District 9 : Science Fiction as Social Critique

Peggy Cho

doi:10.21049/ccs.2016.42..505

This study examines the ways District 9, a film released in 2009, reworks the sci-fi genre to explore the human encounter with “other” alien populations. Like Avatar, released in the same year, District 9 addresses the tropes of conflict over land and human-alien hybridity and introduces non-humans and aliens, not as invaders, but as objects of human oppression and cruelty. Unlike many other science fiction films where the encounter between humans and non-humans occurs in an unidentifiable future time and location, District 9 crosses genre barriers to engage with urban realism, producing a social critique of contemporary urban population problems. The arrival of aliens in District 9 occurs as part of the recorded human past and the film’s action is carried out in the present time in the specifically identified city of Johannesburg. A distinctly anti-Hollywood film that locates the action at the street level, District 9 plays out human anxieties about contact with others by referencing the divisions and conflicts historically attached to South Africa’s sprawling metropolis and its current problems of urban poverty and illegal immigrants. Focusing on how this particular urban setting frames the film, the study investigates the ways Blomkamp’s sci-fi film about extra-terrestrials presents a curious postcolonial mix of aliens and immigrants surviving in abject conditions in an urban slum and forces a realistic examination of the contemporary social problems faced by South Africa’s largest city and by extension other major global cities. The paper also examines the film’s representation of the human-alien hybrid and its potential as a force to resist human exploitation of the other. It also claims that though the setting is highly local, District 9 speaks to a wider global audience by making obvious the exploitative practices of profit-seeking multinationals. A sci-fi film that is keen on making a social commentary on urban population conflicts, District 9 resonates with the wider sense of insecurity and fear of others that form the horizon of the uncertain and potentially violent contemporary human world.

Citation status

KCI Citation Counts (1)
열림/닫힘 버튼
REFERENCES (15)
열림/닫힘 버튼
* 2021년 이후 발행 논문의 참고문헌은 현재 구축 중입니다.

[journal] Bremner, Lindsay / 2010 / Bounded Spaces: Demographic Anxieties in Post-Apartheid Johannesburg / Social Identities 10(4)

[book] Brott, Simone / 2013 / Dead or Alive in Joburg, Architecture Post Mortem: The Diastolic Architecture of Decline, Dystopia, and Death / Ashgate

[book] Butler, Judith / 1993 / Bodies that Matter: on the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ / Routledge

[book] Neill Blomkamp / 2009 / District 9 / Sony Pictures

[book] Gaylard, Gerald / 1982 / District 9: The Global South as Science Fiction / Columbia UP

[book] Marx, John / Alien Rule / Moses : 164~167

[journal] Moses, Michael Valdez / 2010 / District 9: A Roundtable / Safundi 11(1-2) : 155~175

[journal] Nel, Adele / 2012 / The Repugnant Appeal of the Abject: Cityscape and Cinematic Corporality in District 9 / Critical Arts 26(4)

[book] Nuttall, Sarah / 2008 / Introduction. Johannesburg: the Elusive Metropolis / Duke UP

[web] Smith, David / 2009 / District 9: South Africa and Apartheid Come to the Movies / Guardian

[book] Smith, Eric D / 2012 / Globalization, Utopia, and Postcolonial Science Fiction / Palgrave

[journal] van Veuren / 2012 / Tooth and Nail: Anxious Bodies in Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 / Critical Arts 26(4)

[web] Vilkomerson, Sara / 2009 / District 9 Blew My Mind! / New York Observer

[journal] Walder, Dennis / 2014 / Hysterical Nostalgia in the Postcolony: from Coming Home to District 9 / Consumption Markets & Culture 17(2)

[book] Weaver-Highwater / 2014 / Rebecca, Postcolonial Film: History, Empire, Resistance / Routledge

KJC Korea
Journal Central

Statistics

Tools

Sharing

Issue List

Citation status