Pimp shit, like the tilted hat, the long bling of a forgotten childhood, the pursuit of frizzled out memories of that time when things weren’t fucked up and so damn complicated. Eighteen years. The boy’s razor slides sideways, long, glazing his stubble with cut roots and the pepper-spray feeling of another damn day in this over-heated mad-cat jungle of a city. The pain throbs on the right side of his face, alleyway bruises left pulsating on the cheekbone as he looks out the rusty grated window to see the shiny black towncars slipping through the cracks of the overbearing city, his footnoted neighborhood and the little boys of 6 or 9 weave through their sandbox traffic. Facing the mirror, a stranger. Deep set eyes, crimped hair, a natural look of indifference. Mother yelling to come get breakfast from the kitchen. Eggs on toast, OJ, bacon or sausage. He wouldn’t eat any of it. Lifts his shirt. Wants tats on his left pec, maybe around his bicep. Some sort of sign, a “don’t fuck with me today or ever” thing. Wouldn’t need words. His arm carries on wind-stroke summer mornings to the ivory-stone brush, a gift from his beloved, now deceased, grandfather. Long tender strokes forward till the wave is just right, the hair just so. Fingers splay themselves outwards in octopus fashion, wrap around the toothbrush as the faded rubber duckie looks on from the corner of the pea-green sink. A few brushes, a rinse, a forced smile. The brush has served its purpose and returns, exhausted, spent, used. Sidelong glance out the grate again. Ms. Brinkley walking her three-legged pitbull zig-zag to the street corner and back, Ms. Nelson pushing the red laundry cart filled with cans, Mr. Tealey just sitting there looking dazed. What happened? Life raised its glass too early, offered water instead of wine. Pulls away from the repetitive scene, walks his toes along the surgeon green tiles, the glass bead trim. Finger-painting goldfish swim along the walls into blue bowls of clean. Wind-up bath-toy frogs await their next great race in stony, plastic anticipation. The bundle of dried flowers, a gift to his mother from his father, hangs above the rusty shower head. His legs threadbare, mind awash in memory. Takes his tongue and rolls it around his teeth: smooth, clean, simple. Cocoa butter ripples over his hands, down his neck, over his legs. He stops.
Silence outside and his mother has stopped calling for him. Tenderly opens the grate, lifts the window. Hears a single bird from blocks away. The whole neighborhood has stopped, women and children hanging out the tenement windows, men holding their bowling caps loosely to the side, shading their eyes. As the brightness fades, he sees Mr. Tealey, awash in white light, strolling down the main road, the cars have turned off to the side, grills agape. He takes each step as if it were his last, sets his cane down with perfection. Saunters into the distance undaunted by age, unhindered by repetition or unhappiness. Sedentary nomads of the city’s streets take flight and shake the city from its darkened reveries and the boy looks on unhinged.
He knew the sound well. Banked many nights on it. Rolling through the streets unseen, the dark procession of the cars down Eastern Parkway lulled him to sleep on those turning nights of late. Out his window, the gleam of the fire escape gave him comfort, let him know that if there were ever trouble, it would allow for his quick escape to the outside world. The bustle of the humans and their machines. That continual drive towards betterment, happiness, contentment and the rest. Gunshots sounded in the distance.
He couldn’t remember the last good night’s rest. The kava root, Bendryl, Nyquil and other sleep-aid concoctions had all run dry. He was left with himself, his thoughts, his rambling nonsensical ravings. On these quiet nights, he could hear clear down to the Brooklyn museum, the towering concrete building waving goodnight to the late-night carousers on its doorstep. Roarings, chirpings and the chatterings of the Prospect Park Zoo played streaming continuals through his brain, bringing to light the many illumined dreamings of a non-dreamer. He paused to count sheep, heard only the blaring Hasidic music from two houses down that played syncopated notes to the black and white divide of his neighborhood. He knew that one day there might be peace, some semblance of togetherness but he wondered at what cost.
The cats had caught on to his insomnia, clawing at his bedroom door, attempting to ramble with him through his sleepless night. The blaring of a car alarm and a restless cockroach draws them away for the timeless battle of beast against beast. Waving in the dimly lit, yellowed alleyway, the broad-leafed tree yanks its branches in the midnight breeze, calls to its arboresque brothers and sisters to reach higher, attain greatness. He pulls the covers over his head, thinks of the cup of coffee in the morning, focuses on his heavy breaths. Black, no sugar. Just as he likes it. A continual, predictable beginning to his often unpredictable days. He takes a few more breaths, drawing them inwards and explores the entrails of his darkened kingdom. One more breath and he’s on his way. One more night, another soulful process.
The cars continue unabated, the trees reach skyward and the cats have taken their leave. He is asleep tonight until awake tomorrow. One cup. Black, no sugar.
They raise their hands to the sky, sheets of rain coating the staggered brick buildings and water tanks of New York City out the dusty, rusted frame of the studio window. “And.. grand plie, ” the Teacher states as she gallantly yet playfully peruses the various work of those taking her morning class. She walks slowly, smiling and her blue, pin-striped tracksuit laps at the tongues of her clunky black sneakers.
Each individual seems in a trance, at once taking communion with God, the Spirit, Beauty while at the same time working in undeniable unison with one another, driven by the presence of the subtle yet thorough presence of the Teacher. Spirit shot through extremities hits the studio beams overhead, causes the white paint to peel, curl and float down to the sweaty black studio tarmac below.
The jazzy piano plays loud, blue tarps wail from the roof in the wind outside, and the hum of the fan reverberates against the stretched bodies of the twenty-two dancers who have, on this Saturday morning, chosen to take their communion through the only means that some of them may know: ballet. Strenuous, precise, at once chaotic and controlled, each individual consciously battles against their limits, moves within the confines of what they find to be possible on that particular day. It is communication with the great unseen, the timeless pursuit of pure joy, peace, artistic expression and release.
The movements have increased, “Adagio…petite allegro…grand allegro,” the teacher slides in and out of each dancer in a contorted dance of her own. The white plastic fan, its dust-laden grill and worn, gray dials drones on, the piano plays louder, the movements increase in speed. The crescendo of movements fly one body into the next, groups of three’s and four’s gracing the studio floors with unbounded movements and agility. Those who swim in the channels of passion let loose, their movements extending the corporeal, becoming one with the worn walls of this studio of communion. Forbidden from the ‘then’ and the ‘what may be’, each take in stride the ‘now’ within which they operate and breathe deep and proud of that which makes them live and brings them joy. They are dancers.
Just as the class had begun, it ends. The fan slows its blades, the rain begins to lower its downward procession, the tarps stem their madness, the bricks quiet their voluminous tales. The city reclaims its presence in the minds of its temporary angels. For a moment, transported to a timeless presence, each dancer slows, clocks unwinding from the morning’s moments left untouched. The Teacher sits on the rusted brown fold-out chair, holds her head steady, her gaze and smile intact, her hands folded right over left and ever so slowly, each dancer makes their exit.
The Teacher, perfectly postured, peacefully awaits their inevitable return.
My pulp chamber was infected, my roots had run afoul. “A root canal. Really?” I directed a sidelong glance at the dentist, partly out of anger and partly because he had put so much local anesthesia in my mouth that it hung down on one side like a pair of melted breasts. “You see your nerves are all but dead in there. It seems strange that you haven’t run into a lot of pain but from the look of the x-rays, it’s been infected for some time and you’ve probably just become accustomed to the pain.” “Accustomed to the pain”–I rolled it over in my head. Began to think of what that means, how we know what pain is after a while when it just becomes part of who we are. Extreme pain is easy to feel, right? I know when my finger gets smashed in the door, my arm dislocated, a friend or family member lost, my foot run over by a car. But what of that creeping pain, that small headache that you tell yourself will go away day after day, those drinks that keep on coming when the original pain has been replaced by the new pain of habit and vicious ghosts, that job that you hate but you tell yourself that it will get better or that you need to do this just for now until 15 years pass by and you wonder what ever happened? We put things on hold and stem the pain with distraction, tell ourselves that those dreams we had as kids when we were running around the streets with friends or in those grassy hills with the dogs can wait, that the time will come for them but the time is not now. We tell ourselves that this is part of growing up, that letting go of our dreams is not a form of death, that it’s just a necessary and temporary evil. But that temporality expands. It’s the creeping pain that edges its way into our dental pulp, rots it away, kills the nerves, leaves us numb.
We go in to get a basic checkup and a dentist tells us that we need a root canal, need to clean out the rotten dental pulp, replace it with endofile, cap it with rubber. A new beginning. Just like that.
The dentist was looking at me funny. I’d been sitting there thinking and looking at the tiled ceiling. I lowered my head, met his eyes, and slowly said the following: “Whatever the cost, however long it takes, I want that fucking root canal”.
People yelling out the window and that ice cream truck has made the rounds on the block 5 times and counting. The heat sweeps down on the area like a microwaved blanket and the hums of the neighborhood air conditioners sweep away an semblance of those picture-perfect silent nights you read about in children’s books. This is the city that never sleeps, the borough that never dies. Brooklyn. The people here are resilient, coming back year after year, most of them never leaving. Whites move in, blacks move out, the Dominicans and Puerto Ricans fight to hold on to their parent’s old places and corner mom and pop stores close their shutters faster than ever. Prices continue to rise. The cream rises to the top and while the average man and woman on the street struggle to pay the bills, avoid eviction, keep their kids out of trouble (or worse, out of the ground), and live some semblance of a life not marked by constant ‘goings’, the top brass haggle over multi-million dollar bonuses, new business strategies to better Corporation X. Meanwhile, the Hudson flows with copters and lost dreams, the NYPD keeps on growing to meet the rising crime, drug use is increasing. The streets are tattered red, white and blue. I walk down our streets accosted by increasingly aggressive hobos, people selling brown reed hats made in India, kids being sent over by their mothers to beg for change: anything to make a buck. The city swarms with a reeling hunger of the soul, each one searching for that one good hit that’s gonna make the day, fill the bank, keep the worries low and the smiles high.
The truck has stopped and kids swarm it like ants to honey. The cool treats call to the kids like crack to an addict and the parents watch on tiredly from the scattered stoops, fanning themselves slow-motion style with folded copies of the Daily News. Garbage day tomorrow and the black bags are stuffed and piled high like the rejected-toy-closets of an overzealous Santa Claus. Rickety rackets from down the street as the JMZ passes through the twilight into the abyss of the cold-hearted metropolis. The yellow cabs zig-zag through the scabbed and boiled streets, street pounders wail on their leather and rubber soles heading god-knows-where. But it’s hot. A heat that stops you in your tracks, asks for your name and maybe some directions and then punches you in the face. Seeps into your clothes, your hair, your skin. Marks itself upon your body and slips down into the belly of the subways to breed.
A woman with a red bonnet and a torn flower-print dress approaches a mean-looking but wealthy man maybe in his 80′s. Asks for some help. You see her daughter recently left with her boyfriend recently released from prison, her home was foreclosed on, she has no one else to go to, no where to stay. Could he spare some change? He turns and looks at her, just sick to the stomach. The filth of the streets has the gall to bother me and all that jazz. Some punk kid swings by and snatches his bag, takes off. I turn a shit-stained grin in his general direction. These streets are mean, often in a quiet way. You get home and just wanna sit and do nothing, the vampiric concrete and human sponges having taken your last bodily juices. Would have taken more but you’ve stopped them, demanded some respect, a little dignity. Some peace and as-near-to-quiet as you’ll ever get in this busting-at-the-seams hive.
The ice cream truck leaves and the children resume their play. Thunder in the distance. The rain will come hard and quick and leave just as fast, a trail of dragon breath in it’s wake. The stoop-crowd looks up into the sky for just a peek and throw their necks back down towards the concrete cavasses of their beginnings and most likely, their ends. Another night, another heat wave. This is Brooklyn: the borough that never dies.
The cats have lost their minds and all control over basic bodily functions. Ninety degrees outside, humidity rising, the two felines sprawl on the savanna of stucco tiles and shoot sidelong glances at their reflections from the pools of urine they have left at the door to my room. They demand to be fed and feel this is the quickest, most direct form of communication that can be used while requiring little expenditure of energy in these heated times. I stare at them, one foot immersed in their yellow protest, asking myself silently how best a cat can be cooked. I decide on baked with scallop potatoes. My fury is interrupted by the peripheral view of a schizo, jogging cockroach. I name him Nedry and Nedry will soon die. The felines catch him in their gaze and it’s a slow, methodical snatching that sends segmented body parts of Nedry flying across the kitchen floor. They finish their meal, lie back down, stretch long and proud. I revel in their simplicity, forgive their foul play, and take the few minutes they have graciously given back to me before I need to feed them. Love when convenient, pee when distressed, hunt when hungry.
Walking down West 16th street in search of a mysterious woman who claimed to not only live on that particular street but have in her possession what is seemingly a rare gem of an item otherwise known as an air conditioner, I began contemplating all the bad things I have done in my life and came to the conclusion that hell, far from as hot as the big sweaty apple of NYC, would be bearable and in many ways preferable.
In hell, I wondered, would people be so dazed and confused that they would keep themselves from becoming rabid, pushy subway rats? Would corner hot dog vendors continue to talk on their nearly invisible bluetooths causing you to ask them what they are saying every 2 minutes or would the cell service be dropped? Would the putrid smell of burning pretzels waft through the thickened air, singing your eyebrows? Would the tall skyscrapers of hell grab the sunlight and beam it down in focused death-rays like a sick and twisted four year old with a magnifying glass and a hill of ants? Would spindly women in stilletos knock you in the testicles with their 6 bags of petite-sized clothing, wedges and diamond-studded collars for their furry rat-dogs named ‘Pookie’? Is it conceivable that in hell, taxi drivers would get you in their car, lose all sense of time, space, and direction (mind you, while the meter is rolling), and have the gall to ask you how to get to where he is supposed to be taking you? As a visitor to hell, would one continue to be held hostage in a subway car by a man playing amazingly painful anti-tunes on an out-of-tune guitar with a glass-shattering voice? Would subways continue to fill one’s nose with scents of urine and feces and would the rats be larger than most domesticated house cats? Would subway platforms be 30 degrees hotter than the physical termperature limits of any earth-bound human being and would other people continue to stand one foot away from you when there is 10 clear feet of space on the other side? Would a three-foot wide woman think it conceivable to alter the fabric of space and sit next to you in a one-foot-wide space?
Asking myself these questions, I began to think of what my personal conception of hell would be and very quickly I came to realize that summers in NYC are pretty much it. “Welcome to the inferno,” I told myself. “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere”. I just never realized ‘make it’ meant ‘not die of heat exhaustion’.
Please note that this piece was recently published on The Mantle and can be found at the following URL: http://www.mantlethought.org/content/district-6-district-9-metaphoric-menagerie.
Prefatory Note
This article was originally written solely based on the viewing of the short by Neil Blomkamp from 2005 entitled Alive in Jo’Burg (the short which District 9 is largely based on), the trailer to District 9 and the viral marketing campaign that Sony Pictures was conducting through three main websites. Since the writing of this, District 9 has come out and although I feel I was largely spot-on with my conjecture of what was going to take place in the full length feature, there remains one aspect which I could not have predicted: Blomkamp and Jackson’s treatment of Nigerians. Speaking to someone from Cape Town recently, he explained that Nigerians, to many South Africans, are the scapegoats for many of the social or political woes in their country, particularly in Cape Town. The xenophobic attacks and my personal experiences of hearing and seeing the treatments of Nigerians in Cape Town only seem to corroborate this. However, I would argue this does not change the questions that I have raised within this article. What work does the treatment of Nigerians do and for whom? What political or social agendas does such a treatment tap into and is it appropriate in any way, shape or form to depict and use Nigerians in this way? I would also ask a broader question related to Peter Jackson as a filmmaker and producer: what commonalities, particularly related to race and metaphor, can be traced through a number of his films: King Kong, Lord of the Rings (3), District 9, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011- Jackson’s animation company will be used and he will direct the sequel), The Hobbit (2011) and Halo (2012)? The treatment of Nigerians, given the overall usage of race and metaphor within Alive in Jo’Burg and District 9, is unfortunately not surprising and only adds credence to my proposal below which states that the film and the creative choices of the director and producer deserve critical and thorough interrogation.
District 6 In District 9: The Metaphoric Menagerie
Gone
Buried
Covered by the dust of defeat—
Or so the conquerors believed
But there is nothing that can
Be hidden from the mind.
Nothing that memory cannot
Reach or touch or call back.
-Don Mattera, 1987[1]
Introduction
A red sun silhouettes rows of shacks, a black woman in mismatched clothes with an African accent tells of missing people and increased security whilst pictures of UN-esque tanks are shown and an unknown white woman in a business suit says, “The government noticed that they were moving into new areas. That’s when things started to get out of hand”, while a panning shot of township shacks rolls past in the background. This is the beginning sequence in a new film entitled District 9, produced by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) with Sony Pictures and directed by Neill Blomkamp (a white South African director) based largely on Blomkamp’s short entitled Alive in Jo’Burg (2005) which takes place in a 1990’s apartheid South Africa. The metaphor within Blomkamp’s short as well as District 9 is clear to those even slightly familiar with South African history: aliens are representative of the blacks and colored’s forced removals and segregation from whites under the Group Areas acts of the apartheid regime. The metaphor is so clear in fact that one wonders whether Blomkamp is referencing perhaps one of the most famous forcible removals of over 60,000 people from District 6 in the Western Cape to the dusty Cape Flats some 25 kilometers away. But then again, how clear is this metaphor and how would people unfamiliar with South African history read movies such as Alive in Jo’Burg or District 9? This paper is first and foremost an interrogative paper, asking many more questions than offering solutions in the face of the complexities surrounding interpretations of metaphor. Within this paper, I will attempt to accomplish three things: explore Blomkamp’s approach to Alive in Jo’Burg, District 9 (as well as the film’s vast viral marketing campaign), outline a brief history of the District 6 removal, and lastly, attempt to carve out some of the problematics that arise when treating race with metaphor within the medium of film and hopefully raise some pertinent questions for filmmakers and consumers to consider. While it is sometimes effective to use metaphor in opening a dialogue about race, does such a use of metaphor as is used in Blomkamp’s work actually do more to solidify pre-conceived notions of immigrants, non-whites and Africa?
Alive in Jo’Burg
Alive in Jo’Burg (2005) opens on a township road, car overturned, with alien spacecraft hovering overhead (see Independence Day) as a white police officer stands to the right of the camera. It quickly cuts to an ‘alien’, encased in a “really fantastic bio-suit”, and then to a balding white man (authority figure) who speaks of the apartheid government’s mounting fears as the ‘aliens’ are moving into new areas. It is a short film (only slightly over 6 minutes), directed by Neil Blomkamp and shot in a handheld documentary style (see Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield) that is set in a 1990’s apartheid South Africa mixing live action with CGI. Multi-National United (MNU and clear metaphor for the apartheid government) is immediately cast as the antagonist that violently reacts to the movements of the ‘alien’ population: “And this is when the government started to get tough. This is when things started to get out of hand.” Two suited officers begin shooting at the ‘alien’, an ‘alien’ standing amidst a deserted township setting seemingly doing no harm whatsoever. And then, about a minute and a half in, something very interesting happens. A black screen with “Southern Africa: 1990” comes up and we are taken back to the balding white man who says, “They were captive labor…They were living in conditions that really were…not good.” The metaphor for blacks and coloreds living under the apartheid regime, if not clear yet, becomes overwhelmingly apparent. The film cuts to the aliens describing their appalling conditions and the fact that, “this place doesn’t want us” (subtitles make sense of their ‘alien’ language for us). With protruding tendrils surrounding their ‘mouths’, the ‘aliens’ huddle around an oil-barrel fire dressed eerily like many of the characters in Tsotsi, the 2005 film about the Jo’Burg township misfit that finds redemption through parenting the child of one of his carjacking victims. And in perhaps one of the most interesting turns, the camera cuts from the ‘aliens’ to a black man (cargo container in the background), explaining that, “They make people uncomfortable…we don’t know how they think…they’re going to make us unsafe”. He is speaking English and yet subtitles are used. In fact, throughout the entire film, the only time that subtitles are used are for non-whites and aliens even though the Afrikaans accent used by many of the white actors is arguably more difficult to make sense of. An interesting question arises: what does it mean for this black man (and later, others) to speak against his metaphorical self? From the concerned black township resident, the film cuts to Constable Bongai Zulu, a black policeman (whose English is also subtitled) and we see him and another white policeman gunning down the ‘aliens’ without any particular reasoning that is made clear to the viewer. The camera cuts once again to the balding white man who explains that because of the Afrikaans minority, the apartheid government overly reacted to any perceived threat. The premise (and the metaphor) is established three minutes into the film.
From minute three to the end of the film, Blomkamp merely reinforces his metaphoric storyline with testimonials from black shopkeepers, drivers and white policemen. ‘Aliens’ with blurred out faces demand electricity and running water (common reasons for protest in apartheid South Africa), are illegally stopped in their cars, pulled out and beaten in Rodney King fashion, and in one of the most telling ties to non-whites under the apartheid regime, are admonished for running cables into preexisting sources of electricity and ‘stealing’ it (this ‘free-rider’ narrative is reinforced by stories of ‘aliens’ catching free rides on the top of trains). The film ends on a less-than-promising note as a group of township residents march against the aliens and Jo’Burg is seen in flames. The last telling scene before cutting to the credits is of an older black woman with a purple beret lifting her fist in the black power salute as an angry mob of blacks runs past her. This is the short film that the new District 9 film is largely based on, slated to be released on August 14th of this year. Before delving into some of the major questions that arise in Blomkamp’s short, Alive in Jo’Burg, I wish to briefly explore the District 9 trailer and the viral marketing campaign that has been taking place.
District 9: Trailer and Viral Marketing Campaign
Similar strains to those found within Alive in Jo’Burg abound within the trailer of District 9. A black screen with the words, “They are not welcome” is followed by testimonials by a white Afrikaans woman (“They don’t belong here”) and a young black girl (“They’re spending so much money to keep them here when they could be spending it on other things. At least they’re keeping them separate from us”). Two black screens follow: “They are not accepted”, and with a rising musical score in the background, “They are not human”. The black screen abruptly opens up to a CGI shot of the alien spacecraft hovering above the township shacks, military helicopters avidly circling. The picture is crisp, the feeling of the handheld documentary is slightly lost and there are no subtitles for black characters or aliens. This is seemingly a less problematic take on Blomkamp’s short that ends with the words, “I just want everyone that is watching right now to learn from what has happened”. What are we to learn? From whom (questions which will apparently be answered in the full-length feature)? The trailer itself leaves little material behind with which to explore but the viral marketing campaign that has been taking place has been extensive. There are three main sites connected to the film that are elaborate to say the least and are very much worth looking at: the District 9 (D-9), Multinational United, and MNU Spreads Lies sites.
The main thrust of the District 9 (D-9) site is to offer humans the chance to “live long, prosperous lives” and “deal with non-humans”. It offers an interactive satellite image of the physical location of District 9, a community watch program, continuous news feeds and revealing behavioral recommendation pop-ups for interacting with non-humans: “Drawing pictures and using simple sign language can be an effective way of communicating with non-humans”, “Learning the non-human language can be a useful job skill”, “Entering District 9 without an MNU chaperone is discouraged”, “Non-humans must be treated with respect. Actions deemed abusive will be dealt with by the MNU or animal safety branch [my italics]”, “Please refrain from using non-human drinking fountains to prevent the spread of disease”, “Please avoid giving money to non-human beggars”, “Refrain from the manufacturing and distribution of items that may glorify non-human culture”, and my personal favorite, “Speaking clearly and loudly to a non-human will help it learn English more quickly”. What work do these “behavioral recommendations” do in light of the fact that Blomkamp seems very intent on metaphorically equating non-whites under the apartheid regime with ‘aliens’? Are they blatant forms of racism or allowable metaphoric prodding? Who is it prodding and who are such ‘recommendations’ working for? Do they truly and effectively draw our attention to the injustices enacted on non-whites under apartheid or do they operate within the already demarcated freeways of racism that operate within ourselves and our society, merely reinforcing preconceived notions of race? These and other questions will be dealt with later in the paper.
The site also offers visitors the chance to click on ‘MNU News Update’ dots which alert humans to nefarious non-human deeds and gives them the chance to join the ‘MNU Community Watch’ program which emails participants, “news and updates concerning Multi-National United (MNU) including, without limitation, information about human and non-human job opportunities at MNU, the community watch program, and District 9”. Visitors can also download various badges (i.e. MNU support materials) to don the mark of the oppressive MNU in safeguarding their ‘communities’. On the right hand side of the screen, an extensive list of rules and regulations can be downloaded (9 pages[2]) which outline anything from surveillance rules to hygienic conduct (Act 3, Section 1.2 under sexual relations states that, “sexual relationships between humans and non-humans are prohibited”). This is only the ‘human’ section of the site. Sony Pictures has gone to great lengths and created an entirely separate section of the site for ‘aliens’. Non-human visitors must click the ‘alien’ button to enter this section, under which is written the following: “Look for blue sound icons to hear text translated in English. Spoken English is required for inter-species assimilation”. Upon entering, one notices something strange immediately: the entire MNU news-feed, rules, regulations and behavior recommendations are in the ‘alien’ language but upon closer inspection, the characters are curiously similar to Chinese characters. Consulting a friend fluent in written Mandarin as well as Cantonese, he was perplexed to find that in fact the characters were Chinese characters, merely elongated and slightly bastardized. As the behavior recommendations pop up on the bottom left hand corner of the screen, the visitor not fluent in ‘alien’ must click on the audio button to have the ‘alien’ language read aloud…in English. And the behavior recommendations are potent: “Always speak in soft tones when speaking with humans to avoid confrontation”, “Always speak English in public. Spoken English is required for interspecies assimilation”, “Please keep creative expression private. Art, photography, and other crafts found in public will be destroyed”, “Non-human chants and music must only be performed indoors and only within the confines of District 9”, and “Always offer your seat to a standing human on a public bus or train”. The hyperbolic, performative aspect of the D-9 site plays in realistic ways to the realities of many living under the apartheid South Africa but (as will later be explored), how does it do so, what work does such performativity do and for whom?
Another major undertaking for Sony Pictures was the creation of the Multi-National United’s (MNU’s) site. Any visitor to the site is immediately bombarded by an MNU intro video with a black woman speaking to MNU’s commitment to, “bringing humankind the benefit of tomorrow’s technology today”, and is immediately thereafter hit with an MNU promo video, reminiscent of an Exxon Mobil or British Petroleum video’s attempt to make a harmful, anti-environmental corporation seem like a green and human-friendly enterprise. Of particular interest on this site are the so-called “Guidelines for a Peaceful Coexistence”, guidelines to regulate the human and non-human coexistence. A few sections stand out: “The responsibility for coexisting starts at home. Staying inside of your designated residential region will help keep order intact. Territorial integrity helps individuals feel safe, secure, and empowered”, as well as, “When encountering unfamiliar scenarios, it’s normal to react with aggression instead of reason”. The gist of the entire site is to avoid conflict and to inform humans that, if put in precarious positions, they should take heed and call upon the paternal protector, the MNU, which exists to, “maintain a human and non-human population that keeps the great spirit alive”. What spirit Sony Pictures is referring to by the ‘great spirit’ is never explained (the great spirit of separation-through-force?). Everything on the site seems designed to reassure humans that the MNU has the authority and force to create a peaceful coexistence between humans and non-humans and glaring differences of MNU’s treatment of the non-humans becomes apparent when reviewing the list of available jobs. Humans are offered jobs with substantial salaries and skill-levels while non-humans are offered jobs such as ‘Non-Human Dorm Janitor’, ‘Non-Human Waste Disposal’, or a ‘Non-Human School Teacher’ (for non-humans), all of which are offered low, hourly rates. It is made clear that this already extensive site will be expanding within the next few weeks and months leading up to the film’s release.
The third installment in Sony Pictures’ viral marketing campaign is the MNU Spreads Lies site which mimics a blog and is run by ‘George’ (an ‘alien’) and entirely written in ‘alien’ (with the option to translate to English). The site’s banner reads, ‘MNU Spreads Lies’ and, ‘Everyone Deserves Equality’ in ‘alien’ and English and also has a drawing of a human and ‘alien’ hand locked in friendship. The blog’s archives reach as far back as September of 2007, include comments by fake visitors, YouTube videos of fictitious MNU protests (strangely taking place in the United States) and links to phony competitors to the MNU (i.e. Tanukashi[3]). Outing the MNU’s corrupt practices, George comes off as an uninformed conspirator: “Ok, now it gets even worse. I overheard some guards talking yesterday at work. Did you know that MNU has strong ties to both the United States government not to mention the South African government?” Throughout his blog posts, he attempts to show the similarities between humans and aliens, at one point going meticulously through his day hour by hour and listing his activities to draw comparisons which commentators respond to by saying: “BORING”, “Darn it.! Get back to the exciting stories of abuse and salacious tales of corporate malfeasance”, and, “Uh, so this entry is supposed to make me want to campaign for alien rights or something? Forget about it. Go home!” On the right hand side of the screen, visitors are given the option to download wallpapers, posters, and icons in support of “non-human equality and rights” as well as the option of signing a petition for non-human rights. The opening sentence of the petition’s purpose (“It is our belief that all intelligent beings, both human and non-human, have basic rights to liberty and decency”) cannot help but remind its readers of civil rights proclamations in a 1960’s America or under an apartheid South Africa. As of today, 1294 people have already signed this fictitious petition. If interested in receiving further updates through the ‘non-human newsletter’, a visitor can easily submit their email addresses, date of birth, as well as their species (human or non-human) and gender. The experience of the District 9 movie is voluminous and extremely comprehensive and after a few hours of perusing their materials, fiction and fact are blended and one begins to wonder what all of this is doing. Although District 9 remains very much a fiction, one can’t help but wonder if Blomkamp is not referencing the District 6 (nine being a simple inversion of the number six?) forced removals which occurred in the Western Province of South Africa in 1965.
District 6
The Group Areas Act of 1950 was an act created under the apartheid government of South Africa, the main purpose of which was to assign different racial groups to different residential and business sections. “An affect of the law was to exclude non-whites (think ‘non-human’/‘alien’) from living in the most developed areas, which were restricted to whites”[4]. Over 60,000 people were taken from their homes and relocated to the desert plains of the Cape Flats (25 kilometers away) in 1965. It ripped societal networks and community centers apart and forced thousands to travel long distances to work in the newly-declared ‘whites-only’ areas. In a similar vein, Sophiatown near Johannesburg was razed to the ground in 1957 to make way for a whites-only area called ‘Triumph’ or ‘Triomf’ in Afrikaans[5]. Beginning in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, amidst a newly burgeoning, vibrant, and multi-racial cultural center in District 6, stories began to emerge about the District’s inhabitant’s propensities towards lewdness, violence, dirtiness, and sexual promiscuity. This depiction of District 6 as a den of vice was powerfully enacted and enforced by the National Party as early as the 1940’s. Group Areas legislation began to take effect in the late 1950’s and about 150,000 people were forcibly removed from unplanned residential areas in the town center, 60,000 of which were removed solely from District 6. All buildings (save religiously-affiliated ones) were either razed or bulldozed at a huge cost to the government as well as (obviously) to the people being removed. Racism was outright and adopted by the apartheid government in very similar ways to the Jim Crow era in the United States. ‘Reference books’ for blacks over the age of 16 were introduced in Cape Town in 1955 and police were allowed to stop black people at any point and demand to see their papers. It was an era characterized by a minority-ruled Nationalist Party anxious at even the slightest hint of an uprising for fear of a majority revolt. Sabotage Acts were passed in 1962, enabling government officials to impose house arrest in whichever way they felt most effective. Assemblies of non-whites were severely limited and the immigration by Africans to Cape Town was severely addressed by demolishing any and all shantytowns that cropped up around Cape Town and Johannesburg. In July of 1976 (and of particular interest with Alive in Jo’Burg and District 9 in mind) widespread violence erupted in Soweto, Johannesburg due to the imposition of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The violence spread into a three-day uprising, sparking a movement that would eventually help in leading South Africa out of apartheid. Once the premise of the Nationalist Party is understood to be one based largely on fear of a minority leading a far vaster majority, their actions and impositions of violence are not hard to understand as they are part and parcel of the very rules and regulations the apartheid government laid out. But what of this history? How do events of the 1960’s and 1970’s relate to the seemingly disparate creation of Alive in Jo’Burg and District 9 by white South African director? What is the relationship and what work do such movies do in light of such a relationship?
Percolating Questions
As Don Mattera’s poem of 1987 featured in the beginning of this paper states, there is nothing, “that memory cannot/reach or touch or call back”. History has a strong tendency to resurface in the present, operating in and through the now and dictating what may come of the future. The creation of Alive in Jo’Burg, the upcoming release of District 9, and the clear parallels to the Group Areas act legislation of apartheid South Africa raises many challenging questions: what does it mean to have a white South African director revisit the hardships of the Group Areas acts through metaphoric science fiction films? What does it mean to use aliens as a metaphor for the exiled and oppressed blacks and colored populations of an apartheid-era South Africa (arguably in continuance today)? As we sit and watch Alive in Jo’Burg, what does it mean that the director has chosen to put black people’s and alien’s dialogue in subtitles while the white’s words are not? Is Blomkamp drawing a direct parallel between alien and black? If so, why? Importantly, if I am uneducated in anything ‘African’, let alone South African, and District 9 is to be my first interaction with the people and idea of this place called South Africa, what image does this create and solidify in my mind about South Africa or more broadly, Africa? The largest market for this movie will most likely be within the United States. If a populace as uneducated on Africa as Americans are to watch this film, what work does that do? Does it draw links between aliens and Africans, cause people to view South Africa as a land of hostile township battles, reify once again this notion that Africa is the land of the foreign, violent, dangerous and adventurous? What would happen if Blomkamp had no aliens in his film but instead told the same story of the apartheid era with people? Would no one watch it and if so, why not? Hollywood has now grabbed a hold of two major South African narratives, both of which emanate from the township and both of which reappropriate others’ pain for profit. In Tsotsi, a township misfit finds his long-awaited redemption through caring for the child of his female carjacking victim. In District 9 (making conjectures based on Alive in Jo’Burg), we will see aliens encroaching on townships creating anxiety, conflict and a violent state response. In light of the very troubling xenophobic murders occurring against immigrants to South Africa (Zimbabweans and Nigerians in particular) largely in townships, what will this film do if its aliens are linked in South African minds (and other’s minds globally) to immigrants? What happens if we read Alive in Jo’Burg and the upcoming District 9 as anti-immigrant films? What does it mean that those involved in the production of the District 9 viral marketing campaign have taken the Chinese language, bastardized it and used it as an ‘alien language’? What does it mean to have black Africans exclaiming their hatred of the ‘aliens’ (their metaphorical selves)? The performative segregation of human and non-human is thorough in the viral marketing websites, particularly in the D-9 site. In such sites, two seemingly conflictual narratives occur. Within one, ‘humans’ (presumably of any color) are lumped together and pitted against non-humans. Within the other, Blomkamp is metaphorically referring to the apartheid regime’s hostile and oppressive tactics of control through Multi-National United and their treatment of the unwanted, discarded and oppressed ‘aliens’. How can both of these narratives operate simultaneously? Race is strategically bottled in the bodies of aliens, thus allowing whites and blacks alike to come together harmoniously in the face of the encroaching and bothersome alien population. But there is a third narrative being bandied about: that of equality for the human and non-human. What does this mean? In schizoid fashion, one narrative tells of human harmony in the face of an alien population, another speaks to the metaphor of ‘aliens’ as oppressed non-whites under the apartheid regime through countless references to historical acts of segregation, and lastly, we are told that humans and non-humans should live in harmonious coexistence. All the while, the alien language written out on the websites is a mutated form of the Chinese language and the non-white’s dialogues are subtitled along with the alien’s in Blomkamp’s short. What does all of this confusion do? To add injury to insult, in the D-9 site, often we are told that English must be spoken by the non-humans in public as it is required for interspecies assimilation. And yet, the apartheid government forced the Afrikaans language on communities (the very reason many protests were sparked in the first place) and largely detested the use of English due to historical feuds in the past between the Boers and the English (see Boer Wars of 1880-1881 and 1899-1902). Why would Blomkamp (himself of Afrikaner descent), if indeed he is trying to draw metaphoric parallels, not have the MNU officers speak Afrikaans which could then itself be subtitled in English? These are questions that truly cannot be answered by anyone other than Blomkamp and the others involved in the artistic directions of Alive in Jo’Burg and District 9 but this presumes that they are aware of the many issues such projects have surfaced and will surface once the full length feature comes out.
Conclusion
Filmmakers and producers may not care about philosophically debating the proper uses of metaphor in movements towards profit but this does not lessen the necessity to do so. Every creation is laden with choice and the responsibility to not only accept, but explore, the effects of such creation(s) is a vital aspect of the creative process. Profit does not warrant naiveté, particularly if the creative project emanates from a person enmeshed in a historical and present power structure which favors their race, gender or sexuality. Speaking of the historical and power, Trouillot states, “Naiveté is often an excuse for those who exercise power. For those upon whom that power is exercised, naiveté is always a mistake”[6]. Lacking authoritative uniformity (arguably due to its very nature as a creative figure of speech), metaphor must be interrogated for the manners with which it is employed, for whom it is exercised upon and for what ramifications such usage(s) may invoke. To catechize the creative process is to advance the resulting product and reinvigorate the power of properly used (and questioned) metaphor.
[1] http://www.districtsix.co.za/
[2] See Appendix 1
[3] See Appendix 2
[4] Resources for District 6 section: http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/districtsix.htm, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0612F83C5F137A93C7A8178ED85F428685F9, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70D1FF93D5B0C768DDDAE0894D1494D81, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0716FB39580C738EDDAB0894D0484D81,
http://www.dispatch.co.za/1999/11/05/features/SNAPSHOT.HTM, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/1043170.stm, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/cape-district-that-still-bears-scars-of-apartheid-pretorias-
[5] Much of the historical information within this section was gathered from: http://www.districtsix.co.za/
[6] Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, Beacon Press, 1995), xix.
Rock talk
To the concrete walls of New York City
The homeless appear as moles in the tunnels
And the hawkish CEOs of glim-gleam towers
Wait to pick them off
One brandished train tube at a time.
Rock talk
To the glistening rubber of overpriced name-brand boots
On the bitsy feet of Candy, Marsha, or Marlene
That tritz trounce the pavement
And just gliiide.
Rock talk
To the children of our tomorrow
Heads made of candied gaming goop
And ‘gimmie’ hands that can never be satiated.
Give ‘em poisonous input from all directions
And away they’ll munch.
Rock talk
Toa distant neighbor three inches away
And a squandered celebrity in the face of millions
Bringin’ fame only to the median
Of a fish amongst a school of sharks
In the hub-dub drub of underground passageways
And tribulations.
Rock talk
To myself in the sudden dark
Of an unlit underground chamber
And a nest of dreams a ramblin’
Within this projection system of a mind embraced
The roll keeps running, the film ain’t tarnished yet.
Rock talk
A picture frame of streaming continuals
And melt that rock into a thousand soupy strands
Of digestible truth.
To allow the people to reclaim their ears
And converse.
Took the plunge and started a blog. Thoughts, poetry, short stories to follow.
