District 9: To Teach or Not to Teach

So, I’m supposed to be a TA this coming school quarter (me, a TA! . . . who would have believed it?). Anyhow, I submitted my weekly reading plan on the selected class theme—Heroes and Superheroes. Response: apparently, I need to add more movies because surly, 18 year old math majors aren’t going to slug through reams of cultural theory.  I was particularly recommended District 9, the recent South African sci-fi flick  that’s been making waves on the indie-film circuit. I checked out the trailer and had mixed feelings:

I haven’t watched it, so it seems awfully unfair to be judgmental: but it just looks so gosh darned dark. A mix of Independence Day, Cloverfield, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, as James Berardinelli puts it. If there aliens in the universe who were to enter into our world, they should slap the global movie industry with a libel suit for the way they’ve been used for our meta-reflections into human nature.

The reason I’m fond of Star Trek (the series, not the ridiculous new movie) is the blend of optimism about science and humanity: technology is enabling, and it is a matter of collective education to progress to a point where we stop using our know how to oppress others. District 9 seems to plunge straight into our Armageddon complex: i.e., our 20th century crimes prove that we are hopelessly fallen, and the only road ahead of us is cataclysm and destruction. Umm, okay.

I get the point that District 9 makes interesting parallels with apartheid, genocide, etc. But really, do aliens have to be repulsive looking robots? Do human characters have to show up their physical ugliness by worse deeds (i.e., making the point ad infinitum that we are psychically, morally repulsive, etc?). At some level, this is a failure of imagination; we can’t imagine an alternative, and that is why we are foreclosing other possible futures. Imagination is a powerful thing, after all; its self-fulfilling.

So anyways, I’ll watch District 9 . . . and will then post my own review. But I might end up teaching it, regardless of my feelings .  . . I’m sure the kids will love it.