These days whenever I watched the movie, I feel like I should find the information or hidden source of the movie. I realized that I could earn much knowledge from the content when I pay slight more attention to the meanings of both theme and the characters. Out of many things that I could focus on, I try to pay closest attention to the issues of racism and sexism.
I watched the movie, District 9 last night with such topics in my mind. The movie gave me a chance to learn about South Africa in general and specifically about racism in the area. The movie did a great job at closely depicting current status of the nation, and those scenes led me to think carefully about the stereotypical portrayal of non-Caucasian population. For example, the main character who used English with African pronunciation throughout the whole movie becomes the victim of chaos. It indirectly suggests that non-Caucasian population is more gullible and easily harmed than invincible whites. The movie continues to portray similar stereotypes. The “District 9”, itself is pictured as a place for a non-Caucasian habitants. To me, it felt like a duplicate of “Harlem”.
The depiction of negative image on minorities were not limited to the poor living conditions, but also extended to social problems caused by socioeconomic stands of the poor. In the movie, Nigerian man was an illegal dealer for weapons and “special” food source, which has a strong links to the drug dealing in real life. In fact, this movie was interesting enough to get me to do some research on rate of drug dealing and trickster in Nigeria. According to the blog of this man who lived in South Africa for over 20 years, about 90% of Nigerians working population are involved with some kind of drug dealing or tricksters.
It is very hard for me to believe, and saddens me a little to think that such injustice is happening in 21st century. It was difficult to accept especially because South Africa was a nation that is qualified as the nation to hold a huge international event like World Cup, but yet to be treated equally.
This movie has a lot of great connections to the themes of this class. We haven't talked about discrimination and racism in other countries, and I'm a little suspicious of a reference to a blog of "this man," with no citation and no data to back it up. But you make a good connection between the district in the film and the racially segregated neighborhoods in the US such as Harlem. I'd like to see a little more discussion of the course concepts reflected in this film. For example, the aliens in the film are from another planet, but are very clearly meant to represent an analogy for certain groups of humans. Which groups? And does the movie further stereotypes about those groups, or challenge them?
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