District 9 'And Once Upon A Time'

Words: 1421
Pages: 6

Fear of difference is a key issue that had led to the discrimination of various marginalised groups throughout the existence of civilization. Such discrimination has led to such events as the Apartheid, a system of segregation on the grounds of race that occurred in South Africa that spanned from 1948-1994. This segregation has sparked the creation of many texts, such as the texts District 9 and “Once Upon a Time”. District 9 is set after an alien mothership comes to a stop just above the city of Johannesburg, leaving the aliens stranded. The text follows the story of Wikus Van de Merwe, originally a worker for a large corporation, as he slowly turns into one of the aliens and learns firsthand the discrimination and segregation the aliens truly face. The text “Once Upon a Time” is a story within a story, where an author describes how they refuse to write a story that portrays a false idea of the world and proceeds to write …show more content…
Both the text District 9 and “Once Upon a Time” focus around the fear of difference and the consequence of this fear on a marginalised group, however both texts demonstrate this idea in different ways; District 9 combines the conventions of the documentary and the science fiction genres whilst “Once Upon a Time” breaks the convention of the fairy-tale genre.
The consequences that the fear of differences have on a marginalised group is a major theme that both the texts District 9 and “Once Upon a Time” share. Throughout both texts, the non-marginalised group turns a blind eye to the discrimination and segregation faced by the marginalised group; the aliens within District 9 and the “…people of another color [sic]” within “Once Upon a Time”. Within District 9, the aliens are given the derogatory