Hierarchy

As humans we live in a hierarchical society where everything is ranked. Many of our decisions are made because of how we rank certain items. For instance, where we prefer to shop for food or personal products is often due to a personal ranking that we have made and placed a certain store or product in. When applied to humans hierarchy often creates a system of oppression that separates people into different classes. The job one works and the money they make is often a large factor that determines which class one will belong to in a society. The United States as well as most other parts of the world have a hierarchy which in the past was due to racial segregation. In the film District 9 it is quite obvious what the hierarchical structure is. At the top are the white upper class and governmental workers while at the very bottom are the aliens. Although the aliens are physically more powerful they are deemed as dumb/poor and therefore gain no respect and are expected to oblige by the rules of the wealthy upper class and humans in general. This led to the aliens becoming a “scapegoat” for the humans and any problems that they were having.

When dealing with hierarchy Kenneth Burk noticed two common themes that occurred: action and motion. Motion is essentially the non-symbolic features of the world that helps structure our way of life while action involves the symbolic capacities of people. In the film, the aliens themselves would be considered motion meaning the aliens alone are non-symbolic but when different species become categorized it turns into action. So when the aliens become categorized as aliens or “prawns” and become a separate group this is when hierarchical action begins to occur. It essentially occurs when the human society begins to use ultimate terms in their rhetoric when describing the aliens. It is obvious that the humans believe their race and culture is superior to the aliens and this can be seen through a number of different actions like the signs that prohibit aliens from entering certain human dominated areas. These actions by the humans are what begins to structure a hierarchy of oppression where one specie or race is favored over the other because of who is in power and the hegemonic ideas that flood the media.