"Xenophobia for dummies"

District 9 opened this weekend, and wow, is it terrific: both gripping and totally thrilling, a thoughtful and intelligent movie chock-full of death rays, mecha battles, and mother ships. It’s also a rare wide-release movie set in a cultural context wildly different from America or Europe. So, as the tor.com blogger with (I believe) the most direct experience of South Africa, I thought I’d explain a few of the cultural references that might be mysterious to you: