District 6 In District 9: The Metaphoric Menagerie

By JK Fowler

Gone
Buried
Covered by the dust of defeat—
Or so the conquerors believed
But there is nothing that can
Be hidden from the mind.
Nothing that memory cannot
Reach or touch or call back.

-Don Mattera, 19871

Introduction

A red sun silhouettes rows of shacks, a black woman in mismatched

clothes with an African accent tells of missing people and increased
security whilst pictures of UN-esque tanks are shown and an unknown
white woman in a business suit says, “The government noticed that
they were moving into new areas. That’s when things started to get
out of hand”, while a panning shot of township shacks rolls past in the
background. This is the beginning sequence in a new film entitled
District 9, produced by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong)
with Sony Pictures and directed by Neill Blomkamp (a white South
African director) based largely on Blomkamp’s short entitled Alive in
Jo’Burg (2005) which takes place in a 1990’s apartheid South Africa.
The metaphor within Blomkamp’s short as well as District 9 is clear to
those even slightly familiar with South African history: aliens are
representative of the blacks and colored’s forced removals and
segregation from whites under the Group Areas acts of the apartheid
regime. The metaphor is so clear in fact that one wonders whether
Blomkamp is referencing perhaps one of the most famous forcible
removals of over 60,000 people from District 6 in the Western Cape to
the dusty Cape Flats some 25 kilometers away. But then again, how
clear is this metaphor and how would people unfamiliar with South
African history read movies such as Alive in Jo’Burg or District 9? This
paper is first and foremost an interrogative paper, asking many more
questions than offering solutions in the face of the complexities
surrounding interpretations of metaphor. Within this article, I will
attempt to accomplish three things: explore Blomkamp’s approach to

1
http://www.districtsix.co.za/

1
Alive in Jo’Burg, District 9 (as well as the film’s vast viral marketing
campaign), outline a brief history of the District 6 removal, and lastly,
attempt to carve out some of the problematics that arise when treating
race with metaphor within the medium of film and hopefully raise
some pertinent questions for filmmakers and consumers to consider.
While it is sometimes effective to use metaphor in opening a dialogue
about race, does such a use of metaphor as is used in Blomkamp’s
work actually do more to solidify pre-conceived notions of immigrants,
non-whites and Africa?

Alive in Jo’Burg

Alive in Jo’Burg (2005) opens on a township road, car overturned, with

alien spacecraft hovering overhead (see Independence Day) as a white
police officer stands to the right of the camera. It quickly cuts to an
‘alien’, encased in a “really fantastic bio-suit”, and then to a balding
white man (authority figure) who speaks of the apartheid
government’s mounting fears as the ‘aliens’ are moving into new
areas. It is a short film (only slightly over 6 minutes), directed by Neil
Blomkamp and shot in a handheld documentary style (see Blair Witch
Project, Cloverfield) that is set in a 1990’s apartheid South Africa
mixing live action with CGI. Multi-National United (MNU and clear
metaphor for the apartheid government) is immediately cast as the
antagonist that violently reacts to the movements of the ‘alien’
population: “And this is when the government started to get tough.
This is when things started to get out of hand.” Two suited officers
begin shooting at the ‘alien’, an ‘alien’ standing amidst a deserted
township setting seemingly doing no harm whatsoever. And then,
about a minute and a half in, something very interesting happens. A
black screen with “Southern Africa: 1990” comes up and we are taken
back to the balding white man who says, “They were captive
labor…They were living in conditions that really were…not good.” The
metaphor for blacks and coloreds living under the apartheid regime, if
not clear yet, becomes overwhelmingly apparent. The film cuts to the
aliens describing their appalling conditions and the fact that, “this
place doesn’t want us” (subtitles make sense of their ‘alien’ language
for us). With protruding tendrils surrounding their ‘mouths’, the ‘aliens’
huddle around an oil-barrel fire dressed eerily like many of the
characters in Tsotsi, the 2005 film about the Jo’Burg township misfit
that finds redemption through parenting the child of one of his
carjacking victims. And in perhaps one of the most interesting turns,
the camera cuts from the ‘aliens’ to a black man (cargo container in
the background), explaining that, “They make people
uncomfortable…we don’t know how they think…they’re going to make

2
us unsafe”. He is speaking English and yet subtitles are used. In fact,
throughout the entire film, the only time that subtitles are used are for
non-whites and aliens even though the Afrikaans accent used by many
of the white actors is arguably more difficult to make sense of. An
interesting question arises: what does it mean for this black man (and
later, others) to speak against his metaphorical self? From the
concerned black township resident, the film cuts to Constable Bongai
Zulu, a black policeman (whose English is also subtitled) and we see
him and another white policeman gunning down the ‘aliens’ without
any particular reasoning that is made clear to the viewer. The camera
cuts once again to the balding white man who explains that because of
the Afrikaans minority, the apartheid government overly reacted to
any perceived threat. The premise (and the metaphor) is established
three minutes into the film.

From minute three to the end of the film, Blomkamp merely reinforces
his metaphoric storyline with testimonials from black shopkeepers,
drivers and white policemen. ‘Aliens’ with blurred out faces demand
electricity and running water (common reasons for protest in apartheid
South Africa), are illegally stopped in their cars, pulled out and beaten
in Rodney King fashion, and in one of the most telling ties to non-
whites under the apartheid regime, are admonished for running cables
into preexisting sources of electricity and ‘stealing’ it (this ‘free-rider’
narrative is reinforced by stories of ‘aliens’ catching free rides on the
top of trains). The film ends on a less-than-promising note as a group
of township residents march against the aliens and Jo’Burg is seen in
flames. The last telling scene before cutting to the credits is of an older
black woman with a purple beret lifting her fist in the black power
salute as an angry mob of blacks runs past her. This is the short film
that the new District 9 film is largely based on, slated to be released
on August 14th of this year. Before delving into some of the major
questions that arise in Blomkamp’s short, Alive in Jo’Burg, I wish to
briefly explore the District 9 trailer and the viral marketing campaign
that has been taking place.

District 9: Trailer and Viral Marketing Campaign

Similar strains to those found within Alive in Jo’Burg abound within the
trailer of District 9. A black screen with the words, “They are not
welcome” is followed by testimonials by a white Afrikaans woman
(“They don’t belong here”) and a young black girl (“They’re spending
so much money to keep them here when they could be spending it on
other things. At least they’re keeping them separate from us”). Two
black screens follow: “They are not accepted”, and with a rising

3
musical score in the background, “They are not human”. The black
screen abruptly opens up to a CGI shot of the alien spacecraft
hovering above the township shacks, military helicopters avidly
circling. The picture is crisp, the feeling of the handheld documentary
is slightly lost and there are no subtitles for black characters or aliens.
This is seemingly a less problematic take on Blomkamp’s short that
ends with the words, “I just want everyone that is watching right now
to learn from what has happened”. What are we to learn? From whom
(questions which will apparently be answered in the full-length
feature)? The trailer itself leaves little material behind with which to
explore but the viral marketing campaign that has been taking place
has been extensive. There are three main sites connected to the film
that are elaborate to say the least and are very much worth looking
at: the District 9 (D-9), Multinational United, and MNU Spreads Lies
sites.

The main thrust of the District 9 (D-9) site is to offer humans the
chance to “live long, prosperous lives” and “deal with non-humans”. It
offers an interactive satellite image of the physical location of District
9, a community watch program, continuous news feeds and revealing
behavioral recommendation pop-ups for interacting with non-humans:
“Drawing pictures and using simple sign language can be an effective
way of communicating with non-humans”, “Learning the non-human
language can be a useful job skill”, “Entering District 9 without an MNU
chaperone is discouraged”, “Non-humans must be treated with
respect. Actions deemed abusive will be dealt with by the MNU or
animal safety branch [my italics]”, “Please refrain from using non-
human drinking fountains to prevent the spread of disease”, “Please
avoid giving money to non-human beggars”, “Refrain from the
manufacturing and distribution of items that may glorify non-human
culture”, and my personal favorite, “Speaking clearly and loudly to a
non-human will help it learn English more quickly”. What work do
these “behavioral recommendations” do in light of the fact that
Blomkamp seems very intent on metaphorically equating non-whites
under the apartheid regime with ‘aliens’? Are they blatant forms of
racism or allowable metaphoric prodding? Who is it prodding and who
are such ‘recommendations’ working for? Do they truly and effectively
draw our attention to the injustices enacted on non-whites under
apartheid or do they operate within the already demarcated freeways
of racism that operate within ourselves and our society, merely
reinforcing preconceived notions of race? These and other questions
will be dealt with later in the paper.

4
The site also offers visitors the chance to click on ‘MNU News Update’
dots which alert humans to nefarious non-human deeds and gives
them the chance to join the ‘MNU Community Watch’ program which
emails participants, “news and updates concerning Multi-National
United (MNU) including, without limitation, information about human
and non-human job opportunities at MNU, the community watch
program, and District 9”. Visitors can also download various badges
(i.e. MNU support materials) to don the mark of the oppressive MNU in
safeguarding their ‘communities’. On the right hand side of the screen,
an extensive list of rules and regulations can be downloaded (9 pages)
which outline anything from surveillance rules to hygienic conduct (Act
3, Section 1.2 under sexual relations states that, “sexual relationships
between humans and non-humans are prohibited”). This is only the
‘human’ section of the site. Sony Pictures has gone to great lengths
and created an entirely separate section of the site for ‘aliens’. Non-
human visitors must click the ‘alien’ button to enter this section, under
which is written the following: “Look for blue sound icons to hear text
translated in English. Spoken English is required for inter-species
assimilation”. Upon entering, one notices something strange
immediately: the entire MNU news-feed, rules, regulations and
behavior recommendations are in the ‘alien’ language but upon closer
inspection, the characters are curiously similar to Chinese characters.
Consulting a friend fluent in written Mandarin as well as Cantonese, he
was perplexed to find that in fact the characters were Chinese
characters, merely elongated and slightly bastardized. As the behavior
recommendations pop up on the bottom left hand corner of the screen,
the visitor not fluent in ‘alien’ must click on the audio button to have
the ‘alien’ language read aloud…in English. And the behavior
recommendations are potent: “Always speak in soft tones when
speaking with humans to avoid confrontation”, “Always speak English
in public. Spoken English is required for interspecies assimilation”,
“Please keep creative expression private. Art, photography, and other
crafts found in public will be destroyed”, “Non-human chants and
music must only be performed indoors and only within the confines of
District 9”, and “Always offer your seat to a standing human on a
public bus or train”. The hyperbolic, performative aspect of the D-9
site plays in realistic ways to the realities of many living under the
apartheid South Africa but (as will later be explored), how does it do
so, what work does such performativity do and for whom?

Another major undertaking for Sony Pictures was the creation of the
Multi-National United’s (MNU’s) site. Any visitor to the site is
immediately bombarded by an MNU intro video with a black woman
speaking to MNU’s commitment to, “bringing humankind the benefit of

5
tomorrow’s technology today”, and is immediately thereafter hit with
an MNU promo video, reminiscent of an Exxon Mobil or British
Petroleum video’s attempt to make a harmful, anti-environmental
corporation seem like a green and human-friendly enterprise. Of
particular interest on this site are the so-called “Guidelines for a
Peaceful Coexistence”, guidelines to regulate the human and non-
human coexistence. A few sections stand out: “The responsibility for
coexisting starts at home. Staying inside of your designated residential
region will help keep order intact. Territorial integrity helps individuals
feel safe, secure, and empowered”, as well as, “When encountering
unfamiliar scenarios, it’s normal to react with aggression instead of
reason”. The gist of the entire site is to avoid conflict and to inform
humans that, if put in precarious positions, they should take heed and
call upon the paternal protector, the MNU, which exists to, “maintain a
human and non-human population that keeps the great spirit alive”.
What spirit Sony Pictures is referring to by the ‘great spirit’ is never
explained (the great spirit of separation-through-force?). Everything
on the site seems designed to reassure humans that the MNU has the
authority and force to create a peaceful coexistence between humans
and non-humans and glaring differences of MNU’s treatment of the
non-humans becomes apparent when reviewing the list of available
jobs. Humans are offered jobs with substantial salaries and skill-levels
while non-humans are offered jobs such as ‘Non-Human Dorm Janitor’,
‘Non-Human Waste Disposal’, or a ‘Non-Human School Teacher’ (for
non-humans), all of which are offered low, hourly rates. It is made
clear that this already extensive site will be expanding within the next
few weeks and months leading up to the film’s release.

The third installment in Sony Pictures’ viral marketing campaign is the

MNU Spreads Lies site which mimics a blog and is run by ‘George’ (an
‘alien’) and entirely written in ‘alien’ (with the option to translate to
English). The site’s banner reads, ‘MNU Spreads Lies’ and, ‘Everyone
Deserves Equality’ in ‘alien’ and English and also has a drawing of a
human and ‘alien’ hand locked in friendship. The blog’s archives reach
as far back as September of 2007, include comments by fake visitors,
YouTube videos of fictitious MNU protests (strangely taking place in
the United States) and links to phony competitors to the MNU (i.e.
Tanukashi). Outing the MNU’s corrupt practices, George comes off as
an uninformed conspirator: “Ok, now it gets even worse. I overheard
some guards talking yesterday at work. Did you know that MNU has
strong ties to both the United States government not to mention the
South African government?” Throughout his blog posts, he attempts to
show the similarities between humans and aliens, at one point going
meticulously through his day hour by hour and listing his activities to

6
draw comparisons which commentators respond to by saying:
“BORING”, “Darn it.! Get back to the exciting stories of abuse and
salacious tales of corporate malfeasance”, and, “Uh, so this entry is
supposed to make me want to campaign for alien rights or something?
Forget about it. Go home!” On the right hand side of the screen,
visitors are given the option to download wallpapers, posters, and
icons in support of “non-human equality and rights” as well as the
option of signing a petition for non-human rights. The opening
sentence of the petition’s purpose (“It is our belief that all intelligent
beings, both human and non-human, have basic rights to liberty and
decency”) cannot help but remind its readers of civil rights
proclamations in a 1960’s America or under an apartheid South Africa.
As of today, 12,827 people have already signed this fictitious petition2.
If interested in receiving further updates through the ‘non-human
newsletter’, a visitor can easily submit their email addresses, date of
birth, as well as their species (human or non-human) and gender. The
experience of the District 9 movie is voluminous and extremely
comprehensive and after a few hours of perusing their materials,
fiction and fact are blended and one begins to wonder what all of this
is doing. Although District 9 remains very much a fiction, one can’t
help but wonder if Blomkamp is not referencing the District 6 (nine
being a simple inversion of the number six?) forced removals which
occurred in the Western Province of South Africa in 1965.

District 6

The Group Areas Act of 1950 was an act created under the apartheid
government of South Africa, the main purpose of which was to assign
different racial groups to different residential and business sections.
“An affect of the law was to exclude non-whites (think ‘non-
human’/‘alien’) from living in the most developed areas, which were
restricted to whites”3. Over 60,000 people were taken from their

2
September 9th, 2009
3
Resources for District 6 section:
http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/districtsix.htm,
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0612F83C5F137A93C7A8178ED
85F428685F9,
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70D1FF93D5B0C768DDDAE0894D
1494D81,
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0716FB39580C738EDDAB0894D
0484D81,
http://www.dispatch.co.za/1999/11/05/features/SNAPSHOT.HTM,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/1043170.stm,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/cape-district-that-still-bears-scars-of-
apartheid-pretorias-

7
homes and relocated to the desert plains of the Cape Flats (25
kilometers away) in 1965. It ripped societal networks and community
centers apart and forced thousands to travel long distances to work in
the newly-declared ‘whites-only’ areas. In a similar vein, Sophiatown
near Johannesburg was razed to the ground in 1957 to make way for a
whites-only area called ‘Triumph’ or ‘Triomf’ in Afrikaans4. Beginning in
the late 1940’s and 1950’s, amidst a newly burgeoning, vibrant, and
multi-racial cultural center in District 6, stories began to emerge about
the District’s inhabitant’s propensities towards lewdness, violence,
dirtiness, and sexual promiscuity. This depiction of District 6 as a den
of vice was powerfully enacted and enforced by the National Party as
early as the 1940’s. Group Areas legislation began to take effect in the
late 1950’s and about 150,000 people were forcibly removed from
unplanned residential areas in the town center, 60,000 of which were
removed solely from District 6. All buildings (save religiously-affiliated
ones) were either razed or bulldozed at a huge cost to the government
as well as (obviously) to the people being removed. Racism was
outright and adopted by the apartheid government in very similar
ways to the Jim Crow era in the United States. ‘Reference books’ for
blacks over the age of 16 were introduced in Cape Town in 1955 and
police were allowed to stop black people at any point and demand to
see their papers. It was an era characterized by a minority-ruled
Nationalist Party anxious at even the slightest hint of an uprising for
fear of a majority revolt. Sabotage Acts were passed in 1962, enabling
government officials to impose house arrest in whichever way they felt
most effective. Assemblies of non-whites were severely limited and the
immigration by Africans to Cape Town was severely addressed by
demolishing any and all shantytowns that cropped up around Cape
Town and Johannesburg. In July of 1976 (and of particular interest
with Alive in Jo’Burg and District 9 in mind) widespread violence
erupted in Soweto, Johannesburg due to the imposition of Afrikaans as
the language of instruction in schools. The violence spread into a
three-day uprising, sparking a movement that would eventually help in
leading South Africa out of apartheid. Once the premise of the
Nationalist Party is understood to be one based largely on fear of a
minority leading a far vaster majority, their actions and impositions of
violence are not hard to understand as they are part and parcel of the
very rules and regulations the apartheid government laid out. But
what of this history? How do events of the 1960’s and 1970’s relate to
the seemingly disparate creation of Alive in Jo’Burg and District 9 by

4
Much of the historical information within this section was gathered from:
http://www.districtsix.co.za/

8
white South African director? What is the relationship and what work
do such movies do in light of such a relationship?

Percolating Questions

As Don Mattera’s poem of 1987 featured in the beginning of this paper

states, there is nothing, “that memory cannot/reach or touch or call
back”. History has a strong tendency to resurface in the present,
operating in and through the now and dictating what may come of the
future. The creation of Alive in Jo’Burg, the upcoming release of
District 9, and the clear parallels to the Group Areas act legislation of
apartheid South Africa raises many challenging questions: what does it
mean to have a white South African director revisit the hardships of
the Group Areas acts through metaphoric science fiction films? What
does it mean to use aliens as a metaphor for the exiled and oppressed
blacks and colored populations of an apartheid-era South Africa
(arguably in continuance today)? As we sit and watch Alive in Jo’Burg,
what does it mean that the director has chosen to put black people’s
and alien’s dialogue in subtitles while the white’s words are not? Is
Blomkamp drawing a direct parallel between alien and black? If so,
why? Importantly, if I am uneducated in anything ‘African’, let alone
South African, and District 9 is to be my first interaction with the
people and idea of this place called South Africa, what image does this
create and solidify in my mind about South Africa or more broadly,
Africa? The largest market for this movie will most likely be within the
United States. If a populace as uneducated on Africa as Americans are
to watch this film, what work does that do? Does it draw links between
aliens and Africans, cause people to view South Africa as a land of
hostile township battles, reify once again this notion that Africa is the
land of the foreign, violent, dangerous and adventurous? What would
happen if Blomkamp had no aliens in his film but instead told the same
story of the apartheid era with people? Would no one watch it and if
so, why not? Hollywood has now grabbed a hold of two major South
African narratives, both of which emanate from the township and both
of which reappropriate others’ pain for profit. In Tsotsi, a township
misfit finds his long-awaited redemption through caring for the child of
his female carjacking victim. In District 9 (making conjectures based
on Alive in Jo’Burg), we will see aliens encroaching on townships
creating anxiety, conflict and a violent state response. In light of the
very troubling xenophobic murders occurring against immigrants to
South Africa (Zimbabweans and Nigerians in particular) largely in
townships, what will this film do if its aliens are linked in South African
minds (and other’s minds globally) to immigrants? What happens if we
read Alive in Jo’Burg and the upcoming District 9 as anti-immigrant

9
films? What does it mean that those involved in the production of the
District 9 viral marketing campaign have taken the Chinese language,
bastardized it and used it as an ‘alien language’? What does it mean to
have black Africans exclaiming their hatred of the ‘aliens’ (their
metaphorical selves)? The performative segregation of human and
non-human is thorough in the viral marketing websites, particularly in
the D-9 site. In such sites, two seemingly conflictual narratives occur.
Within one, ‘humans’ (presumably of any color) are lumped together
and pitted against non-humans. Within the other, Blomkamp is
metaphorically referring to the apartheid regime’s hostile and
oppressive tactics of control through Multi-National United and their
treatment of the unwanted, discarded and oppressed ‘aliens’. How can
both of these narratives operate simultaneously? Race is strategically
bottled in the bodies of aliens, thus allowing whites and blacks alike to
come together harmoniously in the face of the encroaching and
bothersome alien population. But there is a third narrative being
bandied about: that of equality for the human and non-human. What
does this mean? In schizoid fashion, one narrative tells of human
harmony in the face of an alien population, another speaks to the
metaphor of ‘aliens’ as oppressed non-whites under the apartheid
regime through countless references to historical acts of segregation,
and lastly, we are told that humans and non-humans should live in
harmonious coexistence. All the while, the alien language written out
on the websites is a mutated form of the Chinese language and the
non-white’s dialogues are subtitled along with the alien’s in
Blomkamp’s short. What does all of this confusion do? To add injury to
insult, in the D-9 site, often we are told that English must be spoken
by the non-humans in public as it is required for interspecies
assimilation. And yet, the apartheid government forced the Afrikaans
language on communities (the very reason many protests were
sparked in the first place) and largely detested the use of English due
to historical feuds in the past between the Boers and the English (see
Boer Wars of 1880-1881 and 1899-1902). Why would Blomkamp
(himself of Afrikaner descent), if indeed he is trying to draw
metaphoric parallels, not have the MNU officers speak Afrikaans which
could then itself be subtitled in English? These are questions that truly
cannot be answered by anyone other than Blomkamp and the others
involved in the artistic directions of Alive in Jo’Burg and District 9 but
this presumes that they are aware of the many issues such projects
have surfaced and will surface once the full length feature comes out.

10
Conclusion

Filmmakers and producers may not care about philosophically debating

the proper uses of metaphor in movements towards profit but this
does not lessen the necessity to do so. Every creation is laden with
choice and the responsibility to not only accept, but explore, the
effects of such creation(s) is a vital aspect of the creative process.
Profit does not warrant naiveté, particularly if the creative project
emanates from a person enmeshed in a historical and present power
structure which favors their race, gender or sexuality. Speaking of the
historical and power, Trouillot states, “Naiveté is often an excuse for
those who exercise power. For those upon whom that power is
exercised, naiveté is always a mistake”5. Lacking authoritative
uniformity (arguably due to its very nature as a creative figure of
speech), metaphor must be interrogated for the manners with which it
is employed, for whom it is exercised upon and for what ramifications
such usage(s) may invoke. To catechize the creative process is to
advance the resulting product and reinvigorate the power of properly
used (and questioned) metaphor.

5
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History,
Boston,1995, pp. xix.

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