Why Are Zombie Productions Like "The Walking Dead" An Innate Fascination?

From English 2019

The fictional brain eating monsters known as zombies have been around for centuries, growing in popularity in the mid-20th and 21st century. Since then hundreds of new books, short stories, comics, films, shows, songs, even video games. have been created about them. Productions such as The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, Resident Evil, and World War Z have made it to where if a new show or film is about zombies, you are bound to gain the attention of millions. Although there are different representations of zombies in these works, they are all similar in that they were once normal humans who have risen from the dead to walk the earth again as brain-dead creatures. One must ask, what is it about the idea of a zombie that intrigues people so much, and why is it such a dominating horror topic in today’s media? In this analysis, it is argued that the zombie concept ultimately guides people behaviorally, morally, environmentally, and politically by influencing how we perceive our world through the consumption of these works.

One reason the zombie phenomenon captures people’s attention is how it is a subtle racial inequality preventer and teaches there are consequences for this behavior. Elizabeth McAlister focuses on the symbolic structure about religion, the boundaries between life and death, repression and freedom, and racial themes in her analysis. She hypothesizes that most portrayals of zombies are white individuals, giving “statements about whiteness” (McAlister 462). McAlister relates capitalism in America and how it has been “violently consumptive and

dehumanizing,” and the cannibalistic nature of zombies represents these thoughts about whites and their practice of capitalism. She believes zombies and the human victims are a reflection of the horrible injustices inflicted upon African Americans by whites. The zombie is “the image of the disfigured body dis-possessed of its soul, will, agency, and hence its interiority and its very humanity,” like whites are when they commit crimes against African Americans (McAlister 472). McAlister indicates that George Romero’s trilogy of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead likely marked the beginning of the term zombie. They were a way for zombies to wreak havoc on everyday Americans in a place they were comfortable, connecting to how African Americans wished to reap revenge on whites for the history of slavery, prejudice, and racism. These three films effectively terrify viewers because they destroy patriarchy, racism, and political stability in American society. Zombies parallel the raw, animalistic side of humans when we harm others. This affects our moral and ideological standpoints on people and the decisions we make when treating others. We subconsciously want to be good and do good for others, and part of that desire is to prevent something bad from happening to us. A zombie apocalypse is a punishment for humanity and the hate we have always had for each other.

Another aspect of zombie films and shows is the environmental aspect when nature begins taking back what was originally its. The end of human life means the regrowth and reclamation of the earth for the environment. Patrick D. Murphy argues zombie culture allows audiences to recognize environmental challenges all around the world better, such as resource

scarcity, climate change, and ecological collapse. Zombies highlight our environmental fears and human existence coming to an end. Murphy explains these serious environmental issues are presented in the forms of conflict over resources, degradation, corrupt and dishonest businesses, and more. He points out safety and remaining alive have always been a quality in zombie media, “revealing much about power and the strategies and practices best suited for survival” (Murphy 46). Murphy proposes zombie popular culture is a lesson about how humans understand their relationship with the earth and with each other in a post-apocalyptic world. He suggests films like The Planet of the Apes (1968) and Silent Spring (1962) were some of the first to demonstrate the possibility of a stressed and overworked planet. Further, works like the film Zombieland and the series The Walking Dead are zombie centered and display the world overrun by zombies with empty streets and cities, decay, abandoned places, looted stores, destroyed buildings, and nature reclamation. These works convey the idea of the potential of the end of human rule living comfortably at the fault of our own, and that is a nervous thought for most. He describes a lifeboat metaphor, wherein control and security in a zombie infested world is usually militarism and patriarchal figures represented as leaders as scientists, political officials, and military ranking. This metaphor is presented in the film World War Z when the main character, a father and husband, when he has to go on a mission to find a cure in order to provide a position for his family aboard a carrier. However, government security and militarism fail multiple times in the film, leaving you to feel hopeless at times. Other films like I Am Legend and 28 Days Later provide similar themes in certain parts. Political collapse and anarchy are typically shown as results of a zombie outbreak and emphasizes the need for people to work together against a common threat, the zombies, or environmental challenges. Zombie culture influences people to care more about their environment and how they utilize it, cooperation, and peace for fear of the world ending and all of its support it once gave humans. Zombie media demonstrates what life could be like with no technology, government, forms of communication, medicine, human die-offs and much more if we continue to take advantage of it.

Nancy Wadsworth theorizes shows like The Walking Dead and zombies provide people, especially younger people, new political ideologies; liberalism, conservatism, anarchism, communism, and fascism. She states young people face a variety of challenges today which results in almost political numbness. According to Wadsworth, young people have the opportunities to lead technologically and politically, and “express a great deal of concern about the state of the world” (Wadsworth 4). She opens up discussing philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ belief of life in the state of nature as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Wadsworth 6). In zombie films and shows, the world has been stripped down to a pre-political world in which people have to establish a new small set of political structure, economics, and rules on their own. Rick’s leadership and his group in The Walking Dead seem to desire to be democratic, civil group with a sense of morals and communication to combat the zombies unified. They constantly struggle with these concepts and their decisions based on them throughout the show. Wadsworth inquires whether people are innately good, and if there can be a community without a governing state. In season 1, episode 4, Rick and his group have a misunderstanding with a group of men called the Vatos, where he believes they have bad intentions after they steal a bag of weapons from them, but later finds out they are taking care of surviving patients in an elderly home. Wadsworth believes this episode shows that human nature is “inherently competitive, especially under crisis conditions” (Wadsworth 7). People are willing to take risks and sacrifice to take care of their own, even at the expense of others. She believes theorists Hobbes and Locke were wrong about humans naturally desiring isolation and disagreement. She believes humans adapt over time together, either in shared or monopolized power. The show also questions the common male authority with many female characters who care for and lead, demonstrating adulthood and cooperation would be inconceivable without women. Rick leads though an old concept of a liberal state while trying to protect his wife and son, representing the nuclear family. They meet patriarchally run family living on their farm. The father Hershel is religious, conservative, and community-oriented, but eventually they join after some conflict. Later in the show, the group is confronted by the Governor, a leader with a dictatorship style which represents the despised fascist form of government. Throughout the show there are dozens more group and characters, and styles of leadership which represent specific ways of governing. Zombie productions give us a new way of thinking about government and politics by displaying what life would be like if we built our own from scratch. It helps us form our own opinions and understanding of global politics.

Finally, Thomas Raymen uses The Walking Dead as a form of popular criminology to address how it shapes personal opinions on harm and violence. He believes popular culture is significant in the relevance to criminology. To begin with, the show follows Rick pre-apocalypse as a sheriff who is shot and hospitalizes by a criminal. He finds his family and is considered the new leader of the group, and soon after, start rivalling other groups they encounter who pose moral threats. Humans quickly become the true monsters of the zombie world. Fighting, looting, stealing, and conflict are prevalent by both the main group and enemy groups to “preserve the safety or affluence of the individual and their particular community of survivors” (Raymen 434). The new world has decreased trust with other people, for good reason, where all persons outside your community are viewed as an initial threat. Raymen proposes the ideological function of criminology in The Walking Dead in that it causes an urgent “passion for the Real” (Raymen 441). Meaning it creates a desire for a psychological experience that exists before symbolism. Rick and his group experience few boundaries between life and death while they develop strong bonds throughout the show. Raymen states that by addressing the fundamental harms, energies, and subjectivities that are lodged in zombie films and show like The Walking Dead, studying popular culture can aid against crime by theorizing harmful subjectivities. Character in the show are “thrown together with their actions and violence driven by the fear, greed and elementary quest of survival” (Raymen 443). Zombie culture can influence viewer’s moralistic and criminological standpoints and what they see right or wrong. People are curious about how to handle difficult situations which question crime and zombie works are a great exploration of these topics as no laws or punishments are present.

Zombie popular culture has drastically grown more popular in recent years for many reasons, eliciting a natural interest in people over several aspects of their world. Zombie works are fascinating because they give audiences a taste of how certain issues and challenges would be resolved in a different situation of a fictional zombie apocalypse world. Zombie media often inadvertently address on the matter of marginalized groups, such as African Americans and women and emphasizes we are all victims to the zombie apocalypse despite age, race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexuality and so on. It recognizes that the conditions of a zombie world would force humans to work together. Zombie media discusses how the world will turn out if humans continue to abuse the earth. It arises a fear of an ending world and causes people to think about their habits relating to the environment. Third, a zombie ridden world demonstrates how people would behave politically and establish rules and laws that align with the new way of life. Lastly, zombie media allows people to see how groups would handle crime and immoral behavior during a zombie apocalypse against other groups, and the justifications, and disciplines a new, harsher world would require. Zombie culture is an ever-growing, natural fascination for people because it influences our perceptions and beliefs about our behaviors, morals, politics, and the environment using an alternate fictional universe.

Citations:

1. McAlister, Elizabeth. “Slaves, Cannibals, and Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race and Religion of Zombies.” Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 85, no. 2, 2012, pp. 457-486. JSTOR Web. 24 April. 2019. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41857250?seq=28#metadata_info_tab_contents

2. Murphy, Patrick D. “Lessons from the Zombie Apocalypse in Global Popular Culture: An Environmental Discourse Approach to the Walking Dead.” Environmental Communication, vol. 12, no. 1, 2017, pp. 44-57. Web. 24 April. 2019. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17524032.2017.1346518?scroll=top&needAccess=true

3. Raymen, Thomas. “Living in the end times through popular culture: An ultra-realist analysis of The Walking Dead as popular criminology.” Crime, Media, Culture, vol. 14, no.3, 2018, pp. 429-447. Web. 16 April. 2019. https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy.lib.utk.edu/doi/full/10.1177/1741659017721277#articleCitationDownloadContainer

4. Wadsworth, Nancy Dawn. “Awakening the ‘Walking Dead’: Zombie Pedagogy for Millennials.” Radical Teacher. 2017, pp. 4-12. Web. 16 April. 2019. file:///C:/Users/brish/Downloads/260-1252-1-PB.PDF