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 14^th 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.