District 9, directed by Neill Blomkamp, is a movieinspired by the apartheid era and the African independent movement in South Africa. At first, the movie might seem like a typical alien vs. human film in which the humans fight aliens who have invaded Earth. However, the situation is different in District 9. Instead of humans fighting the threat of new and strong aliens, the humans are, without doubt, portrayed as more powerful and dominant over the aliens. The aliens, identified as “prawns” by the humans, are separated from the humans by being kept in District 9. The prawns live in horrible conditions of life separated from the rest of the world which creates a great contrast with the futuristic and developed outside world the humans live in.
The movie in the beginning draws attention to various political factors and give a sense of political climate between humans and prawns. Scenes including when Wikus and and his soldiers leads the relocation in district 9 clearly demonstrates how xenophobia and ‘process of othering’ is affecting prawns. For instance, not only Christopher’s friend is killed by the solider of MNU but also his son is taken away from him by Wikus. The movie clearly shows that humans have no respect, impudently offensive and rude to prawns which is one way the humans are demonstrating their dominant political power over prawns. However as the story unfolds, the movie transforms from ‘political to predictable’ as discussed in class. After Wikus begins to gradually transform into a prawn, the movie becomes more like an action movie in which Wikus and Christopher breaks in to MNU to find the liquid that caused the transformation of Wikus. After Christopher finds the liquid which can launch the mothership of prawns, he tells Wikus to wait 3 more years until he can help Wikus. Christopher realizes that other prawns are cruelly and unfairly treated by humans and decides to return to his home by launching the mothership and fight back the humans with more population and power of prawns.
District 9 is clearly alluding to district 6 in the movie. District 6 refers to the area in which the African people were kept separately during segregation and apartheid era in South Africa. Just like prawns are segregated and discriminated in terms of human rights and basic needs in the movie, African people suffered greatly from the segregation and not being provided basic necessities. Also, similar to how life style and living conditions of prawns are entirely regulated and controlled by humans, the African people were also forcibly removed from their previous home, education, rights and other jurisdictions and moved to district 6.
In District 9, the main human character is Wikus from Multinational United (MNU). He is portrayed as a naïve and xenophobic character who is appointed by MNU’s private military to relocate the prawns. The prawn protagonist Christopher on the other hand, is portrayed as a clever and ironically very “humane” prawn who loves and cares for his son. In relation to district 6 and apartheid, Wikus can be seen as an allusion to the dominant white power over African people in South Africa and Christopher can be seen as the forcibly ruled African people during the segregation era. The movie brings thoughts about the apartheid and segregation of the African people very effectively by comparing the relationship of humans and prawns to history related district 6. I was personally very shocked by the allusion of district 6 in District 9 because I never had a chance to look at this part of history from this new kind of perspective and realized how cruel apartheid is.