Ramon: District 9 and Genocide as a Whole

The 2009 film directed by Neill Blomkamp, District 9, is a futuristic representation of genocide in a more humorous way than the other films we have seen in the course. I am not saying that the extermination of the aliens from Johannesburg is a funny situation, but Blomkamp purposefully placed the issues of genocide in this situation in order to remove a bit of human emotional attachment to the persecuted aliens. When a being that no human can associate to on a physical dimension is persecuted, there is a sense of ease when it comes to examining a situation. However, this leads into the point of why the simple root of genocide is persecution of the non-conformist in a society.

Now, genocide usually is not rooted in pure physical differences in peoples. The genocide of a certain race is the due to primarily the demands of an oppressive race and/or the disapproval of the cultural practices of the suppressed race. We see this in Powwow Highway. In this film and in District 9, the suppressed race is placed in reservations. The reservations are areas in the country/city that separates them from the “normal” members of the society. In the article Denial, Shadow, and Recovery, Jana Rivers- Norton says in reference to capitalist Americans as a whole, “they materialize through various forms of acting out (racism, scapegoating, national chauvinism).” In both films, the oppressive race wants to eliminate the lower race because of economic means to gain land. The case of Powwow Highway is to build a refinery, and in District 9 is to further develop the slums to benefit the city.

Secondly, District 9 and the Rwandan holocaust relate together because much of the Rwandan holocaust was based off of the face that Tutsis looked a lot different from Hutus. Paul’s wife in Hotel Rwanda is much taller than him, is much lighter skinned than him, and has a much thinner nose than he does. They do look drastically different from one another. I was reading the book Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza. She points out her own experiences of how at an early age she was taught the physical distinctions from Hutu and Tutsi. Also, she learns that no matter how similar she thinks she looks to the majority Hutu class, she is drastically different from the other students. In an interview article by Carl Wilkens, Jerri Sheperd speaks heavily of the “other” in relation to the Rwandan genocide. The aliens in District 9 were constantly viewed as “the other.” In allegory to the apartheid in South Africa and the civil rights movement in the United States, the aliens were very much treated like the “other.” The film shows a montage of shots showing different signs that separate the aliens from the humans. This is much like the signs placed in buses and on water fountains during the civil rights movement. These signs were the result of the immediate physical differences seen by the natives.

Tregre: Week 8, District 9

I have seen "District 9" before and never saw the allegory of apartheid in South Africa. It makes complete sense now. This was a great way to end the course with a summary of the root of genocide. Genocide is not just about the murder of an ethnic group, but also about the murder of souls, spirits, and wills. It has been clear through the course that genocide is not just scary because of the mass killings, but the hatred and immense terror involved in these systematic plans. 

In "District 9," the "Prawns" were the others. They were identified as a derogatory term after their spacecraft landed on Earth. Prawns were the others that deviated from the norm. At first they are labeled as inferior and then confined to District 9. They were excluded from the humans to live with others like them. This made it known that being a Prawn would set them apart from the human population. The steps to a genocide starts with identification and identifying the ethnic group who do not belong and are inferior to the rest. Then the exclusion. This creates isolation where, psychologically, the gap between the two different species starts to grow and become larger. This can also aid in depersonalization. When it is one unit of something unfamiliar, such as the unfamiliar aliens, then it is easier to amass them as one group instead of individuals. This makes it easier to start to exterminate the mass. As the steps begin to progress to exclusion, that is when tension starts to become stronger. It is the calm and waiting before the storm. Then sometimes usually happens to make it snap. This was when Smit and his father-in-law start to relocate the aliens again with eviction notices. This is to separate the Prawns even more from normal life. They were the invaders that did not deserve to live a normal life. Then the extermination begins. When the Prawns, or suppressed people begin to feel the need to rise up in order to feel alive and having a life again, that is what sparks the hatred which usually boils over. In "District 9" it was when Christopher's (an alien) friend was killed by a xenophobic soldier. This started a series of events. It gets really tricky when lines start to get blurred, like when Wikus turns into a Prawn. When it is realized that this situation is no longer black and white and a Prawn and human can be interchangeable, it fuels the fear in the genocide and getting rid of the aliens. From here on in the movie, more and more deaths occurred. It also changes the viewpoint of the people or Prawn who was transforming. When Wikus transformed into a Prawn, he saw their point of view. The less human he became, the more humane he became. It was an irony like one sees in many of our previous assignments. When one would see that everyone bleeds red and that they are not all that different besides the color of one's skin or different beliefs, no one is really inferior after all. 

The same things happened in the movie, "Hotel Rwanda" and the "Conspiracy Theory." The Jews and the Tutsis were known that they were the inferior race. They were labeled as outcasts. Then they were separated from the "norms" in society. The Jews were sent to ghettos and then extracted and put into concentration camps, while the Tutsis were separated from their families who were non-Tutsis and the white people. They were set apart and not around the normal people. When people are confined to one place, it is easier to kill masses and to individualize people, therefore one cannot get emotionally attached. Next the killing occurred. The Jews and Tutsis were just slaughtered. It did not matter if they were female, had children, or pled for their life. It was the end for them simply because of their ethnicity and culture. Both films had people on the "supremacy" side who did not agree with what their own kind was doing. When a man did not believe that all Jews should be killed in "The Conspiracy Theory," he was threatened with a concentration camp himself. Then in "Hotel Rwanda" the main character had to risk his life in order to save his family. He felt their isolation and these characters felt torn. 

Important articles to reflect this methodology is the Elie Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech and the Rwandan Genocide Lessons Learned article. Both of these knowledge the tragedy, but how to learn from these mistakes. This genocide method is clearly explained and then how to learn and stop it. It is so important not to classify people in a hierarchy and to exclude others. That is how genocide starts. Wiesel believed that if more people spoke up and indifference was not shown, lives could have been saved. The Lessons Learned in the Rwandan Genocide article explained that awareness to serious problems must be answered to. The identification of those less desirable in a given society is what fuels the fire and is escalates from there. It was seen in each movie the identification. One was a Jew, a Tutsi, a homosexual, a Prawn, etc. All of these names enabled hatred and fear from the different grow into a full-blown genocide. Their personalities did not matter, nor did their family, status, etc. It was their label. Then they were excluded from the rest. This made the outcasts and made it easier for one to go along with the crowd and hate the less desirable humans and then go as far as killing them. Each genocide could have been stopped if one looked past the surface of a person and into their hearts (not to be cheesy!) Every person has an innate desire to belong to a home and function in a society. Disrupting this need can be detrimental to a race.

This was a great wrap up assignment for the course.

Trujillo, District 9, Let's fit into the box

It was extremely clear how District 9 was able to really portray all of the genocides we have studied over the course of eight years. What it shows me is that it all seems to come down to appearance. Well, physical appearance and cultural standings and beliefs. The people who don’t fit into the mold that others have made for them are immediately cast out and in the most extreme of cases, tortured and killed.

They’re not good enough, not fast enough, not light enough, not Christian enough, not beautiful enough, not straight enough, not human enough…

Excuse me, what? Not human enough? Aren’t we all human beings? I mean, we all look too damn alike to be anything else. But what District 9 portrayed was that these people, who were just a little different, just a little bigger than the tiny box they were being squeezed into, were looked at like aliens, like beings that didn’t deserve love, compassion and equality.

I look at the film Bent and Good and see men who were treated like aliens, like beings that didn’t deserve to life because of sexual preference. They looked the same as everyone else; you probably couldn’t tell one of these gay men from their Nazi counterparts, but they were persecuted and executed for not fitting in the box.

I look at Hotel Rwanda and see Africans against Africans, Africans against their own people (as if there aren’t enough problems in Africa threatening to wipe out thousands even millions every day). No, let’s kill each other off because some of us have been treated better. Let’s kill each other off because you’re lighter skinned or your nose isn’t quite as long as mine. Because, as Wikus Van der Merwe would say, you are a prawn.

It’s disgusting.

Prawn, a derogatory term used by the non-aliens in District 9, funny because it’s like Judenscheisse, Hitler’s personal favorite to use towards Jewish people. It’s also like cockroach, a term used to address the Tutsi people. Have I forgotten redskin, injun, Uncle Tom? All terms meant to dehumanize.

And what is more disgusting is that all of these genocides, the Holocaust, Rwanda, the Native American genocide, Apartheid, all of these attacks against other human beings keep happening and they keep destroying the good in people. All of these disgusting names and terms keep happening as we are constantly faced with the need to bring ourselves above everyone else and as we continue dehumanize people.

As said in the “Native American Genocide” article: “For us the shadow is psychic energy that may take on negative qualities that manifest outward as acts of violence and fear when inner knowing and responsibility fail. Acts of genocide and oppression can be seen in this light”.

When there is fear because we might not be the ‘big man on campus’ or because we see something that is different or that goes against what we might think is right, this is where we make the mistake of thinking that there is only one select way that people can be.