I recently finished reading a book called Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. At one point, Klosterman referred to science fiction as philosophy for stupid people. I at first took offense to this remark, but while I still see it as a gross oversimplification (and insult), after seeing District 9, I am somewhat rethinking that statement. After all, if Neil Blomkamp wanted to make a movie about apartheid, why didn't he actually make a movie that took place in the time of apartheid? Why did he need to use aliens to enhance the story? Well, for one thing, he wanted to appeal to a different audience than that which would go to a historical movie, and sometimes metaphors can be extremely jarring if people don't initially know what they are getting into.
District 9 is shot as a documentary, detailing the last days of District 9. In the 1980s, an alien spacecraft entered, then became inoperative in, Johannesburg airspace. The South African government, aided by Multi National United (MNU), a powerful corporation, tried to help the aliens get acquainted on Earth. MNU set up what was supposed to be a temporary camp for the aliens to live while various world governments argued over what to do with the aliens in the long-run. Out of fear, the camp was strictly monitored by a military branch of MNU, and it eventually turned into a terrible slum. Fear of the aliens led to hatred of them, and this hatred caused the otherwise peaceful aliens to have to defend themselves from the humans and eventually grow to hate them in return, perpetuating a cycle of distrust between the two races. Eventually, the people of Johannesburg became fed up with the alien "menace" so close to their homes, and demanded that MNU relocate them. District 10 was created 240 km outside of the city; MNU distributed ads to the aliens promising better living conditions, then sent in a low-level operative named Wikus van der Merwe to serve the aliens with eviction notices.
Wikus serves as the focal point of the "documentary"; vague references are made to his "betrayal", and the story follows him from the day of his promotion to one of the last days of District 9. Wikus goes in believing that the inferior (in his eyes) aliens will have no choice but to accept the eviction notices and happily move to an isolated area to live in tents smaller than the tiny shacks they are already living in. Meanwhile, a few aliens, led by one named Christopher Johnson (I'm guessing that, similar to what America did with immigrants at Ellis Island, the South African government gave Anglican and Dutch names to the aliens for easy classification) were putting the finishing touches on some plan, 20 years in the making, involving a mysterious fluid derived from fluid found in alien technology. Wikus discovered the canister containing the fluid, but didn't know its purpose. He accidentally sprayed himself with it, and from that point on, his life went in an entirely different direction.
The audience is led to believe that Christopher's plan was to use the fluid to change the human race into aliens, because Wikus starts to slowly transform into one himself after exposure. Unfortunately for him, in addition to all the immediately imaginable negative effects becoming an alien would have on a person, MNU sees Wikus' situation as one of extreme profit to them. The aliens' technology is extremely powerful, but was engineered to only respond to their own DNA; no human ever successfully fired one of the the aliens' extremely powerful firearms. However, because Wikus' human DNA is melding with and being supplanted by the alien DNA, he achieves the ability to use their weapons. The MNU brass, which includes Wikus' father-in-law, decide that Wikus' life is worth less than what his DNA can bring them if they can give humans the ability to use alien weaponry, and decide to turn him into a lab experiment. Wikus escaped and fled into District 9, where he realized that the true plan was to use the fluid, a spaceship fuel, to get home.
The aliens' life on Earth was miserable, and they wanted nothing more than to go back to a place where they were not the "Other". In what I thought was one of the saddest scenes in the film (along with the final shots), Christopher's young son, who was born on Earth, asked his father when they would get to go home. Christopher tried to reassure him that they would be getting a new and better home, and pointed to one of the tents on the MNU brochure for District 10, even though he likely knew that at best, District 10 would be more of the same. Wikus and Christopher formed a plan to get the fuel back because Christopher revealed that the hovering ship had genetic equipment that could reverse Wikus' metamorphosis, but even with a common goal (and now common DNA), Wikus still treated the aliens as inferiors. He cooperated with them because they had something he needed, but he never forgot where their place in society was.
That is until he saw the full treachery of MNU. Wikus finally learned that his fear was based on propaganda and misperceptions propagated by his government and employer. The third act of the film was a bit heavy on action sequences, but it still contained a lot of racial analogues. Wikus was now an other, contaminated by the aliens, and was now subhuman (literally). His maltreatment by his employer and its military faction, as well as the way Christopher treated him well after Wikus had been so rude and demeaning to Christopher, made Wikus realize that things weren't as they seemed in District 9. Things sort of worked out for Christopher, but, like in reality, the racism persisted. The movie set things up fairly well for a sequel, although I could certainly see the merits of not making one and keeping things open-ended, because racism will never go away.
Up next: Gloury hallelujah...
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