Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Zainab Almulla
English 113B
Eric Barnhart
November 2015 30
The transformation of representation in zombie movies
Zombies nowadays are very well known and can be seen in so many
different movies. Before the idea of the zombie came to America it was
originally from the "Haitian folklore and the hybrid religion of voodoo"
(Strohecker), It started long ago before it was introduced to the American
culture in the late 20's. Even though zombies are gruesome creatures they
represent deeper meanings to the role they play, however their meaning
changed in time as culture too has changed. Zombies in Fido represent
racism, while zombies in 28 days later represent the civil war which alters
the historical representation of the zombie.
Fido is a Canadian comedy/zombie film that takes place in a time
between 1940-50s, where the dead are transformed into zombies due to
radiation affects that came from space. The emergence of these creatures
led to zombie wars. However humans took over the situation in the war
and won against zombies and they were able to stop the zombies from
taking over and restore order and keep everyone safe. Although humanity
won, humans were still cautious of the fact that whoever dies turns into a
zombie. Therefor a government corporation named Zomcom took
initiative in fencing the community borders to keep zombies away; they
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they used to look different, act different and they also held a different
meaning behind them.
In the movie Fido (Andrew Currie, 2006), the zombie embodies the
African Americans' and how they were treated in the past. Racism is one
of the most common issues, not just in the American history but all over
the world, and this movie had a clear emphasis towards this issue. The
way the zombies were treated in this movie shows how people used to
deal with the African Americans in the past. They were insulted for no
reason and treated in a harsh way, forced to do whatever white people
wanted from them, and they would get punished as soon as they commit
mistakes.
In the movie it shows the character Mr.Theopolis, a man who was fired
from his job and was thought to be out of his mind because he had
developed feelings for his female zombie. In this community having a
relationship with a zombie is something prohibited, and whoever commits
this crime gets to be punished and the entire community repels from this
one person. Just like the way it used to be when a white male/female
starts to develop feelings for an African American female/male, they would
take the African American person and punish them for their crime which is
developing feelings for a person from a white community.
Racism is not a problem that existed only in the past; it can also be
spotted in our modern time even though it might have changed along the
centuries it still exists. Racism doesnt only mean hatred towards the
African Americans, but it also represents the fear of interacting with
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different people. In this movie the fear of having the zombies living among
them is just like having the African Americans live amongst the white
people in their "white society". That shows in the movie from the way they
treat the zombies, and how they deprive them from their rights and from
making any decision for themselves. It is also the fear of having to
interact with the African Americans and their refusal of having an African
American from taking action or participating in political matters and
popular mobilization. However, in the historical origins of the zombie they
used to represent stereotyping and slavery. At first zombies used to be a
non-flesh eating creatures they were "people put under a spell" as a
representation of slaves and so by becoming a zombie it is considered as
being punished or cursed.
In the movie 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002), the crisis occurs in
London, where everything is a chaos and everyone is dead. This movie
reflects the civil war, how it resulted in having most of the country dead
and in ruins, also the affect that it left in people like the fear of wars. In
the movie when the infection had already spread and the zombies took
over the country, we see the streets and buildings being deserted and had
been set to waste. Where disease and starvation are everywhere, the
signs of war are impossible to miss and the images of acts of violence are
forever carved in peoples' minds. This is similar to the marks that the civil
war had left behind. In 28 Days later there is the character Selena, a black
woman that features in the movie. By being a British women and black
she is considered both from inside of the country and outside by being a
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that their fears had developed and are becoming more of a serious
problem now than it used to be. Since zombies in that time used to
represent slavery people used to fear of becoming slaves, who actually
are zombies under the mercy of someone else, and having to obey their
orders and rules. It also used to show some kind of stereotyping in the old
historical zombie movies, since those movies were "mainly aiming to
satisfy the white audience, and it also had an all-white cast" according to
Paul.
As for the movies 28 Days Later and Fido, just like I mentioned in 28
Days Later it represents the Civil war and the anxieties that came along.
Just like the anxieties that evoke the memories and feelings of post 9-11
and fears that "re-inscribes the American racial postcolonial anxieties"
(Brown 121). It is also a representation of means of survival in wars and
dangerous situations. And in Fido it represents racism and inequality; it is
a globalized postmodern crisis. However racism is actually a fear of
different people, and fear of interacting with them. Having different people
live among them in their society is something they fear, they worry about
the fact that those different people might one day take over their society
and their government and eventually white people will be the ones who
are considered as outcasts. That is why they tried to deprive them from
their rights to stop them from going further and becoming more powerful.
This shows that the idea of zombie movies arent only about flesh
eating creatures and spreading horror, but it is rather an indirect way of
displaying our modern serious issues that we might not be able to notice.
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It also shows how much the idea and the representation of zombies have
changed throughout time, from the fear of being enslaved by others to
post-colonial fears and racism. Those kinds of movies can work as
warnings to our generation or whatever contemporary age it comes out in,
to spread awareness about the issue and stop it from spreading and
.becoming more dangerous
In conclusion, zombie movies send different messages to the audience
in order to make them notice the problems that exist in the world. The
way their representation changed throughout time is to make people
notice that the world has changed and the problems everyone is facing
.are changing with them
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Dirlik, Arif. Race Talk, Race, and Contemporary Racism. PMLA 123.5
...(2008): 13631379. Web
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On the origin of zombies", The Society Pages, February 17, 2011, "
.Strohecker, David Paul
Message Beneath The horror", CBS News, June 26, 2003, Holguin, Jaime"