Analysis Of Night Of The Living Dead

What makes us alive and what makes the zombies dead or undead? Well it all has to with neuroscience and most importantly the brain. The biggest question is what the requirements of life are? The requirements are the process to maintain homeostasis and the ability to adapt to changes. Do zombies maintain homeostasis for the undead couldn’t cause of the decay wouldn’t be able to because it couldn’t respond to change in the environment and don’t the ability to heal or repair. Unlike the livening dead would be able to adjust to the changes also could maintain the in the internal environment.

Zombies, as we know them today, have mortified movie viewers for the last forty six years. Modern zombies first appeared in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in 1968. These zombies were the slow moving, staggering ghouls that one has seen in countless films, but in 1985, Return of the Living Dead featured a new kind of zombie, the first fast moving and talking ghoul. Both Night of the Living dead 1968 and Return of the Living Dead 1985 feature the zombie as its villain, but Return of the living dead’s fast moving, talking zombies are a more modern take on the movie monster.

Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968) is a movie that contains a large amount of historical significance. This movie is well known for its incredible relevance to the year that it was released. The movie has been described as “A Newsreel of 1968”, and there is ample reason to make that statement. The year 1968 was a very tumultuous period in American history that saw a great deal of violence overseas and in the United States itself. There were many history altering events that took place during 1968, which would all serve to rile up and instill fear and anger in the American people. 1968 saw the latest presidential election in which there was great division amongst the parties, and was the election in which Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Not only did that year see the assassination of another Kennedy, but it also bore witness to the assassination of the most prominent civil rights leader of the time, Martin Luther King Jr. With these tragedies a war in Vietnam raged which had riled much of the country into protest, especially young people.

1968 was the year that North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive against the United States and South Vietnam, the year that Martin Luther King JR and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, the year that started student protests and riots, the year that Black Power salute occurred and finally, the year that Night of the Living Dead came out. You may be wondering why a film would have anything to do with these historic events that occurred in 1968. Well, Night of the Living Dead is a zombie horror film directed by George A. Romero, this film that Romero created was a game changer for the film industry it lead to something bigger than purely entertainment. Romero’s goal behind his low budget black and white film was to construct subtext about social issues such as the Vietnam War and many other issues that went on during 1968. Romero’s zombie film’s present a sense of the failure of human co-operation.

In another event, some racist white boys attack and hit Odessa’s daughter and son for having darker skin and being ‘idiot coons.’ This is one of many examples of racism being a factor. The ultimate clash of the subordinate (whites) and insubordinate (African-Americans) groups comes at end of the film with the mob seen at the carpool lot. This shows racism, discrimination and stereotyping all in one. It is amazing to me to see both how far and how little we have come as a society.

American popular culture has always supported white and defamed the African Americans. With the help of caricatures and images problem of stereotypes has been expressed in Ethnic Notions. Through this movie it can be seen that American popular culture is easily accepted by the people without any hesitation and opposition and become ignorant about the suffering of the poor African Americans. It can be clearly said Americans are responsible for promoting the stereotype against African American by easily accepting them.

Through the use of images, films, and other media outlets harmful stereotypes are often times created. One of the many challenges that American cinema endures is the inability to correctly portray characters of color. Film directors have formed a habit of creating and defining characters in a way that the audiences can easily identify with, thus leading to the reproduction of racial stereotyping. Black characters have generally been stigmatized throughout the course of history as aggressive, inferior, and irrational beings. These common stereotypes are perpetuated through the use of redundant film clichés that have a significant impact on society’s popular image of blacks. Within the article In Living Color, Michael Omi claims that despite progressive changes in America pertaining to race, popular culture is still responsible for damaging racial stereotypes and racism. Whereas, within Matt Zoller Seitz article, The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die, he discusses film clichés such as “Magical Negro” that uses an African American character for the sole purpose of acting as a mentor for their oblivious white counterpart. However, Get Out, a horror satire on the micro-aggressive black experience, directed by Jordan Peele, debunks these racial stereotypes centered around black men. The film subverts the use of racial stereotypes, as it rejects America’s depiction of common black men behavior pertaining to their criminalized lifestyle, masculinity, and aggression in

“It is said that seeing is believing but that depends on the source vision”. If one does not experience first-hand they see through another medium which is often film and television. Film is one of the reasons black culture and the black experience is misunderstood and filled with fabricated beliefs. African Americans have been involved in Hollywood films since film earliest forms in the early 20th century. In these early films African Americans was showed in a damaging unpleasant way. African American filmmakers have been are emancipating the black image from Hollywood’s depiction of Blacks. They are challenging the stereotypes and destroying the view of the singular black experience. Black are becoming more involved in the

American actor Anthony Mackie once said “There are a lot of limitations and stigmas that are placed on young actors, specifically young black actors.” You have probably seen black male actors play the leading role of a drug addict, drug dealer, abusive husband or a even a thief. Although they do get a chance to be displayed on the media, they more often than ever are represented or viewed as the antagonist. Why? Because they are set up according to certain limitations in which they must obey. The lack of accurate representation on black actors in the media today is the result of prejudice and racism occurring in society. Racism and prejudice which are demonstrated in the films directed by Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever.

The film, “Night of the Living Dead”, is a horror movie taking place in the late 1960’s and set in a small town in Pennsylvania. The beginning scene opens with siblings, Barbara and Johnny arriving at a cemetery after three long hours of driving. Barbara and Johnny went to the graveyard to visit their late father's grave and as they were leaving Johnny decided to tease Barbara saying “They’re coming for you Barbara… look, there comes one of them now”. While they were walking to their car Barbara figured she would apologize to the man for what her brother had said but as she was about to speak the “man” grabbed her. When Johnny saw, he quickly ran to them and pulled the zombie away from his sister but he was then attacked by the living dead. During the struggle, Johnny fell and died from hitting his head on a gravestone. The zombie then went after Barbara in a long pursuit that only ended when she came up to an abandoned house. While in the house, Barbara saw more of the zombie people heading toward the house and found a dead body. Startled by the horrifying sight, Barbara ran outside in a hurry and almost ran into a man that was walking into the house. This man, Ben, had run out of gas and was forced to stop at the house to seek shelter. Ben quickly grabbed Barbara and got them both into the house to safety. After getting rid of the three zombies that were after them, Ben boarded up the windows and doors as soon as possible. Barbara decided to tell Ben what had happened to her before they met. Ben decided to turn on the radio and get the news of what was going on around them. In hope of finding something useful, Ben looked in a closet and found a gun and ammunition. As Ben was looking in the closet, two men, Harry Cooper and Tom, emerged from the basement, while Helen, Harry's wife, and Judy, Tom's girlfriend, remained to watch over Helen’s Injured daughter. After fighting about where the safest place to be was, they all came to the conclusion that Harry would go back down to the cellar while Tom and Judy stayed upstairs. A little while after, Harry and his wife Helen went back upstairs and the group got the TV going to get an update on what was happening. After they watched the telecast, the group cooperated

Throughout the history of motion pictures, prejudice directors have used film to control how the general public views certain demographics of people. In particular, the black community has historically been viewed in a negative light. Stereotypes were created through literature and film that still affect African Americans. Directors and writers would create relatable stories and attach demeaning traits to black people that have qualities in common with Black Americans. This would force readers and viewers to subconsciously attach these stereotypes black people. Examples of these stereotypes can be found in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Birth of a Nation. Derogatory terms such as “Bucks,” “Toms,” “Coons,” and “Mulattos”, have put African

In the final chapter of his 2012 book, Winn aggregates his analyses of these films and states that every one of them presents African Americans as being inferior to whites in all ways and as being a threat to white authority and society. Winn (2012) ends his discourse with a discussion in critical media pedagogy, and states, “By studying how racist ideologies affected specific media productions in the past, we can better learn how to consume, interrogate, and interpret current media and use that understanding to encourage change” (p.128). “Therefore, now, more than ever before, people need to be able to understand, question, challenge, and evaluate media for themselves. One way to address this need is through critical media literacy” (p. 129). Critical media literacy can help audiences understand how underlying ideologies can effect communications of institutions and shape their views of the world.

The 1968 cult classic, Night of the Living Dead, begins under the credits with brother and sister Johnny (Russell Streiner) and Barbara (Judith O’Dea) bickering about the long journey to rural Pennsylvania after arriving at a secluded cemetery to leave flowers on their father’s grave at their mother’s request. As they make their way back to the car, Johnny begins to tease Barbara. “They’re coming to get you, Barbara… They’re coming for you… Look, there’s one now!” A staggering, pale-faced figure (S. William Hinzman) approaches the two siblings and attacks Barbara. When Johnny comes to her rescue, he is killed during the struggle

On October 1, 1968, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was released in movie theaters. Although this film was released toward the end of the 1960s, the decade’s civil unrest translates into Romero’s film. Earlier that year, Martin Luther King, Jr., the iconic Civil Rights Movement leader, was assassinated, yet racial tension still ran high in the South, with small, local civil struggles occurring in many places. Far away, America’s youth was fighting the seemingly never-ending Vietnam War. Adam Lowenstein’s introduction to Shocking Representation discusses “The Allegorical Moment”, or “a shocking collision of film, spectator, and history where registers of bodily space and historical time are disrupted, confronted, and intertwined” (2). The representation on screen of this “historical trauma” complicates the distinction between time and space, causing viewers to experience similar sensations mimicking the original pain inflicted by the event. George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead presents the tragedy of the black soldier narrative during both the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, drawing from this “allegorical moment”, and subsequently acquiring a larger black audience.

Lasting over six years, the Holocaust is frequently considered to be the largest annihilation of humans in history; yet, even during its climax, the western powers were practically unaware of the scope of genocide Hitler’s army was committing until after Germany lost the war. Although Robert Brown aptly described the Holocaust as “such depressing subject matter” (v), he furthers, “Those who hope for hope--after an eternity--are entitled to do so only if they have measured that which has the power to obscure hope, only if they have lived in the shadow of utter denial. The rest of us, who have not inhabited the innermost circle of hell, can never know what it was like to be there” (vi). Yet, there are