Nick Fugaro Dr.

Arnold INTL 3111 4/22/14 District (1)9(84): Deceiving the Public Imagine the world you live in now completely changed one day, things that you were led to be true were actually completely fabricated lies? Its a scary thought and it is exactly what the people of Oceania and Johannesburg went through in their respective novel and movie. The powerful authority figures in both works lie to the people and is very symbolic of past events where political figures had and still have way too much power. This power is driven by keeping their people in the dark; if they dont know what these figures are doing, they cannot disagree with it. This is still present in the world today and looking into these works a little deeper we can see what the creators wanted to project of a totalitarianism society. In the city of Oceania, the entire city is monitored from telescreens to even watching a persons inner thoughts! However in Johannesburg, the residents of District 9 are dealing with inequality and mistreatment. While both worlds deal with different dystopian ideals, they are both run by strong, totalitarian systems. They use deceit to keep their prisoners oblivious to what they really have going on. They use one of the strongest emotions to do this: fear.

The Multi-National Unit or MNU for short is a private company that was set up right when the giant spacecraft stopped right next to the city of Johannesburg. Over thousands of aliens were taken out of the ship and put into a camp under the spacecraft. Since they had no way of getting back to their home planet (which is called Planet 9 ironically), the aliens just stayed in the camp and became what houses over one million aliens called District 9. While this all sounds well and good, the aliens just want to go home but they arent allowed outside of District 9 so they have no way of attempting to get up to their spacecraft. The film starts out very documentary style where there are interviews with significant people in the organization talking about how they are keeping the aliens safe and tell the humans to stay away from them since they are dangerous. They are given the nickname prawn because the aliens look like crustaceans. This shows director Neil Blomkamps symbolism of the apartheid that took place in Johannesburg years ago. Both the Oceanians and the prawns are kept under constant surveillance. If any suspicion or breakout that happens, the person or persons involved are captured, in 1984s case, torture, and in District 9, dissection. This use of fear keeps both the oppressed partys inline and also keeps people from asking too many questions. It also works the other way with the humans in District 9 because they are misled as well by the MNU. Sociologist and fear pundit Margee Kerr said that when you want to find out what people are afraid of, looking at what we define as 'sick' is a good place to start (Kerr). All the humans of Johannesburg would definitely describe the way the aliens are shown

to them as sick. In the documentary, the prawns are shown being incredibly violent toward the officers and are called savages and disgusting. By scaring the humans with fabricated lies about the aliens, it will prevent them from digging any deeper and keeping the mentality that they are actually keeping us safe. This is exactly like the War that takes place during 1984; the occasional bombing and made up news stories about the war keep the inhabitants feel thankful that they have the Party and Big Brother keeping them safe. All the aliens want to do is go home and the MNU wont let them for one reason: weapons. MNU is also one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the world and the aliens weaponry and technology far surpasses anything made by mankind. These weapons have the power turn anything it shoots at into a pile of ash. The MNU have all the weapons that they could find in the spacecraft, the only problem is that only aliens can use it. The guns only work with their DNA so it doesnt work with humans. The MNU has a big underground test facility to try to get the weapons to work and dissect captured aliens to test it. The main character of District 9, Wikus van de Merwe is an employee at MNU and is assigned to a ground team to move all the aliens away from the city to a new District. It is advertised as a great new home for the aliens and cleaner. It might be new, however, later on in the story Wikus tells Christopher Johnson, an alien he befriended, that the District is way smaller than the setup they already have. The MNU gave flyers out to the aliens as well as eviction notices which legally they shouldnt have done since there is no reason they should be evicted.

MNU thought that they dont know anything so they can say whatever they want to the aliens and they will have to accept it because its either that or get killed. Wikus gets sprayed while he is in District 9 by some alien fuel. This causes him to get sick and start to turn into an alien. It does show a bit of irony that someone who was oppressing the aliens now is one. However, Wikus is in no way the bad guy of this story; he really wants to help the aliens but is really working against them by being with MNU. He eventually finds out their real motives and tries to help Christopher steal fuel from MNU to power the ship. When this is found out by the MNU they say that Wikus arm is highly contagious and had sexual relations with an alien while he was in the District. The way MNU issues this is though a live broadcast on every local news station almost like a telescreen. They turned people against him and start to fear his infection. When Wikus goes into a fast food place to get food, everyone runs out of the place screaming from fear on getting infected. This is just another example of a powerful entity controlling the minds of many. Wikus is very similar to Winston from 1984 since they both work for organizations that control what people can or cant hear. Wikus eventually learns about the testing on aliens when he himself grows an alien arm and is held captive in the labs. This reminds me of Room 101 in the amount of suffering that Wikus goes through. He just wants to go home and see his wife, but MNU doesnt stop testing on him no matter how much pain he goes though.

Both works 1984 and District 9 tackle very important issues in the way high powered entities can manipulate the minds of many by using fear and deceit. It is almost a warning to us viewers to dont take everything at face value but rather to gain another perspective on the situation. This is shown in how Wikus physically changes to the other side of the story. You might as well keep your eyes peeled because Big Brother is watching you!

Works Cited District 9. Dir. Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell, and Trent Opaloch. Perf. Sharlto Copley. 2009. DVD. Kerr, Margee. "The Science of Fear: An Interview With "Scare Expert" Margee Kerr." The Hairpin. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014. Orwell, George, and Erich Fromm. 1984: A Novel. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 1961. Print.