“Most texts today mix genres” How true is this of your media text ‘District 9’?

 The concept of genres involves the post-modernism theory as many mainstream media follows the repeated and recycled genres to appeal with cliché conventions, as it is familiar with the audience. However many media texts nowadays mix genres to create something different and new to intrigue and attract the audience to gain the gratification of escapism. Mixed genres is a hybrid of two contrasting genres mixed together such as District 9 has the hybrid genre of science-fiction and documentary with conventions of each genres presented in the media text.

The sci-fi genre is heavily presented in District 9 as it involves the typical conventions of aliens and humans co-existing, going against one another however, instead of the aliens dominating the humans and taking over their planet, the humans segregates the aliens apart posing to evict them. This creates the dystopia existing in their world with the polysemic narrative of the parallel historical event of Apartheid where the government kept the black people apart from the white people causing a scar in the heart of history till today.

The convention of the documentary genre is presented in the opening scene of the text with the diegetic sound of the chattering and phone ringing in the background creating an office atmosphere with the display of the busy environment with a high key lighting conveying the peace and lively vibe before the disruption in the equilibrium in the narrative. The camera mid shot with the camera movement of zooming in into Wikus the protagonist showing his actions of adjusting the microphone with the diegetic of the feedback from the microphone and the increase of volume of his voice as he talks into it and his acknowledgement of the camera portrays the convention of the documentary genre as he talks to the camera making direct eye contact. The text appearing on the bottom left side of the screen displaying his full name and location and the MNU logo on the bottom right is another convention of a documentary genre. Another typical convention of the genre is when it cuts to an establishment shot of district 9 and the spaceship floating above with the non-diegetic sound of the voice over and the Arabian music connotating religious elements of the text.