District 9
Jun. 3rd, 2010 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackOK, I've finally seen District 9, and now I can't remember what everyone else said about it. But here are some comments on the issues I remember. Basically, it wraps together a lot of interesting stuff, of which most people find only some pitched at the right level.
Portrayal of aliens as a dispossessed populations
The film starts by showing aliens who are humanoid, but otherwise very alien, who are living in a squalid slum, and shown through the eyes of south african officials, might or might not be genuinely subhuman. And then later, DOES show them as intelligent and feeling.
Dispossessed human populations often ARE seen as subhuman by some people. It's hard to convey that in a film; but District 9 does so by showing them as actually non-human, and leaving open the question. In fact, it's never explicitly answered: do they seem pathetic because they're malnourished, not well treated, and reduced to scavenging in slums, or are some or all of them genuinely not of human intelligence or feeling (either inherently, or due to consistent malnutrition, or similar). Both views are entirely consistent.
This could be viewed as a problem with the film, but intentional or not, I think works well. Given only biased negative propaganda portrayals of them, in the absence of evidence, are you going to go ahead and assume they're deserving of human dignity? Well, yes, you fucking well should! But intentionally or not, I think it's relevant to raise that question in people!
Of course, the thing is, this all comes down to a good science-fiction portrayal of how dispossessed populations generally get horribly abused. Which is often very moving for people who have previously not felt a personal connection to people bereft of country and home. But tedious repetition for people who know very well what that feels like.
Portrayal of biology
No, not very realistic. But I do not think it was conceptually inconsistent. However, people with a greater common-sense knowledge of biology probably would.
Portrayal of Nigerians
It portrayed Nigerians badly. There was a Nigerian gang who exploited the aliens and generally sucked (although not as effectively as the actual authorities, even if people are often disgusted by freelance exploitation more). The gang was constantly referred to as "The Nigerians".
Now, I don't think this was deliberately a nasty portrayal of Nigerians. It's perfectly consistent that there would be a Nigerian gang, and that the authorities would describe them as "Nigerians". It's a nice treatise on racism. But it obviously does come across very badly.
Portrayal of society
It doesn't go into much detail how much the aliens are integrated into even slum society. Do they just scavenge, or do they have shops and (sanctioned or not) organisations and commerce with poor humans?
Are all the weapons somehow left over from the ship (I assume so, since they don't seem to have any way of manufacturing them, but some people assume that they did, and hence are puzzled why that amount of technical expertise and organisation doesn't support a revolt.)
Why are they never organised enough to hoard a few weapons and make a revolt? That's not really explained, but OTOH, is not necessarily inconsistent. Imagine a human slum, with lots of people only able to scavenge for food, with a number of machine guns lying about, but essentially no ammunition. Would people who found machine guns trade them away to organised gangs for food? Would someone determined be able to stage a specific commando raid? But would organised resistance against the military of the surrounding state, even with superior weapons, likely achieve anything?
Other comparisons
The parallel between District 9 and cape town District 6 (where millions of humans were forcibly relocated from their homes) was about the right level for me, but was probably heavy-handed for people who knew about it beforehand.
On the other hand, the choice of cat-food as the aliens' want seemed heavy-handed to me. It's such a cliche :(
Summary
I thought it did what it did well, and was very memorable, but I didn't fall in love with it.
When I saw the DVD, the first option was between a glyph of a human and an alien, and I thought it was going to give you a language choice (to watch the film with the aliens speaking English, and the humans speaking subtitled gobbledegook), but it didn't.
Portrayal of aliens as a dispossessed populations
The film starts by showing aliens who are humanoid, but otherwise very alien, who are living in a squalid slum, and shown through the eyes of south african officials, might or might not be genuinely subhuman. And then later, DOES show them as intelligent and feeling.
Dispossessed human populations often ARE seen as subhuman by some people. It's hard to convey that in a film; but District 9 does so by showing them as actually non-human, and leaving open the question. In fact, it's never explicitly answered: do they seem pathetic because they're malnourished, not well treated, and reduced to scavenging in slums, or are some or all of them genuinely not of human intelligence or feeling (either inherently, or due to consistent malnutrition, or similar). Both views are entirely consistent.
This could be viewed as a problem with the film, but intentional or not, I think works well. Given only biased negative propaganda portrayals of them, in the absence of evidence, are you going to go ahead and assume they're deserving of human dignity? Well, yes, you fucking well should! But intentionally or not, I think it's relevant to raise that question in people!
Of course, the thing is, this all comes down to a good science-fiction portrayal of how dispossessed populations generally get horribly abused. Which is often very moving for people who have previously not felt a personal connection to people bereft of country and home. But tedious repetition for people who know very well what that feels like.
Portrayal of biology
No, not very realistic. But I do not think it was conceptually inconsistent. However, people with a greater common-sense knowledge of biology probably would.
Portrayal of Nigerians
It portrayed Nigerians badly. There was a Nigerian gang who exploited the aliens and generally sucked (although not as effectively as the actual authorities, even if people are often disgusted by freelance exploitation more). The gang was constantly referred to as "The Nigerians".
Now, I don't think this was deliberately a nasty portrayal of Nigerians. It's perfectly consistent that there would be a Nigerian gang, and that the authorities would describe them as "Nigerians". It's a nice treatise on racism. But it obviously does come across very badly.
Portrayal of society
It doesn't go into much detail how much the aliens are integrated into even slum society. Do they just scavenge, or do they have shops and (sanctioned or not) organisations and commerce with poor humans?
Are all the weapons somehow left over from the ship (I assume so, since they don't seem to have any way of manufacturing them, but some people assume that they did, and hence are puzzled why that amount of technical expertise and organisation doesn't support a revolt.)
Why are they never organised enough to hoard a few weapons and make a revolt? That's not really explained, but OTOH, is not necessarily inconsistent. Imagine a human slum, with lots of people only able to scavenge for food, with a number of machine guns lying about, but essentially no ammunition. Would people who found machine guns trade them away to organised gangs for food? Would someone determined be able to stage a specific commando raid? But would organised resistance against the military of the surrounding state, even with superior weapons, likely achieve anything?
Other comparisons
The parallel between District 9 and cape town District 6 (where millions of humans were forcibly relocated from their homes) was about the right level for me, but was probably heavy-handed for people who knew about it beforehand.
On the other hand, the choice of cat-food as the aliens' want seemed heavy-handed to me. It's such a cliche :(
Summary
I thought it did what it did well, and was very memorable, but I didn't fall in love with it.
When I saw the DVD, the first option was between a glyph of a human and an alien, and I thought it was going to give you a language choice (to watch the film with the aliens speaking English, and the humans speaking subtitled gobbledegook), but it didn't.