It’s been a while since “District 9” has been out, but a few people recently told me they found this movie “deeply disturbing”. I tried to get specifics, but no explanation I got gave me additional understanding as to the how and why they felt that way. But, it did remind me I was supposed to write about it.
I liked the movie. For one, it showed a view of the human race that closely matches my own. In case anyone is wondering, it’s not very flattering. But the movie is more than that; it is an exploration of what it means to be human. It explores the notion what makes us human is not how we look, but rather how we behave and act. In that respect, at the start of the movie the main human protagonist, Wikus, appears less human than Christopher, the main alien protagonist. By that I mean he shows little empathy, and very little compassion, even toward his fellow humans.
As the movie progresses there is an interesting juxtaposition; Wikus seems to gain “humanity”, becoming more aware of the needs of others, responding to that awareness, and doing so all the while looking less, and less human. One might hypothesize he learns how to be human from Christopher’s example, but I think that’s not the case. The movie exploits the two being’s relationship, initially showing it as mutually self-serving, and eventually ending up with Wikus selfishly taking action to help Christopher, and Christopher pledging to return and help Wikus. By the end of the movie the transformation of Wikus is complete. He has learned all about “being human” by ceasing to be human. Powerful stuff.
There are a number of interesting things with this movie leading me to some speculation. From the intro we learn the rescued aliens appear to be workers, presumed to have little to no ability to take care of themselves. One could theorize they are an indentured class of aliens with minimal education and few social skills. That would explain the reaction to finding themselves leaderless and plopped down in an alien world, unable to adapt to the rules of their human hosts, and consequently being gradually sequestered and ostracized from “civilization”. They don’t comprehend what is happening to them, and are almost child-like in their dealings with the humans.
For instance, they are unable to organize and offer a challenge, legal or by force, to the technically inferior humans. They are willing to trade weapons for food instead of leveraging their technology and knowledge for improved treatment and conditions. Then again, perhaps they really don’t know how the stuff works. Still, in contrast to Christopher, presumed to have held a position of power or leadership, they don’t exhibit even rudimentary abilities to make plans, to be concerned for the future; they are concerned with their next meal, and that’s about it. My guess is they are genetically engineered, bred for manual labor, relative docility, and servitude.
I say that because it behooves a ruling class to have a population incapable of planning, of growing beyond what they are, and dependent on said ruling class for subsistence in exchange for docile servitude. One can envision lives on their home world consisting of working, eating, watching sports, and playing with the equivalent of iPhones as the elites take care of things.
And what of these elites? Christopher is obviously technologically savvy, able to devise and execute long term plans, and to keep them hidden from their ever increasingly oppressive hosts. As a side note, it’s interesting Christopher does not attempt to organize the workers, despite possessing significant firepower only the “prawn” could activate. I think that supports my thinking about the workers; Christopher knows it would be pointless to even try.
But it’s not as if Christopher does not care for them. He is incensed when he discovers humans are performing medical experiments on his kind. And yet, even then he holds back from pulling a Rambo and wiping out all manners of humans with what appear to be very powerful weapons. His concern remains to activate the command module and get back to the ship. Only now he has an additional mission; he aims to bring help for his kind.
Here I must stress the incongruous. Presumably he is heading back to his world, and coming back with reinforcements. Yet, in all his attempts to get away, he refrains from killing and resisting the humans even as he is separated from his son. One has to wonder how he will help those he eventually leaves behind.
You want to know my guess? He is not a soldier. He is a scientist, an engineer, or perhaps a podcaster, and despite his imposing size and obvious strength, he is not predisposed to violence. But we know from the weapons this race of prawns is no stranger to warfare and armed conflict. I am guessing there is a warrior class, possibly genetically engineered for battle. And I’m further guessing the prawn, as an alien race, are far, far more technologically advanced than the soon-to-be hapless humans. Christopher speaks of returning in three years (if memory serves me correctly), and given a nominal distance from the sun to the theorized edge of the solar system of one-to-two light-years, it’s easy to deduce these so-called prawns have mastered faster-than-light travel. Not to mention they have a ship that can hover for years without a power source. They not only have FTL, but some pretty slick anti-gravity.
All in all it does not bode well for the human race . . . except I would not be surprised if the prawns are fundamentally “better-than” the humans who hosted them. After all, it was Mark Twain who once observed “Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”
Patrice LACOUTURE says
Thanks for this interesting analysis.
I loved the movie, too. One of the very soundest alien movie scenarios IMHO, and very well directed, too.
Just an addition regarding the Prawns’ FTL capabilities: when Christopher prepares for departure, we can see him looking at a holo projection of a 3D star chart… except it does not show stars but whole galaxies…
From this I deduce that the scenarist and/or director wanted them to have a mindbogglingly more advanced technology than we can hope to acquire within the next few centuries.
This somehow does not fit well with everything we can see about Prawns in the movie. I expect entities capable of intergalactic travel to look purely magical and inunderstandable to our eyes.
By the way, and this applies to all alien movies I could see so far, even those Pranws are still too humanoid… Two legs, two arms, a torso, a head with two heads and a mouth… Why do all aliens need to look humanoid (except their evident need to attract empathy from the spectator)?
Best regards
Patrice
ejdalise says
Remember that to a caveman (or woman), our ordinary selves would look positively god-like while still retaining a very similar physical appearance (hmmm . . . if only cave women were better looking . . . ). However, I do take your point . . . the prawns we see appear to be of much lesser capacity than even the humans who surround them.
Hence, in part, my conjecture as to the nature of the survivors found on the ship, and of Christopher being so radically different than the others.
As far as them looking humanoid . . . I’m not sure it’s done with aims of drawing empathy. There are practical plot points for having them be roughly shaped similarly to humans, otherwise many things would not work out. For example, humans would have had a tough time navigating the confines of the ship if the passages were all sized for 1.5 foot long, tubular-shaped aliens who scurried about on 3 inch legs.
Plus, the farther from a recognizable shape we get, the less likely we would see direct interaction between humans and aliens. If you remove that, you lose a large part of the underlying message.
As a reader of Analog, I’ve come across many stories where the aliens were radically different from the humans they encounter, and in each instance you end up having plot points driven not by direct human-alien interaction, but rather by respective interests/concerns being at odds. Conflict and resolution is then still driven by understanding and compromise, but at a different level than what is possible when individuals are allowed direct contact and interaction.
Joe Klemmer says
Patrice,
Let me take a stab at the humanoid aliens question. Basically there are two reasons for this; one scientific and one practical. First, the scientific reason.
Back during my first abortive attempt at University, I was enrolled in an Anthropology class. While I was rarely there, I do remember being present when the class was discussion what extra terrestrial intelligent life form would look like. Some students postulated wings while others had even more exotic physical representations. The professor then explained why most of these physical traits would likely not lead to intelligence. For example, having wings would require a lot of brain function to manage flying which would take away from the intellectual development process. This isn’t to say that it would be completely unthinkable, just extremely unlikely.
The second reason has more to do with the mundane aspects of movie and TV filming. Up until very recently, when aliens were to be portrayed in film, human actors were needed to fill those roles. When Harryhausen perfected stop motion we could have more exotic creatures. But these couldn’t interact well with the human actors. Now we have CG and all that stuff so we can do as wild a physiology as can be imagined. However, even with this technology the aliens need to be relatabel and understandable by the viewing audience. Those of us who are F&SF aficionados could easily deal with intelligent blobs. But the “normal” audience has a hard time associating intelligence to anything that doesn’t resemble us. They understand humans as the pinnacle of intelligent life. If there were smarter creatures that looked completely different from us it would mean humans weren’t the greatest things in the universe. This doesn’t make them happy.
That should help explain things a bit.
Patrice LACOUTURE says
I see your point.
Indeed, they’ve designed these prawns to be probably as alien as one can get, while remaining pipedal-with-two-arms-a-head-two-EYES-and-a-mouth, and I praise them for that!
Even Predator’s hunter was fairly human in comparison (well, it was in prehistoric times at the rate special effects goes).
In Iain Banks’ “Algebraist”, the Dwellers are physically as different from humans as it gets, and they interact a great deal with the main character throughout the story. In that case, what allows such (almost) physical interaction is technology, as well as their psychology, that is quite human-compatible…Arguably, they consider the main character like a small pet strolling around, but even I manage to have interesting interaction with my cat 🙂
Regards
Patrice