Apartheid

While the film is ostensibly about how humans and non-humans coexist—peacefully or otherwise—in South Africa, District 9 is much more than a sci-fi depiction of inter-species relations. Claiming unfair stereotyping of and bias against its citizenry, the Nigerian government, for one, went so far as to ban the showing of Neill Blomkamp's new movie. But metaphors in the film that happen to speak to present-day African race relations and geopolitics probe even deeper. Looking at Blomkamp's and Sony Pictures' complex use of metaphor in the film and its viral marketing campaign to engage present and past race relations in South Africa and elsewhere, JK Fowler wonders, what message are they trying to send?