(WARNING! SPOILERS! But it wouldn’t be a spoiler if you’d have gone and seen it already, which you definitely should!)
At first glance, “District 9” is a science fiction alien movie. But it goes far beyond the typical science fiction alien movie. The aliens, instead of landing in a large city like New York, Chicago, or London, hover the mother ship over the city of Johannesburg, South Africa—the historical epicenter of racism, imperialism and Apartheid. There is a clear symbolic reference to past racial injustices in that the aliens—referred to derogatorily as “prawns”—are placed in a shantytown separated from humans and kept there for twenty-eight years. I would argue, however, that the themes in the movie go even deeper than that. I will analyze not only the themes of cruelty and injustice here, but also the dramatic transformation that the main character, Wickus, undergoes by the end of the movie, which may be even more important.
One thing that helped make “District 9” seem plausible as well as keep the psychological tension was its cinematography. From beginning to end the structure was one of an interview-style documentary, peppered with “breaking news” reports, some of which gave incomplete information in order to highlight the South African government’s cover-ups. Lay people give their opinions about the aliens, and the beginning of the movie was smattered with report-style flash-forwards about ensuing events, especially family interviews about how they remember Wickus. The main character, Wickus (pronounced, “Vickus”) Van De Merwe is introduced only after the initial setting has made its impression. An employee and budding success of the bureaucratic MNU (Multi-National United) organization, he is portrayed at first to be this fair-skinned, sweater-vested stereotypical “mama’s boy” who only got as far as he did because of who he knew: he was married to his boss’s daughter. But because the father didn’t like him, he was “promoted” to be in charge of a dangerous project involving alien removal from the slum of District 9 to a seemingly more accommodating “District 10,” a fenced-in concentration camp of subsidized housing, and had to personally have the aliens each “sign” an eviction notice. But Wickus proved to be just as corrupt and heartless as the government in his careless dealing with non-humans and slaughtered many of them in search of “illegal” weapons.
The references to the Apartheid regime are loud and clear. Signs were plastered everywhere that said “No Non-Humans Allowed,” and the government used oppression and segregation to keep a race toothless against it. In contrast to other alien movies where the fear of a more advanced species is manifest by stories of gruesome attacks and experimentation, the same fear here caused us to trod them underfoot, though we could have been so close to relating to them on an equal plane. We even understood their language. The “prawns” were human in every way except for their appearance and their culture, and yet we were guilty of treating them the same way we have treated our own. The alien community even took on the same self-defeating attitude as is common in oppressed human entities, engaging in inter-species prostitution and gang violence among other practices, including bartering for cat food and raw meat from a notorious Nigerian gang leader in exchange for their superior weapons.
But one alien (given the earth-name Christopher, which didn’t really fit) was different. For twenty of the years he had been on Earth he had been working on a way to get back to the mother ship through chemistry and computer science. Upon being questioned by Wickus about the “conditions his son was living in” and handed the eviction notice, he saw through it and protested that it wasn’t legal. He was intelligent, but Wickus treated him as though he was only as smart as a five-year-old, and almost shot him and his child. If only he knew how badly he would need Christopher later when, in a twist of plot, Wickus discovers his laboratory and begins confiscating things. He picks up a vial he says “seems dangerous” and accidentally sprays the black fluid in his face. Over the course of a few days (after puking on a birthday cake and losing some of his fingernails) he begins noticing that his left arm has become alien.
The most interesting thing about this is that a white person cannot become black, nor can a male person become [totally] female, but Wickus is forced to live in two worlds. The transformation he undergoes is not only physical but also mental. After being demoted from his position and brought in to the MNU for experimentation, he is made to perform weapons tests with alien weaponry, which can only operate in conjunction with alien DNA. At first it is just target practice, but then an innocent alien is brought in, trembling, and Wickus is physically forced to shoot it. The alien explodes. Wickus, reeling, escapes using his newfound advantage and takes refuge within the confines of District 9, a fugitive of the very organization he once represented.
Upon voraciously inhaling a can of cat food, Wickus’s road to Damascus leads him right back to Christopher’s shack, where he is still considered Saul and was almost forced out if not for Christopher seeing the arm. “Only one thing could have done that,” he says, though he is still wary of giving any information. But when the alien child, innocently and as though speaking for the entire human race (or rather, the entire cosmic kingdom), puts his arm up to Wickus’s and says, “Look! We’re the same,” Christopher’s shoulders slump, even amid Wickus’s denials. It would be a risk, but he really needed that fluid, and only Wickus knew his way around the MNU facility. Hanging on a hope to be medically restored, Wickus finds himself on the most unlikely team doing the most unlikely thing, and as a result saw MNU as it really was. Wickus ends up using alien machinery to help Christopher get to the mother ship, ironically skirmishing most severely with his own former military guy, Koobus. The extreme contrast between the static character and the dynamic character here served to amplify the change that took place in Wickus at the same time that his physical transformation was still taking place. We catch a true whiff of mutual emotional investment when Christopher, in response to Wickus saving his life, promises to come back to Earth in three years to make him human again. The MNU project abandoned, Wickus is shown at the end of the movie still in District 9 and in completely alien form.
This movie is probably less along the lines of War of the Worlds as it is the story of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who captured the Jewish people and was forced by God to live in the wilderness for seven years and learn a lesson in humility. But the two stories do share some common themes. War of the Worlds was a wake-up call to earth, just as the vial became a wake-up call for Wickus and symbolizes the same to anyone who judges before having “walked in someone else’s shoes”. Therefore, I would argue that the movie extends its reach much further than just an allegory for Apartheid. It speaks of the human nature (in every sense of the word “human”), convicting the viewer of having at some point in time judged another person or group of any culture without having fully understood it, and letting us almost feel and see how wrong that is. Somehow, we wanted to see someone like Wickus fall, and even more, we wanted to see him redeemed by that fall. We wish it could happen to everyone. This chance at redemption was what to me made this movie richer and more morally substantial than if spoke only about past racial injustices and Apartheid. It delved headlong into the very psyche of humanity.
First the blackout on Sunday that resulted in Blackboard being down, and then this on Monday.
According to a survey done by 
It was a great trip! Greg’s friend Ze from college got married over there, so we went to the wedding and stayed with 
Both of the families were full-blooded Chinese, and they had this interesting custom where the bride and the groom kneel on pillows and serve the elders of the family tea, one couple or person at a time, and they said something in Chinese that I didn’t understand. We were served sushi, and I actually ate it, even the flavored eggs. Everything about it was distinctly Asian. Even the music was sung in Chinese. But what was really funny was to see 30 Chinese people on a dance floor dancing to Usher’s “Yeah,” with the bride’s mother at center busting all the moves.
