George Romeros Zombies

Zombies, Culture and Critique

Monsters and Culture

Monstrosity is historically conditioned, not psychologically universal

Monsters and Culture

The monster functions as a monster when it is able to condense as many fear-producing traits into one body (Judith Halberstam, Skin Shows 21)

Monsters and Culture

Monsters are meaning machines (Judith Halberstam, Skin Shows 21)

Monsters and Culture

The monster always represents the disruption of categories, the destruction of boundaries, and the presence of impurities and so we need monsters... (Judith Halberstam, Skin Shows 27)

Monsters and Culture

Horror mediates between culture and ideology through an indirect mode of representation that formulates the tensions between social order and desire (Russell, 237)

Monsters and Culture

The monster as social Other (Robin Wood)

Monsters and Culture

"in a world homogenised by the commodity-form, and by money and information as universal equivalents, the Other no longer has a place of refuge." (Shaviro, 284)

Monsters and Culture

Reactionary horror films figure the monster as social disorder/unwanted desire and reaffirms social order by eliminating the monster.

Monsters and Culture

Subversive horror films point to the breakdown and failure of social orders repression for which the monster acts as a medium.

Monstrology

Fusion monsters, e.g. a zombie which is fusion of both living and dead

Monstrology

Fission monsters, e.g. a werewolf, which fusion of human and wolf, but separated by time: a wolf by full moon only

Monstrology

Magnification monsters: large and many, e.g. giant ants

A History of Zombies

Zombies were first drawn from Haitian culture and voodoo.

I Walked With A Zombie (1943)

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

Romeros Dead series

Romero revolutionized the zombie genre by making them American and immanent to American culture.

Zombies are no longer exotic others, they are us.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Day of the Dead (1985)

Zombie Cult

Zombies gain a cult following and feature in many movies.

Zombies enter pop culture

While hardly horror, Michael Jacksons Thriller video did much to feature the zombie in popular imagination.

Zombies go mainstream

Zombies go mainstream

Zombies go mainstream

San Francisco Zombie Walk (2005)

Romeros return

Land of the Dead (2005)

Diary of the Dead (2007)

Island of the Dead (post-production)

Romeros Zombies

Zombies resonate with the very processes that produce and enforce social order

Romeros Zombies

"zombies present the human face of capitalist monstrosity." (Shaviro, 288)

Romeros Zombies

"zombie tales dramatize the strangeness of what has become real" (Shaviro, 289)

Romeros Zombies

zombies figure a social process that no longer serves ratinalized ends (Shaviro, Cinematic Body 84)

Night of the Living Dead

Zombies are overt social process of the disintegration of all communal bonds

Racism

Dawn of the Dead

Zombies and consumerism

Also humans and consumerism

Capitalist exploitation

Day of the Dead

Containment and boundaries

Cold War

Land of the Dead

Terrorism

Fear of the outsider

Isolationism

Diary of the Dead

Media panic

Revisiting Night of the Living Dead