I appreciate your perspective, but I still have absolutely no desire to see this movie, in part because of comments like the one above, Sadly, I think the onset of overly political correctness has made westerners *too* sensitive, to the point that people forget that some "stereotypes" are there for a reason.
Any time someone's response to concerns about racism in media is dismissed as "political correctness", I wince, because that tells me that anything I say is going to be labeled "PC" and therefore, not worthy of discussion. I also note that the default assumption there seems to be that "westerners" = "liberal white people", as though none of the criticism of District 9 has been from people of color. While that criticism may be problematic from a non-American standpoint, I think it's worth noting that I cringed the minute I heard about the descriptions of the Nigerian gangs, because I'd bet money that a good chunk of the audience will walk away saying, "See! Black people are just as racist as white people--and they're secretly cannibals!" When we have people thinking that it's funny to circulate pictures of the President of the U.S. with a bone through his nose, I think there's some justification for being leery of what American audiences are taking away from this.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2009-08-23 11:16 pm (UTC)Any time someone's response to concerns about racism in media is dismissed as "political correctness", I wince, because that tells me that anything I say is going to be labeled "PC" and therefore, not worthy of discussion. I also note that the default assumption there seems to be that "westerners" = "liberal white people", as though none of the criticism of District 9 has been from people of color. While that criticism may be problematic from a non-American standpoint, I think it's worth noting that I cringed the minute I heard about the descriptions of the Nigerian gangs, because I'd bet money that a good chunk of the audience will walk away saying, "See! Black people are just as racist as white people--and they're secretly cannibals!" When we have people thinking that it's funny to circulate pictures of the President of the U.S. with a bone through his nose, I think there's some justification for being leery of what American audiences are taking away from this.
I'd be interested in hearing your take on this Nigerian-born blogger's criticism of the movie.