District 9 is a very interesting film because it touches base with modern issues as the articles explain, and are applied to the movie. The interesting part the film is that we see multiple factors derived from the film. One is that Sharlto Copley gets to experience Genocide from both perspectives, which we haven’t seen in the other films. The second is that we see the business aspect that is applied to the aliens. The last issue is that the film claims that the aliens didn’t have any leaders.
Starting with the first issue, it is established that Sharlto plays a goofy male figure who views the alien “prawns” as less than the human race. His job is very direct, which is to evict the aliens from their current homes. Right off the bat he walks up to the aliens, and treats them very disrespectfully. He throws cat food at them, he has an abortion performed by simply having a prawns nest burned, and discusses killing their children right in front the alien species as well. Basically we see someone who has authority and lacks any remorse similar to soldiers in the Holocaust. Then he transforms.
When Transforming he stumbles, he is basically treated exactly like one of the prawns, but the only difference is that he has more value. He is treated like an outsider as he attempt s to buy food. The government does multiple strenuous experiments on the man. Plus, when he escapes, he is forced to live amongst them. He ends up bargaining for food, he feels the same addiction to cat food as the rest of them, and feels how it is used or applied to work against them. Cat food acts exactly like a drug. They use it just to get the people to sign the forms. Plus it is similar to the readings because the aliens are basically stripped of their rights when it was obviously given to them at one time.
Then we see the business aspect. These aliens have something that the government wants , which is weapons, the problem is that they are the only ones who can operate it due to their complicated genetic code. So the government turns them into lab rats . As lab rats, they exemplify the very same acts that were done to the Jews during World War II, and the Russian people as well. It shows when people are so focused on harnessing some sort of form of power, they literally will do anything to have it, “at no expense.”
This is kind of off subject, but the government in my opinion didn’t allow the aliens to leave. They were able to establish who the leaders were, but were more focused on developing weapons. The aliens were in my opinion had their leaders taken away. The idea that when the aliens had their leaders taken away they ended up with the chaotic mess that we see throughout the film. Basically if you take away the leadership in a certain area, it could possibly look very similar to what we saw in Johannesburg . For example Poland today is still having problems.
I found it interesting as well that we see both sides of genocide from one person. It helps show the ins and outs of it all. Wikus was an authority figure who within a few seconds of being out of his car starts bashing and treating the aliens like the scum of the Earth, but when he has to experience it he wants to be treated equally as the human he is, but his physical appearance begs to differ; therefore, he must do what he can to stay safe, one thing being is befriending Christopher, the last alien who he had mistreated for not signing the papers that needed to be signed. In my opinion, he deserved it. He is like the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. He was ugly to others, so Fate turned him into an ugly beast. I know this is a completely random comparison, but I can see it.
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