District 9 Racism in May: Should Have Sent It In(extract) – By JK Fowler

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Everyone here at The People’s movies support peoples right for freedom of speech and encourage people who read the blog to express their opinon at the blog especially if its issues with movie content that touch real human issues. District 9 was a great movie but did we actually understand  that actually the movie may have had alot things in it which are and could be deemed as racist? Below is an article created by JK Fowler and a big thank to JK for given permisson to post an extract of the article, please go to Jk’s website and read the full article…..

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District 9 Racism in May: Should Have Sent It In –  By JK Fowler

Please note that this piece was recently published on The Mantle and can be found at the following URL: http://www.mantlethought.org/content/district-6-district-9-metaphoric-menagerie.

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.

to read the full article please head  over to JK’s website and read the full article, to get there please use the link below

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Thanks once again to JK Fowler and the article belongs to JK Fowler and JKFolwer.com and no part of the article can be copied, reused, distributed or modified without permission .