District 9 and failed allegories

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Neill Blomkamp’s story of space aliens abused by Earthlings is about racism without actually involving race—and therein lies the problem. The parallels reflecting atrocities committed against black South Africans by white ones are clear: the aliens, called hateful names (“prawns”) by human bureaucrats are being forced from their shantytown in a multiple-of-three district in Cape Town to a smaller, more out-of-the-way compound. Signs read, “Humans only;” the aliens are constructed as violent for no real reason (they like to blow things up “for fun,” says the human protagonist), while the humans destroy them with impunity.

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Trailer dump:Avatar

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The Googlerati asks: "Orphan" Edition

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Last week Sweet Perdition had its busiest day ever, and the past two days have each been busier than the previous winner:

This development is partly thanks to this post about the film Orphan. There’s a lesson for me somewhere about organization, managing my mental spoons, and writing about things in a timely manner. (I’d been planning on using Orphan to write about the “bad seed” sub-genre in general and cultural anxieties about disabled children. so was gathering my thoughts in a disability analysis direction seriously for days–and, much less intensely, for months–before I saw the movie).

The other lesson is that people want to know things–and, unfortunately, many searchers’ Orphan-related questions weren’t answered at all. While I hope some of them stuck around for the analysis of disability anyway, it totally sucks to not get the answers you seek. So, Internets, I apologize. And I’m here to make it up to you. Let’s begin, shall we?

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“There’s something wrong with Esther”: Disability, deception, and Orphan

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WARNING: Major spoilers for the movie Orphan, including the twist.

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Can Child’s Play be completely scary?

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“Oh, those terrifying symbols of normality, dolls, I thought.” –Donna Williams, Nobody Nowhere

Don Mancini, screenwriter of all the Child’s Play movies (and director of Seed of Chucky) wants to remake the first movie. From the scarce but tantalizing rumors, it sounds like a series reboot. “[U]nless we really screw it up, I think it has the potential to be scarier than the original,” Mancini told Ain’t it Cool News. On learning about this my first thought (after “Sweet Lord, why? Enough with the remakes, already!”) was “Is a 100% scary, totally unsilly Child’s Play even possible?”

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Bad Dollies! Bad! **

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When I was 8, I had a killer doll for an imaginary friend–two, actually. The one that was “mine” I stole from Stuart Gordon; in my head, she was a tiny thing with a big knife who wore a yellow raincoat. In reality, she was a not-tiny My Child doll whose haunted stare seemed perfect for someone who killed people when I wasn’t lookng. Her name was Francine–from some mostly-forgotten Arthur book, maybe–and she spoke with a lisp. The other doll, her brother, was Chucky.

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Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear (of disability)

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A movie poster. On a black background is a toy monkey holding cymbols and wearing pinstriped pants. It's sitting above the words "Monkey Shines," which are written in huge white block letters. Under them, in red letters and underlined, reads: "An Experiment in Fear."

(Trigger warning: descriptions of horror movie violence)

(Spoiler warning: in-depth discussion of Monkey Shines, including the ending).

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