Night of the Living Allegory: The Politics of Zombies
Origin Story
Evolution and Interpretation of Zombies
This chapter discusses the shifting portrayal of zombies throughout history, exploring how they have come to represent various global anxieties and fears. It reflects on the changing interpretations of zombies and their ability to embody societal concerns.
Born in Haitian folklore and inadvertently reinvented by director George A. Romero, the zombie is the most flexible metaphor in horror fiction, if not all of popular culture. It can represent a war, a virus, a natural disaster, terrorism, capitalism, climate change and much more. In fact, it’s hard to tell a zombie story that isn’t political in one way or another.
Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey follow the trail of the walking dead from the Caribbean to Night of the Living Dead and the global outbreak of zombiemania in the 21st century. What does the zombie tell us about life, death and civilisation? How can it contain so many different meanings? And why do the living dead remain uniquely disturbing after all these years?
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Resources:
Books
Kyle William Bishop — American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture, 2012
Kyle William Bishop — How Zombies Conquered Popular Culture: The Multifarious Walking Dead in the 21st Century, 2015
Max Brooks — World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, 2006
Greg Garrett — Living with the Living Dead: The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse, 2017
Zachary Graves — Zombies: The Complete Guide to the World of the Living Dead, 2011
Peter Haining, ed. — Zombie!: Stories of the Walking Dead, 1985
Richard Matheson – I Am Legend, 1954
Kim Paffenroth — Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth, 2006
George Romero & Susanna Sparrow — Dawn of the Dead, 1979
Jamie Russell — Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema, 2014
Colson Whitehead — Zone One, 2012
Tony Williams — The Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead, 2015
Films, TV and games
White Zombie, 1932
I Walked with a Zombie, 1943
The Last Man on Earth, 1964
Night of the Living Dead, 1968
Dawn of the Dead, 1978
Day of the Dead, 1985
Resident Evil, 1996
28 Days Later, 2002
Shaun of the Dead, 2004
28 Weeks Later, 2007
I Am Legend, 2007
Dead Set, 2008
The Walking Dead, 2010-22
The Last of Us, 2022
Online
Doug Gross, Why we love those rotting, hungry, putrid zombies, CNN, 2009
https://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/10/02/zombie.love/index.html
Torie Bosch, First Eat All the Lawyers, Slate, 2011
https://slate.com/culture/2011/10/zombies-the-zombie-boom-is-inspired-by-the-economy.html
Thomas Jones, Les zombies, c’est vous, London Review of Books, 2012
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n02/thomas-jones/les-zombies-c-est-vous
Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Max Brooks Is Not Kidding About the Zombie Apocalypse, New York Times, 2013
Interview with Alex Garland, 2015
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/interview-director-alex-g_b_7038618
Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.
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