Identity Game

Popular Political Science Science Fiction und Zukunftsthemen in Politik und Politikwissenschaft

Humanity and the alien “other“ in District 9 Confronted with the alien other, what are the limits of humanity? How do we deal with such a challenge? Will

our morals change? These are the crucial questions Neil Bloomkamp’s “District 9” from 2009 is dealing with. Be-

cause of its social impetus, Bloomkamp’s �rst full-length feature was even nominated for best picture in the

2010 Academy Awards. But like the short movie forerunner “Alive in Joburg”, District 9 tells us nothing good at

all about humanity.

There are many ways to analyze popular culture and particularly science

�ction. One possibility is to view it “as evidence about dominant norms,

ideas, identities, or beliefs in a particular state, society or region”.[1] In this

sense, District 9 by using the extreme other of the extraterrestrial alien

confronts us with a more acute version of the discrimination, exclusion

and marginalization going on in our real world. This is even more the case

since the plot – in spite of being science �ction – is not taking place in the

future but in an alternative presence. What makes District 9 special in this

regard is the “reality �ction” element locating the story within a realistic

setting. The authentic appearance of the movie is enforced by the use of

hand cameras which conveys a feeling of embedment as if the viewers

were watching a documentary. After having accepted one initial rare event

paving the way for extreme circumstances, the audience �nds the plot run-

ning in reasonable and comprehensible ways, yet allowing our current po-

litical and social problems to step forward more extremely like being

viewed under a magnifying glass.

In District 9 such an event is the alien encounter. The story begins in the year of 1982 when an alien starship

comes down to earth and after having su�ered some technical defect ends up hovering right above the city of

Johannesburg in South Africa. After a while the humans decide to enter the starship where they �nd thousands

of injured, sick and frightened alien creatures. Like humans, they count on four extremities and walk upright,

but they are much bigger and appear somewhat between an insect and a reptile; around their mouth they have

even �sh-like barbells. This kind of perverse and distorted proximity to human appearance is quite unsightly

from a human perspective. Nobody knows what to do with the large number of uninvited, but intelligent guests

so the “prawns” – as they are pejoratively called – are settled in the provisional camp “District 9”. After this initial

backlash the actual storyline takes place almost 30 years later in the then presence of 2009. The aliens still liv-

ing in District9, having become a totally neglected and precarious place, eke out a miserable and degenerated

existence. Their life is marked by criminal doings and black market activities of South Africans who exploit their

desperate situation. Order is maintained more or less by “Multinational United” (MNU) a not further speci�ed

private organization/corporation permeated by xenophobic sta�. They are preparing a resettlement of the

aliens to District 10 which is located 200 kilometers outside of Joburg. One can imagine that MNU pursues more

lucrative objectives by trying to access the modern weapon technologies of the aliens which only work in com-

bination with their alien DNA (why the aliens do not use their weapons for an uprising will remain the central

�aw of the movie).

The parallels being drawn with the help of the extreme image of the alien other are apparent: The ruthless

MNU reminds us of the highly criticized private security providers not abiding by international law engaged by

the US during the course of the Iraq war. Obviously, in the movie there is neither an international outcry nor an

inclusive international organization taking care of this problem. Has the UN been substituted for an agency

without scruples? Or is it simply uninterested, powerless or riveted by the disagreement of its members? In any

case this makes us think about the fatal inactiveness of the UN in Ruanda

1994, or currently in Somalia and Syria and many other places leading to

unspeakable atrocities. While setting the story in South African Joburg al-

ludes not only to the crimes committed by the Apartheid Regime, but it fur-

thermore shows that history is just repeating itself like a vicious circle:

Thus, according to the movie, the South African Apartheid System between

humans was just replaced by a new one between humans and aliens. Is it

just an inherent part of the human nature to always discriminate against

an outgroup? The aliens are thereby a metaphor for all the excluded and

marginalized people worldwide, and very concretely for the hundreds of

thousands Palestinians living in huge refugee camps in Yemen or Jordan

without any perspective for a better future. Remarkable in this sense is a

scene in the movie of human activists protesting for “human rights” for the

intelligent aliens which raises question about what it means to be human

as well as where humanity begins and ends. Consequently, the genetic hu-

mans act highly inhumane, whereas the main character Vikus van der Merwe, after having been infected with a

virus transforming him to an alien, appears ever more humane in his metamorphose.

Of crucial importance is also a point which is not even mentioned in the �lm, but which brings a hopeless mes-

sage for humanity in its banality: District 9 lacks the global impact of a possible alien contact which could have

at least united the humans and led to the establishment of a common human identity.[2] Contrary for example

to the utopian setting of Star Trek where the �rst contact with the Vulcans united the “human race”, the alien

contact in District 9 is absolutely limited to South Africa. In this country and as it seems also in the rest of the

world suppression between humans is going on as ever independent of the spectacular starship hovering

above the city of Joburg. The direct contact with the alien other has not provoked any e�ect for a positive devel-

opment of humanity, quite the contrary, we look all the more brutal and savage.[3]

[1] Nexon, Daniel H./Iver B. Neumann: Harry Potter and international relations. Oxford: Rowman & Little�eld

Publishers, Inc. 2006, p.13.

[2] Wendt, Alexander: Collective Identity Formation and the International State. In: American Political Science

Review 88/2 (1994), p 389.

[3] Interesting in this regard: Albert A. Harrison: After Contact: The Human Response to Extraterrestrial Life.

New York: Perseus Books Group 2002

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Aliens, Films on May 29, 2015 [http://www.popular-political-

science.org/humanity-and-the-alien-other/] .