District 9 is a movie about human and alien cohabitation that is shot like a documentary to give you a more realistic relationship to the characters and they’re relationships and interactions with each other. The movie starts out with a large paramilitary company (Multinational United, commonly referred to as MNU) in Johannesburg, South Africa, trying to evict 1.8 million aliens from a militarized slum known as district 9. The aliens, commonly referred to by a derogatory term “prawns”, are being evicted due to the humans of Johannesburg who live near the slums being fed up with dealing with them and demanding that they be moved to a new place, district 10. District 10 is 200 kilometers from the city of Johannesburg, which gives the locals …show more content…
living near district 9 a lot of relief that the “prawns” will be far away. MNU sends its agents, along with a paramilitary group, to give notice to the alien residence of their eviction from district 9. Most of the aliens in district 9 do not understand what is happening or they don’t want to move. Most fight back against the eviction resulting in the countless deaths of innocent aliens along with a few guilty ones whose shacks had been found to contain guns and alien weaponry. The aliens aren’t the only residence of district 9, they are accompanied by the Nigerians. The Nigerians in district 9 are portrayed as gangsters, prostitute, and which doctors who all exploit the aliens by selling the aliens weapons and cat food at an extremely steep price, and eating the aliens to try and absorb their powers, which is ultimately unsuccessful. While MNU Is serving its eviction notices, the protagonist, Wikus van de Merwe, gets infected with an alien fluid he finds during a raid of Christopher Johnson, the alien who later helps Wikus, friend’s house after that alien rebels hurts his arm. At first it just seems as if a strange fluid hits Merwe and he wipes it off as if it was nothing, but throughout the next couple scenes you see him slowly become sicker and sicker until he gets sick at a surprise party that his wife, Tonya, is having for him which results in him going to the hospital. Once at the hospital with his wife in the waiting room, the doctors discover that his arm is like that of an alien, so they immediately rush him into quarantine to do testing. During the testing done by MNU they discover that Wikus can control alien machinery. Due to how valuable he is to the government and how much research they could do on his body they decide to kill him and harvest his organ to do research on. Merwe’s father in law, Piet Smit, who is also the director of MNU, consents to this and tells Tonya, his daughter, that Wikus had been having sexual relations with the aliens and that’s he has contracted an alien STD. Wikus, obviously not wanting to die, fights back and runs away and goes into hiding to avoid being killed by the government. Wikus goes into district 9 to hide because he believes that he can hide successfully there from MNU. While hiding in Christopher Johnson’s house, the alien whose friend had the fluid that infected him, he discovers his plan to go back to his home planet, and that he has the technology to fix what is happening to him. The two then team up together to steal the fluid back from MNU and after much fighting they complete the mission successfully. By the time that they get back to Christopher’s house the MNU is on their tail and trying to catch them. Wikus learns that it will take three years for Christopher to fix him since he plans on going to his home planet before fixing him causes Wikus to try to escape with Christopher’s son while leaving Christopher to die in the hands of MNU.Wikus tries to fly the ship hiding under Christopher’s house, but gets shot down by a missile shot by MNU. Once the ship gets shot down MNU captures Wikus and try to detain him, on their way to leave district 9 the Nigerians stop them because their leader Obesandjo, wants to eat his arm. The Nigerians and MNU get into a shoot out which allows Wikus to escape and climb into an alien battle suit and tries to escape, one again leaving Christopher to die. Wikus hears in the suit that they plan on just killing Christopher and has a change of heart and turns around to save him. Wikus distracts and holds off the MNU soldiers while Christopher runs to the ship with his son and they float up into the mother ship and begin to take off. The film ends with a bunch of experts in their field speculating about what has happened to Wikus van de Merwe since then, none of them knowing the exact answer. It then goes on to show his wife holding a flower made out of trash saying she thinks it might be from Wikus, but isn’t sure. The last scene in the film is an alien making a trash flower, similar to the one that Tonya received. District 9 has many social psychology influences, including but not being limited too downward social comparison, stereotyping, and groupthink. Downward social comparison is when you try to make yourself feel better by comparing yourself to those who are less fortunate or less able than you are.
An example of this is if you make your high school basketball team but aren’t the best on the team. To make yourself feel better about this you compare yourself to those who didn’t even make the team or those who are on the team but are slightly less talented at basketball than you are. This self-concept is portrayed in the movie in multiple scenes and in multiple ways. The citizens of Johannesburg compared themselves to the aliens and the Nigerians constantly thinking that they were better and more privileged than then aliens. This is illustrated well in one specific when the MNU agents are serving eviction notices. The MNU agents do not give the aliens 24 hours’ notice of eviction even though it is illegal not to do so, and when and if the aliens figure it out they threaten to take away their kids or just kill them on the spot. The Nigerians also feel as if they are better and more entitled than the aliens. In one scene, two aliens have an alien robot fighting mechanical suit that they want to trade for 10,000 cans of cat food, a seemingly fair trade. The Nigerians give them 100 cans and as the two aliens are leaving, they call one back and then hit him on the back of the head and chop his arm off to eat it and “absorb their power”. This scene shows how everyone sees aliens at the bottom of the food chain and as completely
dispensable. Another aspect of social psychology that is demonstrated in the movie is stereotypes. Stereotypes are a schema about a member of a societal group that may or may not be correct about that certain group. Schemas allow us to think quickly and efficiently and are made up between associations and connections between ideas. Stereotypes are these schemas applied to people. Stereotypes generally have some grain of truth in them, but cannot always be trusted or used to group people accurately, but because they require less cognition they are used quiet often. Stereotypes are
Neill Blomkamp directed the film District 9 which was released in 2009. This South African science fiction action thriller was Blomkamp’s first feature film and is an extension of a short film, Alive in Joburg, Blomkamp did in 2006 (IMDb). In the film, aliens have invaded earth and are wanting to live among the humans, but the humans, being the xenophobic society that they are, discriminate the aliens; the aliens are then lead to a ghetto, known as District 9, in which they are to live. As the film progresses, one of the humans (Wikus Van De Merw) is sprayed by some alien chemical and begins to turn into an alien. The film then goes on to show Wikus’ struggle to cope with being half alien. Blomkamp evokes both ethos and pathos to show how the animalistic contemporary society has turned through the geography, film style and character development.
Temporary inequality exists as a means of “improving” a subordinate to the level of a dominant. After the period of inequality is over, the two view each other as equals. The other form of inequality, permanent inequality, exists solely because of an ascription of inferiority to a subordinate that is inherent and unchangeable. Unlike temporary inequality, there is no possibility of improvement for the subordinate; they are, in the eyes of the dominant, inferior and impossible to “fix.” The dominants, who view themselves naturally superior to the subordinates, begin to take advantage of the subordinates. “Out of the total range of human possibilities, the activities most highly valued in any particular culture will tend to be enclosed within the domain of the dominant group; less valued functions are relegated to the subordinates” (Rothenberg, 112). Moreover, the subordinates, who by this point are under the total control of the dominant group, may begin to internalize the value of the dominants. “[Subordinates’] incapacities are ascribed to innate defects or deficiencies of mind or body…More importantly, subordinates themselves can come to find it difficult to believe in their own ability” (112). This theory of domination and subordination are clearly mirrored in race relations in the United States. Whites, who are the dominant group, make all of the fallacious errors involved in race-based thinking; they are prone to, like Miller describes, hoarding superior roles in society and practicing systematic cruelty towards the subordinates due to their sincere belief that the subordinates are inherently incapable of rising to the level of the dominant. This internalized belief on the part of the dominants, that the subordinates
Feeling the need to be superior over blacks, Whites would prefer uneducated and thieving blacks over blacks that had knowledge because these blacks had self consciousness and knew “the worth of their own humanity.”
Neil Postman begins chapter 9 of his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by discussing if politics is actually a spectator sport or if politics is just like the way show business is run. This chapter is titled ‘Reach out and Elect someone’, and Postman first writes about how politics is more like a "spectator sport" or, as Ronald Reagan put it, "like show business" (125).
Gender and Race play the most prominent role in the criminal justice system. As seen in the movie Central Park 5, five African American boys were charged with the rape of the a white women. In class decision we’ve discussed how the media explodes when it reports cross-racial crimes. The Central Park 5 were known everywhere and even terms were being made up during the process such as wilding. Also, during one of the class discussions it was brought up that victims of crime are of the same race of the perpetrator. However, the media likes to sensationalize crime of the victim being of a different race, because it makes for a good story. By doing this, the media does create more of a division of race. As seen in the video Donald Trump was trying
With wonderful learning opportunities, a team of sharp and intelligent classmates and teachers, and specialized equipment, the Governor’s School at Innovation Park is the ultimate dream of all determined math/science devotees. With my natural curiosity for mathematics and science and eagerness to take on challenging ideas, I can collaborate with the team at Governor’s School to develop our wide spectrum of ideas and abilities into a highly sophisticated product.
Fanon cites Hegel in saying that one’s sense of self worth and even reality comes from others, particularly from how they react to one’s actions (Fanon 191). This racism even gets instilled among blacks themselves because of an inferiority complex derived from blacks living in a world where their human worth is questioned; since blacks are not in a position to put down white people, they prove their worth by putting down each other. Ultimately, blacks perceive whites to be better since they would not want to be white if they didn’t believe that this would alleviate their
As a student at Northvale Public School, I have grown up with my older siblings being inducted into an organization called the National Junior Honor Society. I had seen all the hard work and dedication they put into their school work and activities just to get into this society, making me want to be just like them. Then a few weeks ago, I found a note on my desk in homeroom telling me that I had been nominated to be apart of this society. Through citizenship and character, leadership, and service, I intend on being inducted into the society I have heard so much about. Though it will take a lot of effort this school year, being a part of this society is a dream of mine that I will make sure to come true.
In “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop, the narrator attempts to understand the relationship between humans and nature and finds herself concluding that they are intertwined due to humans’ underlying need to take away from nature, whether through the act of poetic imagination or through the exploitation and contamination of nature. Bishop’s view of nature changes from one where it is an unknown, mysterious, and fearful presence that is antagonistic, to one that characterizes nature as being resilient when faced against harm and often victimized by people. Mary Oliver’s poem also titled “The Fish” offers a response to Bishop’s idea that people are harming nature, by providing another reason as to why people are harming nature, which is due to how people are unable to view nature as something that exists and goes beyond the purpose of serving human needs and offers a different interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. Oliver believes that nature serves as subsidence for humans, both physically and spiritually. Unlike Bishop who finds peace through understanding her role in nature’s plight and acceptance at the merging between the natural and human worlds, Oliver finds that through the literal act of consuming nature can she obtain a form of empowerment that allows her to become one with nature.
Even though they seemed to respect the Europeans at first, they later saw the Europeans as ruthless. Besides Native Americans, the European powers also profoundly obstructed the Native Americans by capturing them for labor along with treating them as non-human beings. Due to European powers, both the Native Americans and Africans lost sight of themselves. Since both groups lost sight of themselves, they were stereotyped in many negative ways that affected them in the long run. In other words, race is a social construct built on the progress of society.
District 9 is a science fiction film produced by Peter Jackson (2009). The story is established through a mix of third person camera and documentary footage that takes place in present time. This is a twist of regular science fiction that typically takes place in the future. The film takes place in a “colony” of alien refugees (Prawns) are forced by humans to live in a South African slum. This is an example of social satire as it presents a critique to the injustice with which we treat those who are different from us. The nature of racism is shown by the metaphors of science fiction with the ideology and discourse to deal with those who are different than us whom we fear or despise. The low budget film has no flair no big budget special effects, casts no name actors and is generally considered an anti-Hollywood film. The story line is that of an extraterrestrial race that ultimately makes contact with Earth and the relationships between these aliens and humans within society.
As an American citizen we seem to make presumption that all cultures are different from ours, and some might even call those cultures weird. Americans fail to realize just how similar we are to these “weird” cultures. By reading Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe and The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald , it makes the reader realize how similar the African culture is from the American culture. There 's those obvious differences we already knew about with the two cultures, but readers can learn that not just American culture value men and give them advantages, but many cultures including 1900 's African culture. In both books we come across two main characters that is portrayed as being more superior compared to others. Okonkwo, main
Middle schoolers everywhere get overwhelmed transitioning through at least seven subjects throughout the day. It becomes hard to think and concentrate when you don’t ever get a brake. Today, one in every five students in kindergarten through eighth grade have obesity. This is due to not having physical exercise and recess. Day after day middle schoolers suffer from depression and obesity just because they don’t get recess. Some agree kids need recess to stay healthy and active, but others believe that recess isn’t mandatory, and it doesn't improve obesity rates and depression. Middle schoolers need recess because it lowers obesity and depression rates, and it makes transitions
Have you ever wondered how it would feel to be considered inferior because of your race? The people of South Africa had to endure racial inferiority during the era of apartheid. The apartheid laws the government of South Africa made led to an unequal lifestyle for the blacks and produced opposition.
There are various influences on everyone’s lives while growing up. I believe the greatest of these influences is the neighborhood you grew up in. I grew up in a quite large, welcoming neighborhood. While living in this neighborhood, I was outgoing and remarkably talkative. Making friends became second nature to me. Playing outdoors from sunrise to sundown playing sports or exploring the outdoors with my friends became a daily routine for me. I was outgoing, talkative, and active. I believe this is the result of the neighborhood I grew up in.