ATG sizes it all up.
I could count the number of times I've walked out of a movie on one hand. Not only do I avidly avoid suspected cinematic stinkers, but I generally hate leaving anything unfinished. Usually, if I find myself parked in front of a particularly bad waste of celluloid (Shrek 3, The Taking of Pelham 123), I'll just doze off and catch up on some shut-eye while I wait for the third act resolution. Halfway through District 9, though, as my brother and I gathered our half-eaten, over-priced snack foods, arose from our seats and prepared to exit the theater, I have to admit that I felt pretty good about it.
Initially I had been really excited about the prospects. The first time I saw a preview for District 9 it appeared to have come out of nowhere. Here was a seemingly intelligent, innovative, low-budget sci-fi (my favorite kind) action picture to save the foundering summer movie season. To top it off, it had been directed by Neill Blomkamp, an up-and-coming White South African special effects guy who had previously been attached to an incredible-looking Halo movie and was protege to none other than Peter Jackson. Now I'm no Lord of the Rings nut by any stretch, but if there's one thing I truly admire about Jackson it's his sheer mastery of scale, pacing, action and effects - the sorts of things that can guarantee an entertaining couple of hours at the theater. Unfortunately Blomkamp, it would turn out, had not only failed to pick up the storytelling skills of his teacher, but was harboring something uncouth and unwelcome in his director's bag of tricks - an evident prejudice and disdain toward his fellow Africans.
Even as the son of two immigrants who were born and raised to adulthood in Nigeria, I've never been overtly sensitive about my roots. Growing up in the 90s and early aughts, Nigerians have composed a relatively tiny sliver of the American tapestry, allowing Nigerianness to seem to me something that only came to bear at home and amongst family and family friends, in familiar or controllable environments. Aside from Hakeem Olajuwon, there were almost no Nigerians in the popular culture for me to fret about or even observe. As I've grown older, though, the profile of Nigerians seems to have grown as well, with the critical success of actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor and Gbenga Akinnagbe along with musicians like Tunde Adebimpe of TV On the Radio, Kele Okereke of Bloc Party and Wale. Still, more common than not the portrayal of Nigerians in the media has been largely negative. If you hear someone on TV or in a movie mention Nigeria or its emigrants what follows is most likely a reference to Internet scams, corruption or third-world thuggery. Nevermind that today the roughly one million Nigerians in America alone have emerged as the most highly educated ethnic group in the country. We Americans (indeed, we humans) have a time-honored tradition of marginalizing and stereotyping (at the very least) our foreigners. Which brings me back to the movie at hand.
District 9 is very clearly a fable about the way we treat each other. But the high concept (literal aliens in place of expatriate ones, a "Multi National Union" or MNU in place of the oppressive military-industrial machine) is plagued by absurd twists of logic (why would a UN-like organization be a large, publicly traded weapons manufacturer? In what universe would physically and technologically superior aliens with access to advanced weaponry submit themselves to fleshy humans?), sluggish and haphazard pacing in the first half, and an annoying and unsympathetic main character who becomes the potentially multidimensional movie's overwhelming focus.
And then there's all that racism.
The Nigerians in District 9 were unexpected, but early on I knew their portrayal would be troubling. The aliens in the movie are aimless savages and a burden for the White Man to civilize and rehabilitate, but even they are cast as sympathetic characters - oppressed and misunderstood despite the innocent children and humble, single-parent scientists hidden among their ranks. But Mr. Blomkamp isn't interested in redeeming the human Nigerian hoodlums he's strewn among these distraught creatures.
Despite the fact that the two countries are 3,000 miles apart, and Nigerian nationals make up an infinitesimal portion of South Africa's sizable population (the vast majority of Nigerian emigrants reside in the UK or the US), the director chooses to transport a few dozen of them into his movie to play contemptible fools. The Nigerians are soberly portrayed as gangsters who exploit the aliens even more brazenly than their white captors - hustling them for their weapons despite the fact that they can neither understand or control them, selling their women to the vile beings as prostitutes, practicing voodoo, and attempting to eat alien flesh as well as that of the main character (who, SPOILER: becomes part alien) in an act of cannibalism that their backward minds believe will convey them with special powers.
You read all of that right. Concealed within District 9's ostensibly enlightened sociological themes, is a classically colonialist boogeyman narrative that would make the bigots and racial purists of a century ago proud. In fact, when the black Nigerian leader and his henchmen get their heads exploded by an alien mech in a crowd-pleasing blood-and-guts scene, it's easy to imagine apartheid purveyors among the cheering faithful.
I'm not sure what messages Blomkamp was going for with this movie. The story and characters were uncompelling, the apartheid angle was muddled at best, and as I've already confessed, I didn't stick around to see the end of it. But even though District 9 left such a bad taste in my mouth, the fact is hardly ANY mainstream critics have seen fit to denounce or even point out its aggressive and egregious racial offenses - surely the film's most troublingly successful coup of all.
UPDATE: A friend passed along this very good article which makes similar points. Two voices are better than none. Check it out.
UPDATE II: Another friend shares this review from legendary movie curmudgeon Armond White: "Even older racial stereotyping occurs when Nigerian immigrants enter the game as interlopers who operate a criminal underworld that exploits both aliens and the South Africans... They're a new breed of racist swagger; the kingpin sits in a wheelchair, big, black and scary. By this point, District 9 stops making sense and becomes careless agitation using social fears and filmmaking tropes Blomkamp and Jackson are ill-equipped to control."
We've got a little chorus going here.
Even as the son of two immigrants who were born and raised to adulthood in Nigeria, I've never been overtly sensitive about my roots. Growing up in the 90s and early aughts, Nigerians have composed a relatively tiny sliver of the American tapestry, allowing Nigerianness to seem to me something that only came to bear at home and amongst family and family friends, in familiar or controllable environments. Aside from Hakeem Olajuwon, there were almost no Nigerians in the popular culture for me to fret about or even observe. As I've grown older, though, the profile of Nigerians seems to have grown as well, with the critical success of actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor and Gbenga Akinnagbe along with musicians like Tunde Adebimpe of TV On the Radio, Kele Okereke of Bloc Party and Wale. Still, more common than not the portrayal of Nigerians in the media has been largely negative. If you hear someone on TV or in a movie mention Nigeria or its emigrants what follows is most likely a reference to Internet scams, corruption or third-world thuggery. Nevermind that today the roughly one million Nigerians in America alone have emerged as the most highly educated ethnic group in the country. We Americans (indeed, we humans) have a time-honored tradition of marginalizing and stereotyping (at the very least) our foreigners. Which brings me back to the movie at hand.
District 9 is very clearly a fable about the way we treat each other. But the high concept (literal aliens in place of expatriate ones, a "Multi National Union" or MNU in place of the oppressive military-industrial machine) is plagued by absurd twists of logic (why would a UN-like organization be a large, publicly traded weapons manufacturer? In what universe would physically and technologically superior aliens with access to advanced weaponry submit themselves to fleshy humans?), sluggish and haphazard pacing in the first half, and an annoying and unsympathetic main character who becomes the potentially multidimensional movie's overwhelming focus.
And then there's all that racism.
The Nigerians in District 9 were unexpected, but early on I knew their portrayal would be troubling. The aliens in the movie are aimless savages and a burden for the White Man to civilize and rehabilitate, but even they are cast as sympathetic characters - oppressed and misunderstood despite the innocent children and humble, single-parent scientists hidden among their ranks. But Mr. Blomkamp isn't interested in redeeming the human Nigerian hoodlums he's strewn among these distraught creatures.
Despite the fact that the two countries are 3,000 miles apart, and Nigerian nationals make up an infinitesimal portion of South Africa's sizable population (the vast majority of Nigerian emigrants reside in the UK or the US), the director chooses to transport a few dozen of them into his movie to play contemptible fools. The Nigerians are soberly portrayed as gangsters who exploit the aliens even more brazenly than their white captors - hustling them for their weapons despite the fact that they can neither understand or control them, selling their women to the vile beings as prostitutes, practicing voodoo, and attempting to eat alien flesh as well as that of the main character (who, SPOILER: becomes part alien) in an act of cannibalism that their backward minds believe will convey them with special powers.
You read all of that right. Concealed within District 9's ostensibly enlightened sociological themes, is a classically colonialist boogeyman narrative that would make the bigots and racial purists of a century ago proud. In fact, when the black Nigerian leader and his henchmen get their heads exploded by an alien mech in a crowd-pleasing blood-and-guts scene, it's easy to imagine apartheid purveyors among the cheering faithful.
I'm not sure what messages Blomkamp was going for with this movie. The story and characters were uncompelling, the apartheid angle was muddled at best, and as I've already confessed, I didn't stick around to see the end of it. But even though District 9 left such a bad taste in my mouth, the fact is hardly ANY mainstream critics have seen fit to denounce or even point out its aggressive and egregious racial offenses - surely the film's most troublingly successful coup of all.
UPDATE: A friend passed along this very good article which makes similar points. Two voices are better than none. Check it out.
UPDATE II: Another friend shares this review from legendary movie curmudgeon Armond White: "Even older racial stereotyping occurs when Nigerian immigrants enter the game as interlopers who operate a criminal underworld that exploits both aliens and the South Africans... They're a new breed of racist swagger; the kingpin sits in a wheelchair, big, black and scary. By this point, District 9 stops making sense and becomes careless agitation using social fears and filmmaking tropes Blomkamp and Jackson are ill-equipped to control."
We've got a little chorus going here.
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