District 9 Movie Quotes
Pick FOUR questions to answer, with a minimum word count of at least 300 words for each answer. Each question is worth 4 points. I already picked up the questions and the materials. There are 7 reading materials and 3 films.
Each of your answers must use at least two quotes from the assigned weekly readings. Do not write the title of the article in your answer from the assigned texts, however, do include the page numbers in parenthesis.
You are allowed to use some of the material that you wrote in your weekly critical reflections if the material is relevant to the question — ie if you wrote about an idea that fits the exam question, you can repeat the idea in your answer, but you cannot simply copy and paste paragraphs as answers from your weekly reflections. You may, however, re-use quotes that you picked out to use in your critical reflections if fitting.
Questions:
1. Analyze District 9 with Stuart Hall’s concepts of identity, difference, continuity, and hybridity.
Materials: Film: District 9 (2009), directed by Neill Blomkamp (available on Netflix)
Stuart Hall.pdf & Neoliberalism_Aliensand_District9.pdf & Alien Identities: Exploring Difference in Film and Fiction.pdf
2. Analyze how different aspects in the film District 9 reflect an analysis of neoliberalism, either in the article by Wagner or Sessen. Do you see aspects/scenes/characters in District 9 that touch upon other themes and texts discussed in unit 2? Elaborate.
Materials: Film: District 9 (2009), directed by Neill Blomkamp (available on Netflix)
Neoliberalism_Aliensand_District9.pdf & When-National-Territory-is-Home-to-the-Global.pdf
3. Analyze how Zhao Liang’s film Behemoth reflects globalization and internal migration. Pick out specific scenes. Use the assigned texts to support your answer.
Materials: Film: Behemoth (2015), directed by Zhao Liang (Netflix)
Policing and racialization of rural migrant workers in Chinese cities.pdf & When National territory is Home to the global.pdf
4. Analyze the film Tangerine and how it relates to both of the texts by Lauren Berlant and Anne Kustritz.
Materials: Film: Tangerine (2015), directed by Sean Baker(Netflix)
Chapter 6 - Diva Citizenship - The Queen of America Goes to Washington City - Berlant.pdf &
Homonational, Queer Nation, Glam Nation- Adam Lambert and American National Imagery - Queering ParaHomonational, Queer Nation, Glam Nation- Adam Lambert and American National Imagery - Queering Paradigms 3.pdf
Final Paper Two
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Final Paper Two
Q. 1. District9 Movie Analysis
District9, a sci-fi movie tells a story of culture and identity in a post-colonial South Africa. The film features the conflict of identity that exists between humans and the “other” group who are not considered humans. This “other” is a group of aliens that are not allowed to mingle or reconcile with the race of humans in South Africa. Throughout the film, Hall’s concepts of identity, differences, hybridity, and continuity. Hall (n.d.) defines differences who we have become after the history has shaped us. He writes, “…differences that constitute what we really are…what we have become…” (p.4). In the film, South Africans treat the aliens as the “other” and cannot allow them to mingle into the community. The history of apartheid has shaped them to reject foreigners, lest they experience another racial discrimination that they had endured for years.
Kaye and Hunter define identity as the social construction that gives us a sense of belonging. It makes us fit in a given community and make us to be prejudiced against the “other.” Just like Hall (n.d) explains, identity has a higher chance of creating adverse impact to those that do not belong to the inner circle. In the film District9, aliens are discriminated against because they are not human. They belong to the other race. The symbolic of this identity is magnified when Europeans discriminated the people of color based on their skin color. Continuity is another recurrent theme in District9 Film. Continuity is mainly examined from the impact of the history that people have been exposed to. In the film, the history of racial discriminations appears to live among the people of color in South Africa, ten years after apartheid was abolished. Apartheid system may have been abolished, but it left lasting consequences among the people. Blonkamp directs this film with the theme of continuity to show how apartheid system had impacted the people in South Africa.
The concept of hybridity is evident in the manner that humans are xenophobic towards aliens. People in South Africa are afraid of aliens, not only because of aliens belonging to another race, but also due to the history of xenophobia they have adapted. Kaye and Hunter explain that “…humans tend to externalize and categorize aliens to control them…” (p. 7). Humans are afraid of aliens because they are not ready to embrace the new culture.
Q. 2.Neoliberalism in District9 Film
Neoliberalism is a recurrent theme that is evident in Blomkamp’s District9 Film. Wagner (2015) defines neoliberalism as policies that encourage free market for economic development. The main problem with free market policies is that they fan inequality, creating unemployment for different classes. The aliens in district9 are the primary victims of neoliberalism. Aliens migrate to South Africa to conquer it, but it turns out that they end up to become victims in dire need to be saved. In min. 29 of the film, prawns (aliens) are seen having sex with humans (Nigerians) in exchange for favors. Most of them are desperate to the extent that they are willing to do anything to secure food for themselves. When they get food from their struggle, they devour the food immediately, indicating how their condition has deteriorated. They are not the original masters that came to conquer.
By depicting the aliens as victims, Blomkamp is indirectly critiquing the South African government that has failed to create employment opportunities for its people and the foreigners that have migrated to the country. Blomkamp is concerned that the government has failed to create employment opportunities for the people, in spite of fighting for independence to create employment opportunities for its people. The fact that aliens are struggling to find employment opportunities in the country that has struggled ...