Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 uses parallel and analogy to bring about a discussion of race, political power, human rights, and what differentiates people, along with what makes them the same. When aliens land on Earth, over Johannesburg, the people of the area must deal with questions of how to handle the insurgence of a new population, one that is notably diverse from the existing citizens. While this could bring about more questions of political logistics (are these new aliens citizens?) or human rights (are these aliens legally human? What rights do they get?), it brought me to questions and race. One of the intriguing things about this film is the fact that it is directly modeled after District 6 and political/racial strife in Johannesburg. One of the beautiful things about this film is that, despite not knowing much of anything about that situation, I found a lot of truth in the picture that applies to my life and to America as a whole. While the film uses various elements to convey its message, I feel that focusing on the physical appearance of the Prawn reveals some notable depth in the film.
The nuance of the film isn’t accepting that it’s commenting on race relations; that fact is fairly easily obtained. The true introspection for me came with the fact that I knew it was dealing with race relations, and I still had a hard time being accepting. In the United States in my lifetime, we’ve been programmed to know that all cultures and races are accepted, and that we should be open minded about everyone we meet. This notion seems to be blindly accepted, and perhaps because it isn’t challenged, it doesn’t grow as deep of roots as it should. By making these aliens resemble insects and having them look so distinct from humans, it create the need for me to actively try to be accepted. My first impulse was to reject these ugly creatures because they were physically repulsive. I’m not totally sure I can rationalize that view, but it was the Id in me coming out, for better or for worse. I had to actively remind myself that this was a metaphor for race relations, and that I wasn’t being accepting as I should be. On top of being ugly, they also were distinctly not-human in appearance. This also forced me to remember that the “other,” in this case aliens, were supposed to be more like humanity than unlike humanity (I contrast this with the movie Her, where I personally had little trouble accepting AI as part of humanity). I think this gave me a look into the views of past generations, where racial acceptance itself wasn’t accepted. As awful as it sounds, I can start to understand how the first people to deal with people of a different race saw them, and could treat them so awfully. By comparing my initial repulsion to the Prawns to past generations looking at different races, I’ve gained some nuance to the way they thought.
Another notable way they contrast the Prawn with humans in physical depiction is the size and strength of the aliens. Aside from being distinct with humans, and off-putting in appearance, they are also notably larger than the humans in the film. This gives a sense of power asymmetry, where the aliens have a physical advantage over the humans. This contrasts political power, where humans have a sufficient advantage over the aliens. This creates a volatile environment, where the humans are leery of the aliens, and live in fear of their physical power. This seems to mirror the way in which many people view minorities in our world. This is one way to view the extreme reactions to fear of minorities in our world, most notably with police violence, sometimes leading to death. It seems that the fear the authorities show in dealing with the physically powerful prawns may reflect the fear that authorities deal with minorities in the United States (and beyond) in our world.
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