Zombie Culture : The Dark Sides Of American Culture

Being exposed to violence can lead to warlike behaviors. In the article Violence in Movies: Cinematic Craft or Hollywood Gone Too Far?,“Researchers have found tremendous evidence supporting a link between exposure to violence in media and behavior in children”(29,

Over the past two decades, hundreds of studies have examined how violent programming on TV affects children and young people. While a direct "cause and effect" link is difficult to establish, there is a growing consensus that some children may be vulnerable to violent images and messages.

When analyzing this piece of writing it is clear that the purpose is not to entertain or persuade. The purpose, instead, is to inform and give a new perspective on zombie movies in a simple way that an audience of all ages can understand. In Andrew Cooper and Brandy Blake’s, “George Romero Zombie Films: A Plague of Meaning,” the authors walk the reader through how as time changed zombie movies changed with it. The authors further explain how zombies in many movies represent the time and culture. The writers inform the reader through their use of information from past zombie movies and analysis of the events of the times they were made.

Violent media has been proven time and time again over the past 60 years to cause increased aggression in children and young adults. The long term and short term exposure to violent media has been shown to cause “increased feelings of hostility, expectations that others will behave aggressively, desensitization to the pain of others, and increased likelihood of interacting and responding to others with violence” (Committee on Public Education). One of the most famous experiments done on the subject was done in 1961 by the psychologist Albert Bandura at Stanford University. In this experiment children between the ages of three and six were put in a playroom containing a many activities and toys (Cherry). One of those toys was a bobo doll; a 5 foot tall inflatable doll. An adult would enter and either play with the child from a complete ten minutes, the control group, or at some point during those ten minutes begin beating up the doll, the experimental group. They would also say things such as “pow” and “he keeps coming back for more” while attacking it (Cherry).

Research shows gun violence appears in movies can lead children to obtain aggressive behavior (Bushman 2013: 1017). In high-grossing movies, violence contents display more than twice in one hours (Cieply 2013). Furthermore, perpetrators have seen to dress up as some characters in movies ( Bushman 2013: 1015). James Holmes dressed

As a public discourse, popular narrative engages with social issues expressing a collective critique encouraging or discouraging social conformity. As Drezner states, “pop culture can have an “informing effect” of calling attention to and framing a particular problem. Popular culture can also have an “enabling effect” of providing shorthand references that trigger awareness of a problem” (Drezner 831). Beneath the horror and thematic thrill of the zombie film franchise, the zombie as a figure in popular culture has an enabling effect in providing awareness to society on a mass level. On the figure of the zombie, Kirk states that, “in my own case this creature talks a lot about consciousness, which it apparently regards as a deep

The scholars over all agree that zombies are majorly effected by the culture they were created in. They however talk about different phases of zombie culture and different aspects of cultures effecting these phases. The research paper is going to give a summary of the history of zombies with how past zombies were affected by the cultures that created them. I will mainly focus on how modern cultures effect the modern zombie and how media reflects this. The paper will also cover how different forms of media play on different fears of people and their

Is it possible to kill an idea when it is undead? Classic movie monsters tend to fade in and out of popularity as audiences grow bored and move on to fresher concepts. But there is one that has risen up and does not seem to slow down: zombies. Zombies have gone from being a small subgenre of horror film to a staple of popular culture across various media. This paper will explore the rise of zombies in popular culture and why it continues to remain relevant.

It is been awhile since zombies began to appear. Zombie apocalypse has become inescapable themes in popular culture. They are spreading rabidly from the beginning of early 20th literature to our modern popular culture. Up to World War Z that gave a new entry to the zombie apocalypse move. Though it did not outshine like the walking dead, World War Z brought a fresh thing to the world of zombies, something that is missing the scene of gore.

How does violence in motion pictures affect teen violence? This was the question that my research decodes. For 2 weeks, a 7 question survey was held up about whether violence in movies affects how one reacts to violence—does one think about doing a violent action, or does one do a violent action? Most of the respondents said no, but some said yes, and these respondents that did say “yes” are the teens that make the headlines of news shows: “So and So gunman killed and wounded a number of people.” The Matrix, according to ABC News, inspired the columbine shooting and 2 other shootings, one of the shooters writing on the jail cell, “Free yourself from the matrix.” In addition, I counted exactly 44 instances of violence in The Matrix with one

The media has a way of influencing people of all ages. Specifically, violence and horror in the media are the most debated. Why do people go to watch violent movies or horror movies? They go for entertainment without realizing the physical or mental effects. Kathy Benjamin’s “5 Scientific Ways Watching Movies Effects You” and Bernie DeGroat’s “Scary Movies Can Have Lasting Effects on Children and Teens” both mention the negative effects of movies, especially horror movies, with research or studies. However, only one of the essays, “5 Scientific Ways Watching Movies Effects You,” mentions some positive effects. Statistics have shown that watching these type movies can have short and long term repercussions.

In the paper, the author demonstrated that the trend of zombie fantasies is the reaction to the 911 attacks and the safety uncertainty in public. She listed some similar characteristics between the zombies and the terrorist: their attacks are occurred in unexpected places; they are unable to negotiate with; they don’t understand the western logic. In the recent years, the zombie narrative becomes popular in the film industry; however, it is not considered to have any connection with the public policy in reality until the drama like The Walking Dead appeared. The author believes that many scenes in The Walking dead are metaphors to the terrorist attacks and political issues nowadays. President Obama’s foreign policies that removed the troops

Without question, in today’s society the most favored monster in pop culture is the modern day zombie. The symbolic nature of zombies alone, is the reason that the undead are the most successful in movies today. From these monsters creating a state of war to confiscating humanity’s normal everyday life. These movies show us the result of an unknown situation; “How will human beings react to an end-of-time apocalypse scenario?” Beginning with the Haitian zombie in the 1930’s, the zombie has evolved to its modern state alongside the psychological state of society.

Zombies are becoming an increasingly popular part of movie culture and are one of the most commonly spoken and written about fictional creatures. Zombies are often portrayed as mindless, violent creatures with a need for human flesh. In each text their distinct features can differ but there are many common ways their origins are depicted. Some of these are:

Bloody scenes do not have the same effect on passive characters who react to what they see on a screen in an entirely different way. The findings published in the science journal PLOS ONE could have implications for intervention programs seeking to reduce aggressive behavior starting in childhood. Dr Alia-Klein said: “Our aim was to investigate what is going on in the brains of people when they watch violent movies. We hypothesized if people have aggressive traits to begin with they will process violent media in a very different way as compared to non-aggressive people - a theory supported by these findings”