkamp being of South African decent himself and having lived in the country during Apartheid wanted to use the vehicle of Science fiction as social protest against the South African apartheid but also to draw parallels with all the other instances of apartheid, persecution, discrimination and genocide that have taken place all over the world.
For example, what are the aliens referred to? Prawns because they resemble crustaceans and are considered bottom feeders. Humans eat prawns in abundance. They are harvested by the millions and by referring to them in this way not only becomes derogatory but makes one consider the aliens as nothing but large prawns devoid of any intellect or emotions. Such tactics of referring to groups as pests or things of an expendable nature can be seen in Hotel Rwanda where the Hutus refer to the Tutsis as cockroaches and how the Nazis referred to the Jews as vermin. Thus robbing them of their rights as humans becomes the first stepping stone to Genocide. This shows itself in District 9 where the humans think nothing of dissecting the aliens or even Vikus who was still part human and begging them not to do it. This complete disregard of life (human or otherwise) is an echo of the experiments carried out by Nazi doctors on Jews, homosexuals, invalids and anyone else they believed to be undesirable.
Another parallel that needs to be mentioned is the isolation of the prawns from the rest of society. Segregation is naturally a form of this but more specifically as is shown in the film the prawns are rounded up and put in to more or less slum type housing where they are heavily guarded and not allowed to leave. This act of isolation can be seen in almost every movie we have watched. In the Pianist and Schindler’s list the Jews are rounded up and put into ghettos. In Pow Wow highway (and the history of Native American culture) the Native Americans are put in reservations where they cannot hope for a particularly good quality of life even in the siege of Sarajevo, The Serbs isolated Sarajevo from the rest of Yugoslavia in order to starve them out and gain control of the city.
In the article “Shelling, sniping and Starvation: The law of Armed conflict and the lessons of the Siege in Sarajevo” The Serbs military tactics are completely explained. Their success relied heavily on technological advancements specifically in military weaponry. This concept is seen in District 9 where the humans dominate the prawns through the use of guns. They are also desperate to get their hands on the aliens weaponry because they know that if they acquire it they will be unstoppable. Such faith in technological superiority is not uncommon as similar tactics were used in dealing with Native Americans, as it was the acquiring of guns that allowed the settlers to take their own land away from Native Americans.
I think you did a really good job of tying in the striving to posses the greater weapon into the domination of the Native Americans and Serbs. Well, put it made me think of the French and Indian war. During the French and Indian war the Native American tactics were destroying the more trained soldiers that they were going up against. Because the Native Americans would do unthinkable acts, at least to that times military mind, such as hide behind something and shoot, rather than stand in a group in straight line and fire on command, or kill a commanding officer before killing all of his troops. In the movie the weapons the prawns have a huge advantage over the weapons that the army is using. I think this is the real reason that the prawns are being Ghettoized to try to make the crimes the military is doing less noticeable the same way the Nazis did.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the isolation of the aliens in District 9 is very similar to those presented in most of the other movies we have watched. It seems to be the second step in furthering along the process of extermination of these “unwanted” people. It is a technique used in order to separate the populations and make it easier to exterminate larger groups of people since they are in the same location. However, I think its also a way to hide what is going on from the rest of the population and ensure those being segregated that the worst that will happen to them is being divided from the rest of the population. In the movie The Pianist, it is only those who are inside the ghetto that witness the brutality of the Nazis . All other outside parties have been sent away. This is similar with the aliens in District 9. No one else sees what goes on here daily and therefore no one can protect them. The world has only seen what the government wants them to see, that these “prawns” are not cooperating when the government wants to help them and take them to better housing. Yet somewhere along the way, without anyone else knowing, many aliens were slaughtered.
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