On Thursday 8 May Reel Off regular Lawrence Muntiago Gee chose to present ‘District 9’, a film directed by Neil Blomkamp, to mark the 20th anniversary of the “end of apartheid” and due to his growing interest in Sci-Fi and his belief that the genre has the ability to act as a normative force in society.
District 9 attempts to resell the story of apartheid by using the outsider narrative, but how well does it handle one of the most important events in the 20th century? Some critics have labeled it as a reductionist take on a very complex issue that affects black Africans. Is this a fair criticism? Do we hold science fiction to the same standard of scrutiny that we place on the rest of Hollywood? The discussion after the film promises to be a very interesting one.
