Historical and social context in District 9

1. C L O S E F I L M S T U D Y
DISTRICT 9

2. CONTEXT
• Niell Blomkamp is a South African expatriate who
moved to Vancouver, Canada when he was 18
• His short student film, “Alive in Joburg” showcased low-
budget, photo realistic special effects – this caught
the eye of Peter Jackson who funded and produced
District 9 as a full-length feature film
• His films are famous for their gritty realism, their
special effects, and their use of documentary style
storytelling and cinematography
• He was also heavily influenced by the aesthetics of
video games (he is slated to make a film version of
Halo)

3. SCI-FI REPRESENTATIONS: “OTHERING”
What are the key themes of science-fiction films?
• Conflict between the ‘self’and ‘other’
• Early sci-fi/horror films - humans fight an alien
‘other’
• How are they identifiable?
• How do these films end?
• Usually the humans defeat the ‘other’ and
reassert the ‘self’ that the audience can identify
with.
• District 9 problematizes this relationship.
• Trace the narrative arc of (and our sympathies
for) the ‘Prawns’
• Start out as traditional aliens
• Ugly, disgusting, incomprehensible
• Wikus cues us to treat them sensitively
• Infection means Wikus begins to
understand and empathise more
• Starts to become our point of identification
and unlikely hero
• Escapes the lab; Assaults the MNU facility;
Sacrifices himself for Christopher
• Meanwhile the humans act as binary
opposites, single-mindedly pursuing him

4. HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• Apartheid parallels
• South Africa has a history of segregation and isolation from the
apartheid regime, which started before WW2 and ended in the early
1990s
• Under Apartheid, different racial groups were assigned different legal
status – this status affected where you could live, go to school, or get
work
• It was used to keep black South Africans isolated and separate, and to
prioritise white Afrikaan and English South Africans under the law
• Political rights were limited for black africans, and were not allowed to
vote despite their democratic majority, which allowed the National Party
to maintain power
• Black Africans were forcibly removed to homeland “townships” – where
provision of services such as health and education was much inferior to
other areas, and thus tried to perpetuate the system of segregation, or
living separately

5. HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• Parallels between Apartheid and
District 9:
• 60,000 non-white people were “resettled”
from the Sophiatown area of
Johannesburg (where District 9 is set).
• In the early hours of Feb 9th 1955,
heavily armed police began forcibly
evicting people, bulldozing their homes
and moving their belongings 19km away
to what would later become the township
of Soweto. It is this event that the start of
the film is heavily referencing.
• Marriage between black and white South
Africans was forbidden
• Wikus is accused of contracting his
infection from sex with the aliens.
• District 9 is also a reference to an area
called District 6 near Cape Town that was
also the scene of a mass ‘resettlement’ in
the 1960s.
• One of the main languages of those
dwelling there was Xhosa, which
incorporates many vocal ‘clicks’, similar
to the aliens in the film. The ‘Humans
Only’ signs used to promote the film are
also a reference to the‘Whites Only’ signs
from the apartheid era.

11. VALUES AND IDEOLOGIES
In the light of the themes and context of the film, what do
you think the director is trying to tell you about:
• Alienation
• Social justice