is the best movie I’ve seen in recent memory, and really inspiring, which you might find surprising since it’s bleak and awful and makes you hate humanity. But the inspiring thing is that it uses a science fiction setting to really address some hard issues. I said to Monica: some people will leave theaters thinking about how poverty and racism turns people into animals, and how the people who impose this poverty turn into monsters -
some people will be thinking about these important and difficult topics who would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT IT WERE IT NOT DISGUISED AS SCIENCE FICTION. I was in Elk River today and when I was merging onto the highway I saw a woman in an SUV with a bumper sticker: “Annoy a liberal: work hard and be happy.” Now, this is almost certainly somebody I would hate deeply and profoundly if I talked to her. And yet, this chick, and her whole asshat family, might see District 9, and a trickle of an idea might penetrate the bowl of macaroni and cheese that passes for her brain.
And how awesome is that? How inspiring is that? I’ve done stuff like teach English to Somali refugees and educate people about instant runoff voting at a farmer’s market, but really, that’s so small, and who knows if it really matters, and anybody could do it. But if I could write the kind of story that only I could write, and it could actually get past people’s defenses and show them something important – well, that would be something.