10 Movies That Are Terribly Racist About Aliens

 Sometimes, aliens are big crazy monsters that want you dead.
Other times, they’re teddy bears that look like grizzlies.

Racism is such a huge theme in fiction that it is constantly being reinterpreted and repackaged for us. What better way at capturing the idea of racism than by utilizing the ultimate outsiders? Aliens are foreign, look strange, and we usually can’t understand them very well. Which is exactly why they’re perfect scapegoats for humanity’s hatred. Humanity just seems completely obsessed with hating on the aliens.
And, in some cases, it’s justified.
In these cases…not so much…

10. The Day the Earth Stood Still

 

This is perhaps one of the most iconic and intentional uses of this trope. Alien Jesus comes down to Earth, and, upon arrival, is shot down by the trigger happy locals. All the alien wanted to do was just warn them about their nuclear weapons, but did they listen? Nope. Shoot first, ask questions later. That was the American way.
Of course, the film was a commentary on the Cold War and McCarthyism without directly tackling the issues head-on. A political satire. Real people suffered because individuals’ possible political beliefs were controversial. It became a witch hunt overtime, and cost many people their jobs and reputations thanks to McCarthy’s kangaroo court.
In the film, because the alien is foreign and otherworldly, it must be evil, despite there being no proof the alien is hostile. In fact, he’s come to save us all from ourselves, and is willing to die — and come back — to salvage us from sin.
We haven’t changed much since the crucifixion…

9. Thor

 

Thor is racist in a few different ways. The Asgardians feel superior to humanity (technologically disadvantaged, backwater, view them as Gods) and the Frost Giants (they’re dicks). Of course, part of the film’s message is that we need to understand different cultures, and value all walks of life. However, this message falls apart when you put together a few things.
The first being that Asgardians are better than humans. Never once in the movie do the humans really progress the plot. You can count Jane Foster and company as helping Thor get on and off the military base, but that’s mainly because they’re helping Thor around, like servants. They are inferior to the Asgardians, who do all the work in the plot. You can make the argument that Thor and the Asgardians had to learn to respect the little Earthlings, but — and lets be honest — the film doesn’t give them a chance to earn respect…not until The Avengers.
As for the Frost Giants — let me put it to you this way. At the end, when Loki decides to destroy their planet, my theater all but applauded him. Why? Because the Frost Giants are dicks. They are jerks. They are unlikable. As far as the film tells us, they are a race of evil, murderous bastards. Now, had the film shown us good Frost Giants — or any evidence that they are anything but evil — maybe the audience might’ve appreciated their right to live. However, they didn’t. Instead, we’re left with the moral that we need to respect all life, even if it is a race of pure evil.
Only reason this isn’t higher is because I love this film.

8. Lilo and Stitch

 

Again, this film is a little questionable. It’s a Disney film. It argues that family is the most important thing in the world, regardless of the fact that family members might not be the same species. How can THIS possibly be racist?
Because the aliens are jokes.
Think about it: Stitch is NOT treated like an intelligent creature. It can fly a jet without any training, fire guns, and even speak. What does Lilo do with it when she gets it? Buys it, and treats it like a dog. This intelligent life form is bought and sold like vermin, treated like an animal, and nothing is ever done about it. Even after Lilo learns Stitch’s real nature, he’s the family pet.
Sure, he’s a member of the family, but so is a dog. That doesn’t mean Lilo thinks he’s on the same level as her.

7. Rebuild of Evangelion 1.11

Most of you probably haven’t seen the Rebuild of Evangelion films. You should fix that. These movies are amazing. So is the original series. In this series, giant alien monsters known as Angels (despite the religious imagery, they aren’t part of the heavenly host) come down, and wreak havoc on humanity. The only way to stop them is to create synthetic life forms from the dead tissue of the aliens, and pilot said synthetic lifeforms (Evangelion) with emotionally compromised children.
Pacific Rim borrowed its plot from this.
The problem comes in that the first two angels to appear in the first film don’t attack first.
They’re big, and they do retaliate, sure, but they aren’t openly hostile at first. They’re just huge and in the way. They crush everything in their way the same way a three year old might step on an anthill. Humanity is barely their concern. Instead of trying to communicate with the angels (in the original series, they were actually very intelligent beings), we decide that violent retaliation is the only solution.
Though, granted, if the angels do come in contact with Lilith, their mother, then that means the end of all life…
…and the third angel to appear in 1.11 does end up packing heat…
…and the angels really are just alternate possibilities for what humanity could’ve been in the original series…
You really ought to watch Evangelion.

6. Plan 9 from Outer Space

 

This is commonly regarded as one of the worst movies ever created. It also is incredibly racist against aliens.
If you pay attention to the plot — and not just laugh at the wonderful gun safety protocol — you might realize that the aliens aren’t really out to kill humanity. They’re really out to stop the eradication of the entire universe. Plan 9 wanted to be a political satire like The Day the Earth Stood Still, but, unlike that classic, Ed Wood didn’t know how to write a good plot. Humanity in his films have developed a weapon that can turn the sun into a universe-death explosion thanks to light molecules — yeah, did I mention this film was stupid?
After you remind yourself light is made of photons, not molecules, you’ll realize that the movie is actually really depressing. Alien saviors come down to Earth, try to help save us from ourselves, and we kill them all in cold blood. And this is a happy ending! How dare those aliens try to save our skins? America! Grrr!
Had we cooperated with the aliens, and maybe accepted that they knew something — ha! Nah, who’re we kidding? Light molecules? How did these guys even learn to reanimate the dead if they knew less about matter than a sixth grader?

5. ET

 

This family film features a boy an his alien. He keeps the thing a secret from the world because bad things would happen if people knew an alien existed. Let’s be fair: Elliot just wanted to keep his lovable, intelligent, sentient pet all to himself. Sure, he tries to help ET go home, but never once in the film does he really try to think about ET’s home life, what he’s like, what his world is like, etc. All Elliot knows about ET is that A) he’s enigmatic and B) it’s funny when he messes around with Earth things.
However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s acceptable for one child to be a privileged piece of scum, even if he doesn’t realise it. However, the moment humanity discovers poor ET, it’s straight to the dissection room for him. ET is an intelligent creature, and yet the scientists just treat him like an animal. They never bother to communicate with him. They just want to run tests. First off, these scientists are stupid, since this could potentially spark the first galactic war between planets. However, what’s even stupider is that dissecting the alien will teach them very little compared to what they’d learn by communicating with the alien.
And Elliot tries to save his “friend,” the same way a boy might want to rescue his pet dog from being put to sleep.

4. Super 8

 

Like Evangelion, a giant alien rolls into town, and screws up stuff. Unlike the Angels, however, this guy actually is causing harm, gathering humans up into his nest, killing people, and just demolishing a lot of property.
And then we learn the government tortured him.
Why does the world government seem determined to anger every single angel that comes into our hands? Why do they think that electrocuting aliens would possibly be a good idea? What was going through their heads? “Maybe if we beat this thing fifty more times, it’ll tell us the secrets to the universe!” Why? What would that POSSIBLY accomplish?
It’s telling that only the main character can understand the beast when he treats it — surprise surprise — like an actual person with feelings and emotions. Only the young messiah boy can tell whether or not the raging alien is capable of rational thought. Everyone else just assumes the tortured, pissed off alien is an animal. Check your privilege, humanity! Check…your…privilege!

3. District 9

 

Like The Day the Earth Stood Still, District 9 utilises racism and prejudice to make a point. In this case, the film draws from the South African Apartheid to tell a wonderful political tale from the wreckage of the canceled Halo movie. Aliens crash land on Earth, and are quarantined to a ghetto. The refugee camp turns into a concentration camp in all but name. The plot of the movie forces a rather nuanced anti-hero, Wickus, forced to accompany an alien and his son in order to get what they both want.
The alien father is the most likable character in the movie, and everyone in the movie screws him over. Wickus, his own partner, even beats him to a pulp after he realizes that he might need to wait awhile before he can get what he wants. Criminal gangs treat the aliens like potions and elixers, hoping that, if they eat the flesh of these guys, that they’ll gain magical powers. The general public treats them like pests. In none of those scenarios are the aliens treated with any sort of dignity.
The sad truth is that the aliens themselves, after a while, embody the stereotypes humanity creates for them. They are catnip devouring vandals who wander around aimlessly, hurting people who come in their way. There are no heroes in District 9, just a corrupt system encouraging racist beliefs.
Of course, the next two films would like you to think they aren’t racist, but…

2. Men in Black

 

MIB is Homeland Security on a planetary scale. Aliens come in and out of their jurisdiction, and they need to kill the bad ones for the sake of mankind. They keep the aliens hidden because they probably saw all the movies on this list, and realised that humanity were just a bunch of racist bastards who’d probably kill any and all aliens they saw, even if said alien was asking them for directions to Yankee Stadium.
However, this doesn’t count as racism. After all, the fear that humanity will be racist isn’t inherently racist. It’s a security measure. There are precedents implying that this might be an issue. There are rules in place for a reason.
However, this doesn’t explain Bugs.
Bugs are presented as a race of chaotically evil aliens who destroy everything in sight. There are no good bugs. They think they’re so special, but, in actuality, they’re a bunch of insignificant bugs, just waiting to be squashed.
First of all, an entire race of pure evil creatures? Seems a little farfetched. However, the movie makes it worse by reducing them to harmless insects. Insects, on the evolutionary tree, are far below humanity. They are beneath us. Therefore, they are a “safe” target. We’re allowed to think we’re better than bugs because, well, we are.
However, the bug aliens are different. This is an entire species of alien evolved to resemble bugs. They are capable of space travel, can use weapons, and can speak our language. We would like to think of them as insignificant, but, in actuality, the bugs are technologically superior to us. When they snag the galaxy, one huge concern is that the bugs will gain power over everyone else, which would mean that humanity would be forced to acknowledge we aren’t so much different than the lowest forms of animal life.
However, there is one film that is so racist against aliens that it’s actually disgusting…

1. Avatar

 

This movie has always caused me problems. I love the special effects, and some of the fight scenes are spectacular. On the other hand, this film is one of the most hypocritical, morally confused films I’ve ever seen, to the point it takes me out of the film. It’s hard to enjoy the film when you realise that this film is incredibly racist.
Against humanity.
The aliens to Pandora.
The alien invaders to Pandora are forced to be kind to the natives. Soldiers who are picked off by the aggressive natives are forced not to kill them — even though, after the years of conflict and tension, a few guys lose it — as political higher-ups and hippies try to talk and rationalise with the Na’vi, hoping that, if they talk and smile enough, they’ll let humanity mine for valuable minerals.
They respond by burning down our buildings, attacking our soldiers, and hating humanity.
And the film condones it.
The military spends an untold amount of money to fund the Avatar program, just so humanity can come to an agreement with the Na’vi. Instead of doing his damn job, the idiot paralysed soldier switches sides — since the Na’vi can do no wrong — and blames humanity for its violent ways DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE ONLY REASON HE IS ON PANDORA IN THE FIRST PLACE IS TO HELP BRING A PEACEFUL SOLUTION TO THE CONFLICT.
By the halfway point, I wanted the badass general to just nuke Pandora.
The film treats the mass murder of soldiers who have probably spent years on the planet, fighting and dying against openly hostile natives, as a good thing. It’s a great thing that our heroes kill untold nameless soldiers, waste trillions of dollars, and probably, in the process, help crush a galactic business. I’m sure all that scientific funding into the Avatar project will do wonders. By wonders, I mean there will be massive layoffs, families will starve, more people will die — but hey! Humanity is evil, so it’s okay if they suffer.
…oh, and did we mention that the Na’vi are all jerks?
There’s no justifiable reason for them to be so mean spirited. They openly mock the human characters on account of them being human. They refuse to deal with the problems politically. They don’t even bother explaining the way their ecosystem works. Sure, the audience learns that the forest is all intertwined and connected, but they don’t tell humanity that. If they just talked to the Avatars, they could’ve explained that, and then maybe they could’ve avoided all that horrible conflict. Maybe, if the Na’vi — or the film — was willing to treat humanity like people rather than strawmen, something logical or clever might’ve happened, but no. Complexity and nuance are too hard. Let’s just make the only cool character in the movie a cardboard baddie.
This movie is racist.

Anthony Gramuglia

 

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