District 9, directed and written by Neill Blomkamp is the perfect example of genocide! Blomkamp uses the examples of real aliens, that almost no one is likely to relate to in the audience. However, the twist of fate takes a human and transforms him into an alien which whom the audience will be able to sympathize with.
For over twenty years an alien spaceship has been hovering over the South African city, Johannesburg. Its
stranded alien occupants have since been living in slum conditions in a militarized camp, District 9. Tensions between the human and alien population are running thin so the private company Multi-National United (MNU), who have a commercial interest in harnessing the alien technology for weaponry, are sent in to relocate the aliens. The mass eviction campaign is lead by Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a bureaucrat who, like most humans, refers to the aliens as ‘prawns’. However, when Wikus becomes exposed to a black fluid he finds in one of the slum houses he finds himself undergoing a genetic transformation. Now hunted by the MNU military division and the slum criminals, Wikus has nowhere else to hide but within District 9. Wikus is forced to hide and no one will help him other than the aliens. Even his own wife is torn between the lies.
Wikus is an unlikely hero as he is selfish, cowardly and prejudiced. However, he is nevertheless identifiable and not beyond redemption. After being among the aliens, Wikus comes to realize that the aliens are not lacking cognition skills and even grieve when a member of their family is loss. Due to his transformation, Wikus is able to relate to the aliens and empathize with their situation and how they have been treated by humans.
District 9 does a terrific job at exposing the ignorance and cruelty of human beings. The aliens have a different appearance and are not understood by humans. The only thing humans have an interest in is their weapons, which probably enticed humans to keep them alive as long as they did. Of course, humans do not care about the conditions they live in or if they separate them from the rest of society. It was obvious that they did not pose a threat to humans unless seriously provoked. The aliens could have used their weapons on the human population but chose not to despite how cruel they were treated.
District 9 has many parallels to the history of genocide. For example, similarly to the Jews in Germany, the aliens were forced to live outside of the city walls. Jews were placed in ghettos just like the Indians were placed on reservations. In South Africa during the Apartheid the groups of Africans, Caucasians, and Indians were separated and forced to live in different places. Some of which were slums. One thing genocide has displayed is that in order for it to be successful, one must separate individuals from the "norm." Just like the different terminology, victims must be separated. For instance, Jews had to be labeled with a gold star, homosexuals had to identified with a pink triangle, Hutus and Tutsis had to carry identification cards, etc. Tutsis were called cockroaches and Jewish people were referred to as subhuman. In The Pianist, Jewish men, women, and children were forced by law to be in their homes at a certain time, they could not go into certain places, and they were not allowed to own things. In District 9, the aliens are being forced to evacuate their current slum area. In one scene Wikus tells the alien that if he does not sign his form and move he will take his child because he is living in bad conditions. Wikus manipulates the law to get what he wants. Another similarity in District 9 is the media. Wikus is exposed through television and the radio of having sexual interactions with aliens, which makes him someone an individual cannot relate to. In Hotel Rwanda, the hutus use the radio as a means of spreading false information about the Tutsis and dehumanizing them by declaring them cockroaches.
In Bent, Max constantly switches from victimizer to victim and back again. Max victimizes his roommate Rudy and participates in killing him. However, Max himself is a victim of the war. There is a lot of variation. In District 9, Wikus is seen as weak and can arguably be seen as a victim of his society. However, Wikus victimizes the aliens until he is slowly turns into one. Then, Wikus becomes the victim and is forced to flee. Similar to the Wannsee Conference, the military in District 9 does not try to understand the aliens but goes directly into declaring an idea on how to get rid of them. For the Jewish people in the Wannsee Conference, it was their extermination at the concentration camps. In District 9 is was moving them out of the area. Something scary and important to notice is the way no one questions what they are doing besides Wikus. Similar to C.P. Taylor's Good, the characters in District 9 do not even notice the damage they are doing. Hadler in Good does not even notice his transformation and condemnation of his only and best friend Maurice. Wikus is automatically assumed good use for studying and the question of killing their fellow employee/friend/son-in-law is not even questioned.
I think District 9 was a great film to sum up what we have been learning!
Otto - Comment on Pauli’s Blog: District 9: NOT HUMAN NOT WELCOME
ReplyDeleteIt is true that by using this science fiction story Blomkamp was able to have a group of victims with which no one could relate to except through experiences alone. seeing the living conditions of the aliens and even their expressions as they dealt with the MUI was enough to realize who the victims were in this situation. It was not hard to identify and empathize with this population even though they were non-human. It is strange that, in the film, we don’t see anyone question the activities of the MUI, however there are groups of people shown briefly in the film that are attempting to look out for non-human rights, and as Wilkus goes through the transformation, he begins to question the ethics and the extent to which the aliens were being treated. He says at one point that he had no idea that what was going on had gotten that far. It may be that people didn’t know to what extent the alien population was being used and then thrown away.
“Wikus is an unlikely hero as he is selfish, cowardly and prejudiced. However, he is nevertheless identifiable and not beyond redemption.”
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your pointing out that while Wikus does exemplify the characteristics of selfishness, cowardice and prejudice, the film portrays him as an identifiable character and “not beyond redemption.” At least in my own life, I am guilty of having little to no patience for people who exemplify these attitudes, and sometimes give up hope for them. District 9 shows Wikus as a representation of the possibility of the impossible. Wikus begins this film as the primary advocate for the “mass eviction” of these aliens. In some ways, we can even compare him to a fictitious “right-hand man” of Hitler. Wikus’ infection becomes an, admittingly twisted, blessing in disguise in the sense that by experiencing life as a “prawn” he is able to better understand them and not view them so easily as the “other.” In this way, the film may even be reminiscent of the novel “Black Like Me.”
Was anyone curious on how the rest of the world was involved with the aliens? I know it was just a science fiction film, but in today’s world, would they allow that to happen. The film vaguely establishes outside governments involvement, but was focused on MNU. The question is that would the world allow these aliens to get to this point? An alien species that has technology far superior than they have ever seen, would be left stranded an barricaded behind thick concrete walls. They clearly hold the technology as they build weapons in the slum. I believe that is an interesting question in the film.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting question, would the alien species become the world’s most dominant focus. The questions of where they came from, or what is life like on their home planet is another interesting question. They clearly have a lot to teach even if they don’t have a so called leader as explained in the film.
Overall it was interesting to see the transition. To see what happens when people fear what they don’t know. If you don’t know, trust appears to be thrown out the window. He calls for help, his wife doesn’t know what to do, his best friend doesn’t reach out to him, and he his father in law tries to kill him. It kind of makes you think how far can or will someone trust you till they hesitate.
Wikus is definitely an unlikely hero because of his obvious flaws at the beginning of the movie. However, he is not entirely despicable as we see that he loves his wife and perhaps himself believes that he is doing something to help the aliens. Throughout the movie it becomes easier to sympathize with him because he literally transforms from being the victimizer to being the victim. Because he gets put into the same situation as the aliens, he is able to see the injustices he has committed and how distorted his perceptions were of these living beings. I believe that because Wikus unwillingly became an alien, he sees how much unwanted discrimination the “prawns” have to deal with. They did not choose to end up on our planet and yet everyone resented them for it. At the end we also see that while many of the aliens have become violent and hostile, those who are not this way have still been grouped into the same category. There are still aliens that are smart and care about their families, however, no one else sees this because they don’t take the time to. I think this is very similar to what happened to Jews in the holocaust. It was easier for everyone to group them into the same category of stereotypes given to them by the Nazis, this made it easier to hate them.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I wanted to elaborate on is the foreign or stranger concept. The aliens were so smart and so advanced in technology that the humans felt inferior in a sense. This feeling of unknowing or not being able to comprehend something foreign caused them to then put it down. It was very hard at first for me to identify with Wikus. This is a bit negative of me to say but I dont think he would have come to an understanding or realization on his own. He was forced into being compassionate because he too was being discriminated against. Hedda I agree with you 100% about him transforming from the victimizer to the victim. It was much like Clive Owen's transformation in Bent. Can we really ever understand someone else's suffering until we too experience it?
ReplyDeleteI think a lack of experience does limit an individual from completely understanding someone else's suffering but it should not stop people from trying to sympathize with an individuals situation. To answer your question, in my opinion it is extremely hard for someone to fully understand and empathize with an individual if they are not able to experience and share similar feelings.
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