District 9: response to comments.
Jun. 6th, 2010 03:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThanks to fhtagn, 1st_law, rysmiel and pavanne for clarifying my thoughts on District 9.
There's a definite suggestion (in the film and from author's voice) that the majority of aliens are a worker caste without the initiate to use the weapons they find, or otherwise better themeslves.
However, I think the film is actually better without that suggestion.
My impression of the film (based partly on seeing it and partly on what I've heard second hand about what the director said) is that he set out to make an exciting somewhat-not-traditional science fiction film set in south africa, which had some connection to race relations in south africa. And that he did that excellently. And that any sufficiently strong story spins off lots of potential analogies: some much stronger, some weaker, some deliberately enhanced to support a particular viewpoint, some deliberately enhanced because they're interesting even if you're not sure what they're saying, some not really intended at all but produced on gut feeling and luck (and some not even intended at all). And some of those are controvertial.
It's plain that District 9 was intended to say something about race. But I think "exciting somewhat-not-traditional science fiction film set in south africa, which also says something about race" came first, and any specific message was added in to that.
I think that's a good thing: we need stories that push specific messages, but we also need stories that raise interesting questions. However, it's very easy for the second to confuse us where we EXPECT a specific message, and also to accidentally include non-intended potentially offensive messages.
Thus, the message that "deporting lots of people out of their homes and murdering lots of them, whoever they are" is an obvious central pillar of the film. But I think there were other themes jostling for precedence, and hence none were in completely clear focus.
Specifically, having aliens that are actually subhuman, in at least some ways, in addition to being non-human, raises lots of OTHER interesting points, but somewhat CONTRADICTS the point about it being bad to maltreat them. "Look at these poor people reduced to scavenging in rubbish" is more convincing the more they're reduced to that by circumstances, and arguably less so if it's partly due to who they are themselves. (Of course, it probably SHOULDN'T. I'm not saying it morally better, I'm just saying it's less effective as propaganda.) So do several other things.
If you ARE pushing the "aliens=oppressed" analogy, then plenty of actual real humans are reduced to scavenging, and abused like the film showed, so coming up with a weird semi-justification for why the aliens seemed so hapless is just half-condoning the thing you're trying to condemn. But if you're NOT pushing that message exclusively, then you can get all sorts of interesting questions out of what MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be going on, and as I mused in the original post, you have to ask "if I'm NOT SURE if these creatures are human-equivalent, should we grant them dignity and human rights now?"
Some people think this is because the film tried to be an "aliens=oppressed" analogy, and messed it up. I think it's closer to the truth that it wasn't quite sure what it wanted to be (to good but mixed effect).
There are no objective characters in the film. Essentially everyone (except Christopher) does reprehensible things, that the film implicitly (and presumably but not necessarily deliberately) invites us to condemn. Lots of nasty generalisations are made -- by people who do reprehensible things, making it not clear which if any we should ascribe to the director's own (conscious or subconscious) views.
Thus, there are many things you could draw out of the film. I think it was unwise of the film to have the Nigerian gang portrayed so starkly negatively, and to refer to them as "Nigerians", because it was reasonable to foresee that that would be offensive to many black people or Nigerians. But OTOH, those terms were almost universally used by MNU employees who also abused and murdered people, so are we supposed to accept that usage, or is it another example of racism being portrayed in order to condemn it? Or a purely neutral decision, based on actual Nigerian gangs, without view to how that might be perceived by non-gang Nigerians? Is one of those specifically intended by director? Is one the only plausible viewing of the film? Again, I think it's an interesting question when left open, and possibly less interesting if there's a specific answer.
There's a definite suggestion (in the film and from author's voice) that the majority of aliens are a worker caste without the initiate to use the weapons they find, or otherwise better themeslves.
However, I think the film is actually better without that suggestion.
My impression of the film (based partly on seeing it and partly on what I've heard second hand about what the director said) is that he set out to make an exciting somewhat-not-traditional science fiction film set in south africa, which had some connection to race relations in south africa. And that he did that excellently. And that any sufficiently strong story spins off lots of potential analogies: some much stronger, some weaker, some deliberately enhanced to support a particular viewpoint, some deliberately enhanced because they're interesting even if you're not sure what they're saying, some not really intended at all but produced on gut feeling and luck (and some not even intended at all). And some of those are controvertial.
It's plain that District 9 was intended to say something about race. But I think "exciting somewhat-not-traditional science fiction film set in south africa, which also says something about race" came first, and any specific message was added in to that.
I think that's a good thing: we need stories that push specific messages, but we also need stories that raise interesting questions. However, it's very easy for the second to confuse us where we EXPECT a specific message, and also to accidentally include non-intended potentially offensive messages.
Thus, the message that "deporting lots of people out of their homes and murdering lots of them, whoever they are" is an obvious central pillar of the film. But I think there were other themes jostling for precedence, and hence none were in completely clear focus.
Specifically, having aliens that are actually subhuman, in at least some ways, in addition to being non-human, raises lots of OTHER interesting points, but somewhat CONTRADICTS the point about it being bad to maltreat them. "Look at these poor people reduced to scavenging in rubbish" is more convincing the more they're reduced to that by circumstances, and arguably less so if it's partly due to who they are themselves. (Of course, it probably SHOULDN'T. I'm not saying it morally better, I'm just saying it's less effective as propaganda.) So do several other things.
If you ARE pushing the "aliens=oppressed" analogy, then plenty of actual real humans are reduced to scavenging, and abused like the film showed, so coming up with a weird semi-justification for why the aliens seemed so hapless is just half-condoning the thing you're trying to condemn. But if you're NOT pushing that message exclusively, then you can get all sorts of interesting questions out of what MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be going on, and as I mused in the original post, you have to ask "if I'm NOT SURE if these creatures are human-equivalent, should we grant them dignity and human rights now?"
Some people think this is because the film tried to be an "aliens=oppressed" analogy, and messed it up. I think it's closer to the truth that it wasn't quite sure what it wanted to be (to good but mixed effect).
There are no objective characters in the film. Essentially everyone (except Christopher) does reprehensible things, that the film implicitly (and presumably but not necessarily deliberately) invites us to condemn. Lots of nasty generalisations are made -- by people who do reprehensible things, making it not clear which if any we should ascribe to the director's own (conscious or subconscious) views.
Thus, there are many things you could draw out of the film. I think it was unwise of the film to have the Nigerian gang portrayed so starkly negatively, and to refer to them as "Nigerians", because it was reasonable to foresee that that would be offensive to many black people or Nigerians. But OTOH, those terms were almost universally used by MNU employees who also abused and murdered people, so are we supposed to accept that usage, or is it another example of racism being portrayed in order to condemn it? Or a purely neutral decision, based on actual Nigerian gangs, without view to how that might be perceived by non-gang Nigerians? Is one of those specifically intended by director? Is one the only plausible viewing of the film? Again, I think it's an interesting question when left open, and possibly less interesting if there's a specific answer.