Does anyone think that District 9 oversimplifies Apartheid?
I’ve been thinking about the choice of Johannesburg as the setting for this film, and about its problematic representations of race, but I want to suggest that Blomkamp isn’t working by analogy here. The most direct reference is to the historical displacement of District 6 in Cape Town in 1966, but it’s well-fictionalized and the plot of the film is far removed from those events. I think the setting gives him license to play with the notions of colonialism and to explore the violence and exploitation visited on displaced persons(/prawns!). Both tribal culture and corporate culture –the main parties to the violence– are depicted as “alien.” The corporate power, represented by MNU and white Afrikaners, and Obesandjo’s animistic tribal gang, who are repeatedly identified as Nigerian, both want to exploit the prawns and both benefit from their marginalization. There’s definitely a thematic connection to the struggles of Black South Africans under Apartheid, but the film takes its own rou
