DISTRICT 9
Sep 21st, 2009 by admin
District 9, the South African sci-thriller about Xenophobia and social segregation clearly paints a picture of Nigerians as prostitutes and criminals. The film co-written and directed by Africaner born Neil Bloomkamp, tells of othe story f a group of Aliens marooned in Jo’burg, South Africa, where their spaceship became stranded after a command module separated from the ship and dropped to earth, nowhere to be found.
The film has been a relative box office success in North America and beyond. In Nigeria the film has been banned from public screening in public theatres, Besides, portraying Nigerians in a very ugly light, what the film has done is simply bring to fore the opinion of very many people outside the country. The film’s only population subset in the film apart from the much despised aliens and disgruntled host community of South Africans, is a band of Nigerian criminals headed by a sinister warlord with a name strangely similar to that of the immediate Past president of Nigeria. It’s so bad that Obesandjo , the warlord, displays cannibalistic tendencies: he wants to eat the mutated arm of men assigned to evict the aliens.
Nigeria views the film as an insult and is demanding an apology but questions should be asked, first when will Nigeria look inwards and begin to address it’s problems, and not look for apologies every time it is portrayed negatively.
Nigeria needs to use its own medium to tell the true story of Nigeria and Nigerians. If we do not tell our story positively, some else will do it. What has Nollywood been doing about effectively passing on the right message. The films are all about voodoo, murder, the list is endless and honestly the films all revolve around the same theme. ( at the risk of sounding unpatriotic) am not a big fan of the movie industry and i will not join the bandwagon and ask for an apology for District 9.
