District 9 was disturbing in a lot of ways because there were so many parallels between what happened in the movie and the apartheid, or any time when a certain group was oppressed in some way. The prawns are treated as subhuman, even though they are far more technologically advanced than the humans are in the film. But, even though black people are higher in social status compared to the prawns, they’re still portrayed negatively. Black people sell meat to the prawns and they believe that eating the prawns’ body parts will give them some alien power. More interestingly though, is the irony in which Wikus, the character who transforms into a prawn himself, becomes more humane the less human he is. In the beginning he used extreme profanity when addressing the prawns and treated them like pests. When he begins the transformation, he even demands that Christopher help him even though he stole Christopher’s canister in the first place. As the film goes on, however, Wikus uses the mechanized suit not only to save himself and Christopher, but volunteers to stay behind and fight Venter so Christopher and his son can escape. A good portion of the film is spent trying to retrieve the canister back to activate the mothership which has a cure for Wikus – only for Wikus to sacrifice himself at the end. It is almost as if the film is making a commentary on the idea of humanism and the irony that those considered subhuman (whether it be blacks, Asians, Jews, etc and the aliens themselves) may be more humane than those who fight so hard to keep non-humans out (whites in this film). The concept of speciesism is critiqued here as it is the humans, who have no moral character. They’re the ones who put the prawns into District 9 and they’re most likely the ones who caused the unrest that came with the prawns arrival. The “other” species, the prawns, are actually the ones who are the most human.

–Julia