District 9 Offends Nigerian Government

[IrrelevantTangent]

Oh, FFS...this is just crazy. Just because a movie takes place in, say, South Africa, doesn't mean South Africa should be allowed to sue the movie's developers just because the developers don't paint South Africa as a Happy-Happy-Fun-Time sunshine land full of rainbows and flowers. That is to say, when depicting South Africa, the District 9 developers weren't going out of their way to portray the whole place as horrible, but if they had, don't you think any of the dozens of critic reviews out there would have mentioned it?

 

[Xero Scythe]

District 9 Offends Nigerian Government

[img_inline caption="" align='right' src='http://cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/galleries/display/59/59822.jpg']
Sci-fi movie/political allegory District 9 has come under fire from the Nigerian Government.

It's not just ads for the PS3 that are rattling the cage of the Nigerian Government, as now they are attacking sci-fi movie District 9, which it alleges shows Nigerians in a bad light.

"We feel very bad about this because the film clearly denigrated Nigeria's image by portraying us as if we are cannibals, [or as if] we are criminals," said Nigerian Information Minister Dora Akunyili, "The name our former president was clearly spelt out as the head of the criminal gang and our ladies shown like prostitutes sleeping with extra-terrestrial beings."

The Nigerian Government is so incensed by the portrayal of Nigerians in District 9 that it has ordered its national film ratings board to ask all cinemas to stop showing the film and has demanded that Sony, who produced the movie, edit it to remove "all offending portions that injured our image as a nation".

Ms Akunyili said that the Nigerian Govenrment is demanding a full and unconditional aplogy from Sony for what she described as an "unwarranted attack on Nigeria's image." This fresh attack on Sony is part of a campaign by Nigeria to rebrand the country after letting the international community define the country's image by the behavior of a handful of criminals for far too long

But whilst not wanting to be known as a nation on con-artists and criminals is understandable, is being known instead as the country that complains all the time is perhaps that much of a step up?

Source: BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8264180.stm]


Permalink

they dont wanna be known by a handful of criminals? look at Chicago, we have been slurred by the name Al Capone. stop complaining and do something about it already!

 

[USSR]

Oh for god's sake. *palmface*

..they are waaay to emotional about their infamous little country <.<

aaaalso ... dude this is a palmface...

Spoiler: Palmface...

..I..

Er..

..don't have a response to that.

 

[Treblaine]

Here's an idea Nigerian Government, how about you MAKE your country better by prosecuting these criminals instead of trying to stop anybody mentioning them.

This route they are taking will ultimately fail as if Nigeria says they are being misrepresented then inevitably people will actually look into whether the impression is true and they will find that the impression is not that far fetched. You can't say it's slander if the accusations are accurate.

The only way to complete this circle of douche-baggery would be if Sony were to actually cave into the Nigerian govt's demands and remove all the "offending content" from the DVD release that would be the dumbest thing in the freaking world. This is not some dumb advert for a PS3, this is a serious movie and a damn good one, taking the censor's scissors and cutting out scenes just to satisfy the government where corruption is considered pandemic [http://www.africaeconomicanalysis.org/articles/gen/corruptiondikehtm.html] would be a crime against freedom of speech as far as I am concerned.

This doesn't impress anyone, no one is more likely to invest in Nigeria after hearing this, it just makes the government look desperate and I suspect the government is only doing it to flex their power of influence.

The Nigerian people deserve better than that though vote rigging is common there and any idea of social justice is constantly denied to them.

 

[letsnoobtehpwns]

That's just pathetic.

 

[Xero Scythe]

Oh for god's sake. *palmface*

..they are waaay to emotional about their infamous little country <.<

aaaalso ... dude this is a palmface...

Spoiler: Palmface...

..I..

Er..

..don't have a response to that.

he's right. what you want is a facepalm.

 

[Doug]

"and our ladies shown like prostitutes sleeping with extra-terrestrial beings."

Nil, are you helping Wilson out with Reliable Source this week?

Its in the movie; watch it.

Oh I know, I'm more amazed about the fact that a Nigerian government official is specifically stating that "[ladies] sleeping with extra-terrestrial beings" is bringing down the international image of Nigeria. Really? Did he think how ridonkulous that sentence would sound out loud before he said it?

Ahhh... right, my bad dude. And yeah, its does seem pretty damn insane Mind you, I've heard of people roiting in some of the more backward African nations because they think their government has been taken over by vampires - imagine a place where people actually pay real attention to internet conspiracy theorists .

 

[Xero Scythe]

Can we please stop knocking Nigeria, if this continues that Nigerian millionaire will never send me his 10,000,000,000,000 pounds.

I have helped his lawyers with the fees and I am sure its more reliable than that lottery syndicate I joined last year based in the Ukraine!

Oh and lets face it District Nine is based on how south africa was about twenty years ago and there were Nigerian gangsters sponging off the people in the Black Ghettos. It was also Nigerian prostitutes which caused a massive spread in venereal disease and A.I.D's so let not forget that!

dude, that guy would be a trillionare.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

If they edit District 9, it will be their worst choice as a company possibly ever

 

[Darkmaster127]

That is just plain stupid. Did the US goverment ask that Borat be removed because it showed americans in a bad light? No, they were busy doing their jobs and didn't have time to ***** and moan.

Maybe Nigeria would have a better image if it stopped the shady dealing that occure within it, instead of complaining whenever sometime isn't nice to them. They are not so important as to get away with this ever time, and if a single company says no they'll look like fools.

The American government didn't do that no. However i'm not sure the American governement realised is was making fun of them...

The Kazakstan (Sp.) government on the other hand, well they did ban it. Either way, i do agree in general that this is completely stupid, as is banning almost any form of media.

 

[Treblaine]

I have to admit I can see why the Nigerian president or whoever is lashing out. I don't know if any of you remember but years ago Eastenders went to Ireland & the country was portrayed as yokels with donkey drawn carts. That caused great offence to a lot of the Irish communities.

I believe in this day & age we do have to be careful about what we say about other countries or cultures & all the people on here who are saying 'Grow up Nigeria' Or 'Sort out your country!' have missed the point that MAYBE this is the start of Nigeria trying to sort itself out.... Either that or their PS3 broke down & they have beef with sony

Dude, I've visited my Dad when he was living in both Nigeria as well as Cameroon which is its neighbour to the south-east. Cameroon is doing pretty all right to be honest, quite poor but stable and there is justice, business and general order. Nigeria in the very same region is a complete mess and it is almost entirely down to corruption that constantly prevents justice and any economic development.

 

[Koeryn]

I think they need to grow the fuck up to put it bluntly.

Not just grow the fuck up, shut the fuck up. It's just a setting, it's not like they had Ms. Akunyili whoring herself off to the aliens on screen. They are just making themselves look stupid, and I fully embrace this.

Actually, it's better than JUST a setting. You want to know why everything looked so... spot on? Becuase it's filmed in an ACTUAL shanty town, the occupants of which had JUST been evicted and moved to a 'better' place. Actually, basically, what happens in the movie. Only no aliens (or people getting shot with pigs.).

So basically, Nigeria's complaining about having their country shown exactly the way it is. =D

 

[Charley]

In other news, the British government has demanded that all portrayals of British people in films made outside the UK must have their teeth digitally edited to be perfect and white.

 

[LeonLethality]

argh they be compaining too much movies are always going to be offending one person or another

 

[BaldursBananaSoap]

But it's all true? Nigeria is full of internet scammers and has a huge crime rate.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

In my town there are many Nigerian people who have come here in the last 7 or 8 years.

I will simply say that it is taking a long time for the two cultures to mix as they are VERY different.

It is sometimes hard for people to keep an open mind about an ethnic group when every experience they have with them is negative, especially given how at heart we Irish can be a little xenophobic at times.

Truth is though, there are assholes in every ethnicity, black, white, asian, whatever... we all have our share of dicks.

Anyway... yeah. It's gonna take another few years before us and some of our new Nigerian neighbours see eye to eye on many aspects of culture.

 

[Wakefield]

What DOESN'T offend them these days? Honestly...

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

If Italians pulled this shit...

I could've understood that thing about the Ps3 ads, but this is taking it too far.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

That's pretty sad. I really don't think that District 9 can give Nigeria a worse image than Nigeria has given itself.