Jon Searles

Movies: District 9 and the Watermelon Man



Posted: Sunday, August 16, 2009

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In 1970 a movie titled the Watermelon Man was directed by Melvin Van Peebles and starred Godfrey Cambridge. The movie was billed as a comedy/drama and I remember watching it when I was 9 years old. The reason I remember it is because it was a movie that started to build my first opinion of race and race relations.

I just returned from watching District 9 and believe it or not, the modern science fiction movie with spaceships and exploding insect body parts just awoke some of the same feelings I can remember from the Watermelon Man when I was 9 years old. Watermelon Man involved a bigoted white man whose skin color inexplicitly changes over night. Waking up in his white man world he finds that friends shun him, his wife is unable to take the pressure of the change, and the black people he harassed become his friends in a segregated and difficult world.

Flash forward to District 9 and we find a man named Wikus Van De Merwe who is responsible for relocating aliens that look more like genetic combinations of crawfish, grasshoppers, and shrimp with humanoid bodies. The people in Johannesburg South Africa, black and white, are united in their distrust and hate of aliens that are different. District 9 is a play on the original District 6 slum that housed those that were once persecuted by aphartied (where this movie draws many parallels). Wikus does not care for the "prawns", a derogatory term used to describe the aliens, and he makes it known during the eviction process. He shows no remorse as to the plight of the aliens who were stranded on earth 20 years before. In what starts as a comical mishap he is sprayed in the face by black alien fluid and he begins to change. Waking up in his white human world he finds that friends shun him, his wife is unable to take the pressure of the change, and the aliens he harassed become his friends in a segregated and difficult world (did you see my cut and paste comparison). His left arm becomes like the "prawns" who he has treated like low class citizens and he finds out from a alien named Christopher Johnson that he will soon turn into one of them completely. Christopher is not the alien's real name, but much like we do to Chinese people in this country, we ask that they change their names so we can pronounce it properly. As Wikus changes he begins to relate to the plight of Christopher, his people, and his young son. His son is a cute little alien meant to capture your heart as an innocent child is suppose to in human examples. Through his efforts Wikus abandons his quest to be changed back to a full human and puts himself in harm's way to protect his new friends. By the ending the audience sees that it may actually lead to a sequel.

Enjoying a variety of movie interests has always be something I have enjoyed. I tend to dig for hidden meaning and maybe I have dug a little too deeply. Sometimes I dig deeply because the only part of a movie I may enjoy is the personal evaluation I give it. This movie has some nice special effects and interesting aliens. You are amazed by the apparent strength of the aliens and their technologically advanced weaponry and wonder why they just did not declare war on their human persecutors, who appear to kill and experiment on these creatures with no more care than squashing an insect.

Our world is full of examples of enslaved, tortured, and persecuted people who suffer at the hands of those who feel superior. Unfortunately, we do not need to look to fiction for examples because our history, past and present, is full of the hate that is aimed at those that are different.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Anonymous 2 years 160 days ago.
I just got back from watching District 9 and had made the same connection. I wondered if anyone else had and googled "district 9" and "watermelon man". I certainly agree that the parallels are there. Fewer explosions in Watermelon Man, though. :)
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