How to capture fickle movie viewers' attention regarding "heavy" social problems like xenophobia and racism? Get Peter Jackson (famed producer and director of The Lord of the Rings) to produce an unusual alien movie like District 9.
Welcome to District 9, Johannesburg
What if a leaderless, malnourished alien race gets stranded on Planet Earth? What are we going to do with these visitors?
That is exactly the premise behind the new sci-fi District 9, which sees a gigantic alien spacecraft hovering over Johannesburg, unable to return to wherever it came from. Ill-equipped to deal with such an unprecedented arrival, the South African government decides to simply contain the non-humans in one specific area, called District 9. Over time, District 9 descends into chaos, crime and poverty (much like Soweto, the real-life slum in Johannesburg where the movie was shot). The government's knee-jerk reaction is to relocate the aliens (now derogatorily called "prawns") to another (bigger) area, District 10.
The poor sod responsible for the relocation operation is Wikus van de Merwe, a well-meaning but inept government bureaucrat. Though through no fault of his own, Wikus manages to get into serious trouble, and the MNU (Multi National United), a private military contractor, is then called to District 9 to make sure that all the "prawns" sign their eviction notices. Unsurprisingly, the men with weapons escalate the already tense situation, with disastrous consequences.
Unique Marketing Makes District 9 A Winner
While a social commentary is usually difficult to be turned into a movie, District 9 suceeds because it understands its target audience well: the hyper-connected, YouTube-watching, RPG-playing crowd.
Thus, the movie depended more on internet viral marketing rather than the usual trailers. Its officlal website, www.d-9.com is both interactive and mysterious, asking the visitors to first identify themselves as human or non-human. District 9 also whipped up media frenzy through the use of blogs, posters, banners and stickers.
Even when District 9 resorted to a movie trailer, its style was documentary-like, complete with (fake) interviews demonstrating why the locals discriminate against these aliens (the "prawns", they claim, are violent, unpredictable and eat repugnant things like raw dog meat).
This unconventional marketing ploy worked well for District 9, scoring a spot on CNN's The Screening Room before its American opening night.
Stark Violence Adds Drama and Realism to District 9
Another point worth mentioning about District 9 is its liberal use of (necessary) violence to drive its message home. The unwanted "prawns" are literally at the mercy of their human hosts, who are more often than not, impatient, irrational and trigger-happy. District 9 residents are unceremoniously pushed around, forced to kneel down and forcibly removied from their ramshackle shanties. Some unfortunate ones are simply shot on the spot whenever a human feels "threatened".
All this violence is not senseless. It serves to highlight the point that humans can stoop down to inhumane behavior that they accuse the "prawns" of innately capable of. Instead of trying to communicate and find a middle ground, humans automatically label those who are "different" as barbaric, violent and unpredictable. Sounds familiar? There is a reason why District 9 was shot in Soweto, one of Johannesburg's biggest and most crime-ridden slums. Soweto is also where much of anti-apartheid activism came from.
What sets District 9 apart from other alien-themed movies is the way the non-human "prawns" are presented. They are the victims here, pathetically scraping for a living amid garbage, slum shacks and other "undesirables" (in this case, Nigerian war gangs). Worse, they get their heads blown off for the smallest infraction, even though in reality, they actually possess greater physical strength than their humans hosts, as demonstrated towards the end of the film when a group of "prawns" tear an MNU officer into pieces with their bare hands (or appendages that look like hands).
All of this blood and guts are presented under the searing heat of the South African sun, and makes for an unflinching social commentary about humanity's inhumanity.
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