The Racism Behind District 9 [Movie Monday]

I had heard the bad things about District 9. I had heard that it was racist, but didn't go too much into these blog posts because I didn't want to see the spoilers because I was still interested in it. Then I read the Time magazine review of the movie that hailed it for it's innovation and social commentary on apartheid. I was confused as to why these progressive bloggers would call the movie racist and Time magazine could have such a great review because of the social commentary that the purposeful racism provides. So I had to figure this out for myself (of course, if I had read the spoilers in those blog posts, I would understand why they called it racist, but I didn't want to ruin the movie).

The movie was shot and edited in a really interesting way. It was a combination of a documentary with interviews about the incidents and actually seeing these incidents. It had great special effects - the aliens, explosions, gun fights, and all. The story line is actually fairly interesting.

*Spoiler Alert!*

District 9 is a story about aliens that have become stranded on Earth in Johannesburg, South Africa. They have been sectioned off to District 9 - a slum full of crime, violence, and prostitution - and the aliens are referred to as prawns. They are referred to as prawns because of both their appearance and the view that they are "bottom-feeders."

Now District 9 is a very clear (and pretty intentional) analogy for apartheid in South Africa, especially seeing as how it takes place in South Africa. So if the aliens are supposed to be the black South Africans, the black South Africans are not painted in that good of a light. The aliens are mean, violent, dumb, have very little social order, and are just generally pictured as evil. This is not an accurate picture of the life in the slums of South Africa during apartheid.

The writer and director, Neill Blomkamp, is a South Africa native who is now 29, but left South Africa when he was 18. In the Time magazine review of District 9, Blomkamp had this to say about the political commentary of the movie:

He became aware "that all these very serious topics about racism and xenophobia and segregation would start to shine through the science-fiction-esque veneer. I had to be very careful that i didn't get too close to these serious topics with a film that's mostly a summer thrill ride."

He should have taken these "serious topics" more seriously. While the end of the movie does become a science-fiction "thrill ride," the beginning of it is very much serious and very much about apartheid. He should have thought more about the portrayal of the aliens.

So while there is definitely supposed to be racism in the movie between humans and the aliens, the movie is more racist that it intends to be by portraying the aliens in such a bad light when they are supposed to be an analogy for black South Africans.

Christopher is the only alien that is really painted in a good light. He just wants to get home and protect his son. He's more intelligent than the other aliens. We are supposed to side with him and feel empathetic towards his decisions. But he is the one exception!

Then we get to the portrayal of the black humans in the movie. All of the main people in the movie are white and part of a private military company. The main black people in the movie were the Nigerians living in District 9. The Nigerians were major antagonists in the movie. They were cruel, thieves, and obsessed with alien technology. They even eat pieces of aliens in the thought that it will give them alien powers. Not a very friendly portrayal.

And then there is the representation of being mixed-raced. The protagonist, Wikus, becomes infected with alien technology and starts to morph into an alien. He is treated as sub-human - medical testing is done on him, he is valued solely for his ability to operate alien technology - and as soon as he escapes, he is targeted, hunted. He's not human and not an alien.

The movie would have been better on many levels if the aliens were portrayed as more sophisticated, less violent, etc. Not only would it be less racist (not completely erasing the racism), but it would also make the story more complex and increase the internal struggles of the human characters.

District 9 was hard for me to place. It was blatantly racist (and not in its representation of apartheid). How can I take a movie seriously if it aims to provide social commentary on apartheid but then is racist itself? But the movie was beautifully made and unique. Since I'm writing this right after I saw it, I am still kind of shocked. It was gruesome and gory on top of the racism. I don't know what to tell you about a recommendation. If you can handle the blatant racism (and the gore), it might be worth it to see because of its uniqueness. But I don't want to support something that is so racist. So I will let you make the decision for yourself after I have given you my opinion about the movie.

Post Grad [Movie Monday]

I went to go see the new movie Post Grad, starring Alexis Bledel, this past Friday. I wanted to see it because it looked like a movie that was about my life right now. I saw it as being about a young woman who has recently graduated from college and has to struggle with not being able to find a job and living with her parents. [Warning: there will be some spoilers, but the movie is so predictable that I don't know if it will matter]



While that is definitely part of the story, I was hoping for something more. I was hoping that the movie would delve deeper into the struggle that many people (including myself) are facing right now of going from the (limited) independence of college to the dependence of being unemployed and living with your parents while everyone else is out doing something fantastic. It's an internal struggle that many people would be able to identify with in this current economic climate.

The first part of the movie touched on this struggle. But then the movie just turned the predictable route. Ryden (Bledel) lands her dream job in publishing out of the blue. I would have liked to see her try some other jobs (other than working at her dad's luggage store for a total of 2 hours) and struggle in minimum wage work before the "happy ending" of landing that dream job.

After she lands this dream job, she has another dilemma to face: how does she reconcile going for her dream with keeping the people that she loves in her life? Oh, poor Ryden, she has to choose between a great job that can lead to a lot of great things and a cute guy that has been in love with her for four years and she finally realizes that she's in love with him too. And what do you guess she chooses? That's right, the guy. Because dream jobs come and go (even though she had to struggle to find the first one) but you are never complete without that guy by your side.

Maybe it's just the point that I am at in my life right now and the way that I was raised, but I would like, for once, to see a strong woman choose her career goals over the guy that's making her decide. To be fair, the guy in Post Grad didn't exactly make her decide between the two, but still.

Oh romantic comedies that try to pass themselves off as something else but end up being the same old formulaic movie. I was hoping to be able to see a little bit of myself in this movie. I guess I could say it's the story of my life right now with the exception of the dream job and the cute guy. While it attempts to show some of the struggles faced by recent graduates, it just ends up being the happily-ever-after -- with the guy -- story that is oh so common.

The Breakfast Club [Movie Monday]

For this week's Movie Monday, in honor of the late, great John Hughes, I will be featuring The Breakfast Club. This is one of my favorite John Hughes and 80's movies.


The Breakfast Club revolves around playing off of stereotypes: the jock, the princess, the nerd, the basket case, and the criminal. Each of these characters fit perfectly into their stereotyped roles. The princess character (played by Molly Ringwald) seems only to be concerned with shopping and being popular. The jock (Emilio Estevez) is kind of a meat-head. The nerd (Anthony Michael Hall) is preoccupied with grades. The criminal (Judd Nelson) does everything he can to get on everyone's nerves and "acts out." And the basket case (Ally Sheedy) just does really strange things and everyone is weirded out by her.

But then we get into the "character development." The jock falls for the basket case, but only after she has had a makeover to make her look "normal." The princess whats to get back at her parents for the imperfect marriage and divorce so starts dating the criminal, but not seemingly out of any feelings for him. There are many problematic things with these stereotypes as well as the so-called "character development." But for the purposes of this post, I'm going to focus on some of the positive aspects of these stereotypes and the movie.

I like to think that the stereotypes in The Breakfast Club were purposeful, but for a good reason. By using these five stereotypes and showing that there is more to them than these stereotypes, many people can see a little bit of themselves in at least one of the characters. For me, I've always kind of identified with Ally Sheedy's portrayal of the basket case and a little bit of the nerd. I think one of the most important things for a teen movie or tv show is to have relatable characters, even if they come in the form of stereotypes (using stereotypes definitely does not always work...).

One problematic thing with this aspect of the stereotypes is that there are no people of color in the movie. No one for a person of color to necessarily relate to. This also erases people of color from the "normal" high school experience.

One of the main things that I like about the movie is that they start to realize that there is more to people than just what is on the surface; that what is on the surface is often masking something deeper. In the letter that the nerd writes to the principal, he says, "you see us as you want to see us, in the most simple terms possible." And that's how they saw each other too, until they actually got to know each other.

Julie & Julia [Movie Monday]

Movie Monday is a weekly feature that highlight a movie every Monday. I watch a lot of movies, so this is my way to share my "expertise" with you. In the inaugural Movie Monday post I will be reviewing the new movie Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.

Two amazing women, mouth-watering food, and a great story are what make up Nora Ephron's new movie, Julie & Julia. What started out as a story about cooking and eating delicious food turns into a story about self-discovery and empowerment.

Meryl Streep steals the show with her portrayal of Julia Child. Amy Adams plays Julie Powell, a 30-year-old woman trying to reinvent and find herself after she realizes that she hasn't really reached any of her goals.

Julia Child herself was a pretty amazing woman. She loved to eat good food so took it upon herself to go to cooking school to learn how to make delicious food. She faced her all male class at Le Cordon Bleu and thrived. She stood up to the school's administrator. She wrote a cookbook and didn't give up on getting it published.

Julie Power, on the other hand, was pretty unremarkable until she set on this road of self-discovery. She started a project, with a correlating blog, dedicated to cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. 365 days, 524 recipes. Of course she didn't know it was about self-discovery when she started, she just wanted to do something with her life. Powell found herself in the life and recipes of Julia Child.

And the other main character -- the food. I love cooking so I melted like the pounds of butter they went through during all of the cooking scenes. And I'm pretty sure I started to drool in the theater because the food looked so good!

I was told that the review of Julie & Julia on NPR's Fresh Air said that there was no character development. I don't know what they were thinking about. Julie Powell went from a shy, self-depricating woman to someone who is confident and loves life, all through her connection with food and Julia Child. Julia Child went from a secretary and someone's wife to developing a passion for cooking and making a name for herself. There's plenty of character development.

And now on to some of my favorite parts of the movie:

• Any scene with Meryl Streep: she's one of my favorite actresses. As Julia Child, she was charismatic and funny. I was laughing throughout all her scenes.
• Changing the song "Psycho Killer" by the Talking Heads (one of my favorite Talking Heads songs) to "Lobster Killer"
• Mary Lynn Rajskub: I love her in whatever she does and her relationships with Julie Powell reminded me at points of my relationships with one of my friends
• The promotion of blogging as a form of self-expression

I think is movie is definitely feminist. It's made by and starring some awesome women. It's all about finding your passions, doing what you love, and finding yourself along the way. Part of my values in feminism are all about the right to self-expression as well as allowing and encouraging women to follow their dreams and do what they love.

I highly recommend this movie. It's well made and has a good message. When I saw it, the theater was packed, primarily with middle aged women. But this is definitely a movie for all ages (well, maybe not all -- there are sexual references and cursing) and sexes. Finding yourself and doing what you love should be a message that everyone should get behind!

Further Reading:
Julia & Julia By the Numbers [Women & Hollywood]
Julie & Julia Need More Julia, Only a Dash of Julie [Jezebel]
Julie & Julia [Women & Hollywood]
Julie & Julia: A Film Review [Entertainment Realm]