District 9: Genre and National Identity
Genre:
Easy to recognise, more difficult to explain.
Genres based on plot pattern, emotional effects, setting, theme, aesthetic, form.
Change, development of genres – hybrids.
Conventions and expectations.
“Genre, it had always seemed to me, was a set of assumptions, a loose contract
between the creator and the audience.”
Science Fiction:
“Literature of change”.
Science fiction “deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and
technology.”
Different worlds and different times, dealing with actual, here-and-now issues.
“What speculative fiction is good at is not the future, but the present.”
Possibilities and limitations, science and technology, humanity.
Subgenres:
o Time travel (Back to the Future).
o Aliens (Men in Black).
o Space Opera (Star Wars).
o Dystopian future (Mad Max Fury Road).
o Apocalyptic (Armageddon).
o Monsters and mutants (Godzilla).
o Cyberpunk (The Matrix).
o Space Westerns (Cowboys and Aliens).
Mockumentary:
Using elements of documentary form for comic effect, parody.
Handheld camera.
Direct address.
Interviews.
Newsreel.
Grainy.
Neill Blomkamp:
Born in 1979, in Johannesburg.
Immigrated to Canada at age 18.
Graduated from Vancouver Film School’s 3D and Visual Effects programme in 1998.
Worked in animation.
District 9 – Background and Production:
Preceded by short film Alive in Joburg (2005).
Written and directed by Blomkamp, produced by Peter Jackson.
, Won the 2010 Saturn Award for Best International Film.
Nominated for four Academy Awards in 2009: Best Picture, Best Editing, Best
Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects.
Budget: $30 Million.
Themes:
First contact, and what happens after.
Aliens humanised.
Dystopia.
Xenophobia, discrimination (2008 xenophobic outbursts in SA).
National identity.
References made:
Spaceship hanging above Johannesburg syline: Armageddon, Independence Day.
Body transformation: The Fly.
CNN-style news coverage.
South African Touches:
Large part of its success: being a South African sci-fi.
Local vs international audiences.
Language.
Van der Merwe.
Soweto – shacks.
Local actors.
Blomkamp on District 9:
“My upbringing in [Johannesburg] had a massive effect on me, and I started to realize that
everything to do with segregation and apartheid, and now the new xenophobic stuff that’s
happening in the city, all of that dominates my mind, quite a lot of the time. Then there’s the
fact that science fiction is the other big part of my mind, and I started to realize that the two
fit well together. There’s no message, per se, that I’m trying to get across with the movie. It’s
rather that I want to present science fiction, and put it in the environment that affected me. In
the process, maybe I highlight all the topics that interest me, but I’m not giving any answers.
You can take from it what you will.”
Social critique:
“District 9 utilises the generic elements of the science fiction film to critique both
apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.”
It both acknowledges and subverts science fiction tropes.
Globalisation – private military company MNU stand in place of the apartheid
government.
Xenophobia – critiqued, or reinforced?
