Since the modern zombie’s inception in George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), the famous creature has consistently explored humanity's innate desire to control others as well as commenting on humans losing their humanity. The genre has evolved rapidly throughout the decades, transitioning from voodoo culture tropes to a zombie spin on Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954), and eventually, to satirical and sociopolitical commentary. The concepts of superiority and the loss of virtue are definitely applicable to our most basic state of human nature and are most effectively displayed in zombie lore. The Loss of Humanity and the Flourish of Desire In Zombie Lore Exercising dominance over another is a fairly prevalent theme in zombie culture. In Suzanne Lea’s article “Modern Zombie Makers: Enacting the Ancient Impulse to Control and Possess Another,” she compares zombie lore, culture, and psychological boundaries to the horrific atrocities committed by infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Lea’s summarization of the crimes of Dahmer are very disturbing to the average individual, yet when viewed from a natural instinct perspective, the murderer’s intentions make a little more sense. Dahmer craved possession, superiority, and dominance so much that he kidnapped, tortured, raped, and mutilated many innocent people. According to Lea’s article, Dahmer attempted to create a “living” zombie that would submit to his desires, yet avoid any attempt to
The article “Dead man still walking: Explaining the zombie renaissance” by Kyle Bishop is about the revitalization of the zombie genre. The article talks about the inception in the late 1960’s, the category of zombie films has had its roller coaster ride of ups and downs, starting with its decline in the early 1980’s with the release of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. Furthermore, during 1990’s, due to the shift in the cultural consciousness that came with the Clinton Administration and the countries isolation from global tragedies, the popularity of these films continued to decline. Cultural consciousness refers to the understanding and awareness a shift in feelings, sensations, thoughts, of not only our own culture, but adjoining cultures.
Reading through the whole essay, there are many appealing strategies found in order to strengthen the essay academically. Brooks attracts the audience with a pathos-style strategy, giving specific movie examples to straighten up the essay. The movie Night of the Living Dead resonates the viewers with an image of a flesh-eating and harmful zombie figure instead of a harmless voodoo-created zombie, which makes the notion of zombies transformed into a horrifying figure, provoking the sense of fear of audience with emotional appeal. The revolutionary creation of zombie film was led by George A. Romero, the father of the entirely new horror genre. In his work, zombies are characterized as a form of undead
Zombies have been a pop culture icon for years. Whether it be video games like Call of Duty or making people feel nervous for a potential zombie apocalypse, the zombie has become one of the most recognizable pop culture figures. The rise of zombies as a frightening creature can be related a real-world issue. In this essay I will dispute that zombies have changed over time and that there is a distinct connection between the way zombies are portrayed and the way the world looks at the lower economic class.
The day started like that of any other these last couple of weeks. Mysterious incidents kept popping up in the news, of small groups going mad and becoming savage. Life was like that in Lampeter. Very little going on in town, whilst the whole world around us lives with a constant stream of danger. Some people were getting worried, afraid it was some sort of virus going around, but that happens all the time. One small case of a disease and the world’s in an epidemic. Happened with bird flu, E-coli, and we had just got over the joys of swine flu. Now this. Some people were becoming wary, uneasy around other people, fears of catching this mystery virus afflicting the nation and forcing its way into people’s minds. The unfortunate thing was,
Zombies aren’t supposed to exist. But what if they do, and we interact with them every day? Chuck Klosterman’s essay, “My Zombie, Myself”, compares everyday life to the task of killing zombies. Through elaborate metaphors, quotes from zombie experts, and a strong call to action, he successfully appeals to pathos, ethos and logos to convince his readers. Klosterman argues that even though modern life is monotonous, it is possible to escape the monotony.
“Zombies are like the Internet and the media and every conversation we don’t want to have. All of it comes at us endlessly (and thoughtlessly), and – if we surrender – we will be overtaken
Vampires and Zombies are common in today’s modern world through the use of the media. In this essay, I will be talking about how each of these beings say something about society, how vampires have been portrayed across time and how zombies have been portrayed. By doing this, I will use two references from TV shows.
The name of the article is Our Zombies, Ourselves written by James Parker. In this article Parker discusses the historical backdrop of zombies and talks about where it is that they started from. Parker additionally raises exceptionally fascinating point on the notoriety of zombies and a short timeline on zombies. He also talks of different sorts of popular cultures which incorporate zombies and are utilized, for example, the movies Night of the Living Dead, White Zombie, the books The Zen of Zombies, Zombie Haiku, and the television series The Walking Dead.. By utilizing these references Parker helps demonstrate to us how zombies appear to ceaselessly draw our interest. The article additionally educates the reader about how zombies came
Night of the Living Dead gave the world its first zombie and since then the zombie has not stopped thirsting for human brains.
There has been a resurgence of zombie films in the last decade, ranging from Danny Boyles 28 Days Later to Paul W.S. Andersons Resident Evil. This renaissance of zombie cinema has resurfaced in response to the cultural, political, and social volatility experienced in today’s society, much like its predecessors. A zombie film, unlike other monster movies, plays more with the real-world fears and anxieties, presenting the audience with inescapable realities. However, to understand why this subgenre has been brought back into the mainstream cinema, a comparison is needed across generations of film. This paper will focus on the comparison between George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Danny Boyles 28 Days Later; in an attempt to show how zombie cinema is a reaction to cultural shocks.
Rodney Clapp, writer, editor for Wipf and Stock Publishers and expert in topics such as theology and culture, in the article, “Attack of the Zombies”, argues that many things in life are beginning to resemble zombies. Clapp assumes that the audience also views zombies as lifeless creatures that go around spreading their disease. The author’s purpose is to persuade the audience to believe that many things they see today are starting to resemble zombies. The author writes in a challenging tone for people who question the similarity of zombies to every day life. Clapp supports his argument by comparing and contrasting, and exemplification.
Considering The Changing Of Americans’ Fear In 1960s Most of white American are afraid of having their flesh eaten by zombies; however, the fact is that these mindless corpses are not interested in human flesh before Night of the Living Dead comes out in 1968. The film is directed by George Romero, and is widely famous for its social commentary. It directly challenge the representation of the zombie while simultaneously offering audiences an opportunity to analyse race relations in America in the 1960s. In the American history of the zombie, the zombie once portrayed a group of willing slaves who served to assuage the guilt felt by the white American slave owners; however, unlike previous representations of zombies, the aggressive zombie
In 1968, George Romero unleashed his film Night of the Living Dead unto the world where zombies made their iconic debut as one of modern society’s prolific horror monsters. Since then, Night of the Living Dead has been regarded as a cult classic and like the virus featured in the film, the undead has spread infectiously throughout the horror genre for many more decades to come. Perhaps the reason of our over-use of zombies is because it epitomizes our subconscious fear of ourselves; the belief that humans will end humanity. Coincidentally or not, two years after the film’s release a roboticist named Masahiro Mori created a graph to showcase the feelings of “strangeness” that derive from zombies. Zombies were placed in an “uncanny valley” on the graph because they scored high in human
The very aspect of human life has long since been held in high regard among numerous different cultures. Religions worldwide have come to view the taking the life of oneself or another as sinful and against god, while laws have been created to eliminate the taking the life of another. Despite this, there are still merciless deaths in war and the idea of the death sentence for a crime of certain magnitude. This philosophical issue of whether one life can be hailed as more important than another. Within the 1954 Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend, the zombie/vampire plot yields to the philosophical question. As the protagonist progresses through the three years of solitude, his values in regard to other lives begin to blur. Thusly leaving the entirety of the narrative grappling with the philosophical dilemma in a world where life doesn’t mean the same thing that it once had.
When picturing a zombie the image of a undead person looking for its next human meal comes to mind. While this is the foundation of what the contemporary belief of a zombie is, the actual origin has a far deeper and darker history than what is portrayed today. In the 17th century, Haiti; at the time known as Saint-Domingue, was colonized by France. Slaves were brought in from Africa to work on the sugar plantations. These slaves were subject to such brutal and horrible conditions that many of them died after a few years of service at a rate two to three times higher than any other type of plantation (Berlin 21). A belief rose among the slaves that if they died, they would return to la guinée (Africa) and be free - but there was a catch. If they committed suicide; as many did, they would not be allowed to return to la guinée and instead would spend eternity at the plantation as an undead slave (Mariani).