http://calabarboy.com/2009/08/23/when-did-nigeria-become-a-slum-in-district-9-at-johannesburg/#comment-277

I recommend the above link for an interesting look at this topic especially because I completely support the author's point of view!

I felt sick after watching the movie. Theres a borderline between fiction and reality in this thing. On one hand I was trying to get past the gory image painted as Nigerians to enjoy the movie, on the other hand my mindsimply could not get past the implications. Thinking about the kind of damage this will do to our already battered image, Everyone needs to see that and draw their own conclusions.

At least we are not Kazakhstan. Borat did a funny movie on that country.

Personally I think is just a writer being creative,It could have been any nation,but I think he use Nigerians because it's the most populous nation in Africa,everybody know's that there is country called Nigeria.There are many movies about some nationalities before,I mean Russians as the bad guys,also in war movies where Chinese are often killed like ants and they keep popping out,Italians as mafias,Africans as hungry war mongers.

I mean making movies is about creativity,it is arts,it's telling story using your imagination.And this is just a fiction,If you think people will start thinking Nigerians feeds on human because they watched the movie then those people heads must be examined period.

@smokie

You made a lot of sense in your comments on this issue.

@my ppl, I ask the question again, what do you guys expect? Really, what other people in Africa would have been perfect to use in that story?

When holywood makes a movie about organised crime in America, they use Italians and the mafia.

The reputation of a people or a person, goes before them.

Yes, it can be embarrasing to watch your people being portrayed in such a terrible light but its the reality of the issue and we have got to live with it till we clean up our act.

Look around in this Nairaland for instance, we still have people glorifying 419 and fraud letter writting. Everyone wants to be a billionaire overnight and thus, can do anything for money.

Its not a time to get selfrighteous or antagonistic towards the people that make movies that depict us in a bad light.

The anger should infact be directed inwards and prompt everyone to hate corruption and evil much more than we are doing right now.

If everyone,(foreign governments, foreigners, movie makers) all keep portraying us in a bad way, then surely something is wrong with us. The world did not just decide to be against Nigeria. Nigerian people have given the world no choice than to be wary and suspicious of them.

I saw the movie and did not like the way Nigeria was depicted in it!

Nigeria may have lost a lot from this!

This is a sci-fi  fiction based flick, i highly doubt most people will walk away from the film thinking Nigerians are cannibals. After watching casino, goodfellas, godfather etc I certainly did not conclude all Italians are mafias.  I would've prefer if the Director did not use the name "obasanjo" in his narrative, its a little too close to home.

soloqy:

@smokie

You made a lot of sense in your comments on this issue.

@my ppl, I ask the question again, what do you guys expect? Really, what other people in Africa would have been perfect to use in that story?

When holywood makes a movie about organised crime in America, they use Italians and the mafia.

The reputation of a people or a person, goes before them.

Yes, it can be embarrasing to watch your people being portrayed in such a terrible light but its the reality of the issue and we have got to live with it till we clean up our act.

Look around in this Nairaland for instance, we still have people glorifying 419 and fraud letter writting. Everyone wants to be a billionaire overnight and thus, can do anything for money.

Its not a time to get selfrighteous or antagonistic towards the people that make movies that depict us in a bad light.

The anger should infact be directed inwards and prompt everyone to hate corruption and evil much more than we are doing right now.

If everyone,(foreign governments, foreigners, movie makers) all keep portraying us in a bad way, then surely something is wrong with us. The world did not just decide to be against Nigeria. Nigerian people have given the world no choice than to be wary and suspicious of them.

please save us the long epistle,if you want to preach,head to nearest church near you.
the movie is tasteless

soloqy:

@smokie

You made a lot of sense in your comments on this issue.

@my ppl, I ask the question again, what do you guys expect? Really, what other people in Africa would have been perfect to use in that story?

When holywood makes a movie about organised crime in America, they use Italians and the mafia.

The reputation of a people or a person, goes before them.

Yes, it can be embarrasing to watch your people being portrayed in such a terrible light but its the reality of the issue and we have got to live with it till we clean up our act.

Look around in this Nairaland for instance, we still have people glorifying 419 and fraud letter writting. Everyone wants to be a billionaire overnight and thus, can do anything for money.

Its not a time to get selfrighteous or antagonistic towards the people that make movies that depict us in a bad light.

The anger should infact be directed inwards and prompt everyone to hate corruption and evil much more than we are doing right now.

If everyone,(foreign governments, foreigners, movie makers) all keep portraying us in a bad way, then surely something is wrong with us. The world did not just decide to be against Nigeria. Nigerian people have given the world no choice than to be wary and suspicious of them.

What the hell are you talking about, how old are you? There should be age restrictions on this forum. Nonsense !

omofola:

What the hell are you talking about, how old are you? There should be age restrictions on this forum. Nonsense !

I bet you think that having something to say about only Romance issues makes you old enough.

Or which part of the post got you so worked up? You have a boyfriend who is a 419 or fraudulent letter writer? Am really curious to know why the outburst.

The truth is usually a bitter pill to swallow. Live with it.

Gekko:

This a sci-fi fiction based flick, i highly doubt most people will walk away from the film thinking Nigerians are cannibals[b]. After watching casino, goodfellas, godfather etc I certainly did not conclude all Italians are mafias.[/b] I would've prefer if the Director did not use the name "obasanjo" in his narrative, its a little too close to home.

Good pointer there

Nigerians are too unnecessarily sensitive to this kind of things.

Please, does any one know the contacts of the rebranding nigeria crew. I think formal petitions should be written to address this.
NOBODY likes to be called a bad name what ever angle you look at it. I would not clap and praise someone who insults me, its natural.
Nigeria as a people have a fundamental right to complain. If we get a contact and alot of people petition, it might make more press and if Dora has the passion i think she has, a formal complaint should be made.
I know of a simple petition by secondary school students to remove an offensive billboard, and it worked in Nigeria.
Our greviances should not end in empty jaw-jaw.

what do you expect?

When we have Mend and other Militants causing havoc in the Niger delta, Criminals and mammon worshippers kidnapping people for ransome in the east(exported from Naija delta), Crazy and blood thirsty jihadists raping , looting and killing in the north as Boko Haramists. It seems the only remaining sane area is the south west.
No really, what do you expect

I wish that were true.
The political and ritual killings make it untrue.

a movie depicts your women as having sex with aliens and nigerians start blaming nigerians and saying its true.
na ya mama Bleep alien fa you.

you ppl make me sick

Why should S.A leave their own problems and then face Nigeria i don't blame them,i blame Nigerians after all most of what they acted was true anyway and i won't be surprise if Nigerians also acted in it we can do anything for money even spoil our name(which we are doing already)but S.A showing this is a slap on our face and i pray those yeye Nollywood will leave they Love and stupid stories alone and face this problem.lol

so you're responding angrily to nigerians giving nigerians a bad name and coming online as a nigerian and giving nigerians a bad name?

damn.
i bet you're yoruba.

i was eating when i watched the film,and i throw up instantly.

Too bad. de world is now laughing at us.

Nigerians have a right to complain about their depictions in a movie the same right that I have to complain about the stereotype on this board that every corner of South Africa is filled with criminals who rob, rape murder at the slightest provocation, The truth though is something that is in-between perceptioon and reality.

Outside of the big cities and townships (traditionally black areas) are relatively peaceful but I won't make a song and dance about this. I would imagine that not all of Nigeria is filled with crooks, areaboys, and 419 fraudsters who still fail to grasp the rules of basic English grammar.

I say take District 9 with a pinch of salt and perhaps next time, a Nigerian director can portrary white South Africans in a bad light as racists, savages and rapists

Aluta Continua

With money most people can act any thing and called it anything they like.

modele2:

Please, does any one know the contacts of the rebranding nigeria crew. I think formal petitions should be written to address this.
NOBODY likes to be called a bad name  what ever angle you look at it. I would not clap and praise someone who insults me, its natural.
Nigeria as a people have a fundamental right to complain. If we get a contact and alot of people petition, it might make more press and if Dora has the passion i think she has, a formal complaint should be made.
I know of a simple petition by secondary school students to remove an offensive billboard, and it worked in Nigeria.
Our greviances should not end in empty jaw-jaw.

You can start with Nollywood film Directors, they are part and parcel of the Nigeria branding crew.  When you get a hold of them ask them to stop making tasteless films that are being sold on the streets of major U.S cities.  Also ask them to deviate from making films that put witchcraft and magic as the main plot of majority of their films.

RSA made a good point. Majority of Nigerian movies sux big time!except for few. long hours or rubbish, no sense behind most of the scripts.Very poor job of directing, sing one useless and valueless song for 10 minutes,  I wonder how people could sit through those movies.I once had a girlfriend that does nothing but watch these retarded movies, that freaked me out. I am Nigerian and i am not interested in witches spewing lizard all the time, its getting too old, most of the endings can be predicted 1 minute into the movie, come up with something ingenious plz and bear in mind that there could be foreign audience.

i've watched the movie. yeah the movie was good. but the depiction of nigerians was ridiculous to say the least. we were the criminals, the scammers, the prostitutes, the ones who figured out that alien flesh was a delicacy. and at the most unnecessary times they kept pointing out that the marauders were nigerians (not to be mistaken for another black population, ). and the inaccuracy just added insult to injury. the language supposedly spoken by these "nigerians" was so obviously east african in origin. one of the guys even clucked (u know the clucking language they like to talk abt). for heavens sake if you're going to insult us at least get it right!

agreed, we make fun of our head of state and we decry the criminals in our midst but really, do you think italians appreciate movies about la Cosa Nostra or japanese abt the Yakuza? in fact, those criminals are shown to be brutal but classy, we are just bloody slowpoke crooks. and to be honest, nigerians dont make it any better. i read on this post how the movie is excused because of "the Niger-Delta blah blah blah" na us to first have conflicts? that is NOT an excuse. every country has its dirty laundry, and yes, every nationality has a stereotype they are forced to deal with. it does not stop them from being offended or voicing their protests. why should we be any different? the only problem is we never show a united front. some are trying to clean up our image, other people use their influence to add to the bad mouthing, sad

anywho district 9 totally went all out to utterly trash nigerians and we really shouldnt stand for it

ive not seen the movie
but any movie that portrays a nation and her people in a bad light
(this transcends ur regular bad light, this is a movie telling its viewers that a certain nation and her people are cannibals and basically the scum of the earth) should be condemned.
seriously how hard is it for the writer to make up a fictional country?
how many times has such been done in countless movies produced by countless countries?
why must this writer choose to use a country that's already in existence and use a prominent national of the said country?
spare me the artistic bullshit
if you want to be artistic, u'll know that art is synonymous with taste
decorum is needed in all facets of life

               

stalliontp:

RSA made a good point. Majority of Nigerian movies sux big time!except for few. long hours or rubbish, no sense behind most of the scripts.Very poor job of directing, sing one useless and valueless song for 10 minutes,  I wonder how people could sit through those movies.I once had a girlfriend that does nothing but watch these retarded movies, that freaked me out. I am Nigerian and i am not interested in witches spewing lizard all the time, its getting too old, most of the endings can be predicted 1 minute into the movie, come up with something ingenious plz and bear in mind that there could be foreign audience.

lol at the bolded part. I hate those Nollywood movies and dont watch them. But I see ladies consume the stuff like their is no tomorrow and am amazed.

I guess they introduced the singing part to their movies not too long ago.

Why try to be like the Indians and Bollywood? I recently came across one of those scenes, while searching for something to watch on tv.

It was so embarrassing.

I probbaluy wouldnt have cared if

1. They didnt use a bunch of hideous SAs to protray Nigeria "gangsters/fruadsters". Since SA always whines about Nigerians taking their jobs, I'd think they'd have enough around there they could have used.
2. The language that sounded more like Zulu than any other Nigerian language
3. The voodoo lady. Give me a break


Pretty much implying that Nigerians take advantage of any bad situation in a country/helping to oppress SAs

Last I checked we helped in FREEING these twits from the shackles of Apartheid.

LOL, just read this thread with great interest. You guys need to chill out. We do enough damage to ourselves with our own movies.
According to Nollywood, Nigeria is full of Back stabbing, money grabbing, incest, rituals, murder without remorse, witchcraft, prositution, i could go on for ever.
Outside of the South Africans themselves, the biggest other black african population in JoBerg are Nigerians. The filmmakers took creative license. In the context of the story, i soon forgot that those characters were Nigerian and was engrossed in the unfolding story.
Anybody who believes Nigerians are cannibals, based on a Science Fiction film is an idiot.
The film got a worldwide release and was shot by a South African Director in South Africa. Soon, more hollywood producers will want to make films there bringing much needed support for their film industry.
We should be focusing on how to achieve this in Nigeria, instead of picking on the fact that the characters were supposed to be Nigerian.  
Or are we saying it's fine for them to be from any other country as long as it's not Nigeria?

audio:

Or are we saying it's fine for them to be from any other country as long as it's not Nigeria?

That's exactly what Im saying

Wolverine already used Lagos in their movie

Let them leave Nigeria alone for the next 5 years

ThiefOfHearts:

That's exactly what Im saying

Wolverine already used Lagos in their movie

Let them leave Nigeria alone for the next 5 years

It's a work of fiction, a movie, it's not a documentary. We have bigger problems than being portrayed as cannibals in District 9, which by the way, is the best Sci-fi i've seen in a long time. We should be proud it was made in Africa. Hopefully, the producers will start looking for other locations and might consider Nigeria. God knows we need the investment

It is a science-fiction film (one with aliens & such!) not a fact based documentary.
Anyone that believes Nigerians are like that is a very ignorant person and probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

bluespice:

ive not seen the movie
but any movie that portrays a nation and her people in a bad light
(this transcends your regular bad light, this is a movie telling its viewers that a certain nation and her people are cannibals and basically the scum of the earth) should be condemned.
seriously how hard is it for the writer to make up a fictional country?
how many times has such been done in countless movies produced by countless countries?
why must this writer choose to use a country that's already in existence and use a prominent national of the said country?
spare me the artistic bullshit
if you want to be artistic, u'll know that art is synonymous with taste
decorum is needed in all facets of life

"art is synonymous with taste"? I strongly disagree with you, art is expression, use of imagination, it can be tasteful or tasteless.  
Personally, i thought the film was brilliant and entertaining.  Most importantly it is Hollywood, they are famous for exaggerating.  
I am not taking it personal, if I so wish, I can make a film about how racist, stupid and crass americans are, who cares?

ThiefOfHearts:

That's exactly what Im saying

Wolverine already used Lagos in their movie

Let them leave Nigeria alone for the next 5 years

lol at that. How did you come about the length of time? Whats the significance?

Funny though.

ps
You forgot 'Tears Of the sun' with Bruce Willis. About Nigeria too(Igbo problems with Northern soldiers).