Initial discussion - how can we compare District 9 to Battle of Algiers?

Themes of segregation, ghettoization and apartheid
Wide shots/LSs of destruction
Themes of brutality and the horrors of war
Flashbacks and discontinuous/ non-linear narrative
Mocumentary/'real footage'/newsreel style footage
MES of damage, destruction, real people, real places
The Casbah and The Township - ghettos for specific racial groups
Parallels between aliens and Arabs as displaced people
Scenes of graphic and abject torture
Us of derogatory terms - prawns
Different languages construct binary oppositions between different groups (alien and English, French and Arabic)
Themes of colonisation and cultural imperialism, cultural appropriation

District 9 - viral pre-release marketing

How do these viral videos position the potential audience?

The viral videos force the spectator to take an ideological perspective, and to side with the humans producing this clear ideological propaganda
Aliens are othered through their hideous appearance and criminal behaviour
These viral videos and teaser trailers are highly unconventional as they are diegetically situated
We the spectator are positioned with the MNU. However, the iconography of the all-white family and the lexis of 'separate' communicates themes of racism
The audience are diegetically situated within the world of District 9, which is highly immersive

Genre – what genre is District 9 anyway? Generic conventions

Aliens

Energy weapons

Greebling - adding elements to props - set dressing, adding elements to guns and so on

Spaceships

Tractor beams

An alien language

Extensive CGI

Scientists, experiments and a laboratory

An alien invasion!

An allegory of real world issues

In this sense, D9 is a highly conventional science fiction film, yet it ialso, unconventionally, includes elements from many other genres.

Body horror - a subgenre of horror that focuses on the destruction and abjection of the human body

Examples include:

The Thing

The Fly

The Substance

Raw

Videodrome

Anihilation

Naked Lunch

Titane

Saw

Evil Dead and 2

These aspects are associated with disease, and it makes sense to avoid them
Abjection is to cast off or make different. It allows us to keep existing in a world which is broken and disgusting.

Kristeva write about the concept of abjection and how symbolically it can elicit disgust. Abjection refers to something that has been cut off or cast off or made separate. But why is something so natural and normal repulsive when it is separated from the body?
Kristeva argues that the taboo created through abjection is constructed through cognitive dissonance. Something that should not exist does exist even though we really wish that it did not
A perfect example is a corpse. What used to be a human is now literally lifeless. In order to make sense of this contradiction we now see it as a ‘thing’ or an other. The cognitive dissonance of death is essentially what the entre horror genre is based on

Hyperviolent explosions of blood and gore and are constructed through a frantic and extremely fast paced editing style that reinforces a sense of chaos and confusion. This violence is arguably funny and cathartic, an outpouring of emotion. The extreme violence is justified through self defence./ Yet furthermore, the violence in this scene, being over the top and cartoonish, and making intertextual reference to videogames. This process of 'gibbing' makes this sequence resemble an action packed videogame. The horrific violence in this scene is smoothed out by the comedic address, and allows the spectator to align with Wikus even though he is committing mass murder
Yet, a binary opposition is constructed between the fun videogame violence, and the sudden, emotionally affecting abjection elicited by the MES of the corpse of the alien. The extremely abject, repulsive and upsetting shot of the dissected alien constructs an extreme emotional response from Christopher, whose frozen and static performance anchors the spectator to acknowledge that he shares common values and beliefs with the so-called civilised and human characters.