Zombies are boring. Despite the amount of creative freedom authors can exhibit in the fiction genre, there is a singular, consistent, specific, and defining depiction of what is known as “the zombie.” The very uttering of this science fiction buzz-word conjures elaborate and imaginative images of decomposing, slack-jawed, mindless creatures hungering for flesh. Their clothes are usually dirty and ragged, their teeth stained yellow and red, the remnants of their last meal on their lips, and a telltale missing limb or chunk of flesh from when they crossed from life into un-death. The manner in which the zombie plague is passed will often differ: one of the earliest iterations of the zombie in the 1932 movie The White Zombie were simply …show more content…
Full of plague but unaware. That night the shivers came, and the legendary bad dreams… She returns to her cubicle the next day because she hasn 't taken a sick day in years. Then transformation," (Whitehead 18-19). The amount of detail devoted to a single zombie is disproportionate compared to most mainstream zombie depictions. To name a zombie, present that zombie with a backstory, and to rationalize that zombie’s presence is give the zombie human characteristics, and is to not generically refer to the zombie as “it.” The humanization of the zombies is fairly simple and straightforward.
Zone One’s dehumanization of the surviving remnants of society, however, is different. Most apocalyptic narratives focus on how the apocalypse traumatizes the survivors into being less human. Desperate times often call for depraved morals for the sake of survival: killing former humans, killing and stealing from other humans, or even eating other humans. However, Zone One takes into consideration not only the corruptions of humanity amidst the apocalypse, but also the underlying, hidden vices that predated the emergence of the apocalypse. “Dehumanization” is defined as the deprivation of human qualities, personality, or spirit, and this is applied by characterizing the pre-apocalypse humans like zombies. “The skel [zombie] wore a morose and deeply stained pinstripe suit, with a solid crimson tie and dark brown tasseled loafers… It was no
She allows the reader to truly imagine themselves in a zombie apocalypse by using description and comparison. “If you work in the many white-collar fields that have suffered in this recession, zombies are the perfect representation of the fiscal horror show” (Bosch, 651). Any reader that works in the white-collar fields, or knows anyone that does, can relate to what Bosch is saying because she used a vivid description and a comparison in one sentence. Readers will read this line and imagine their work chaos during the recession and immediately visualize zombies taking over the world and the madness that goes along with that. “There was a recession. It was a time of unemployment – of white-collar employment…” (Warner, 197). She also uses another type of figurative language: a metaphor. When she talks about the reality of zombie television shows and movies, she used a metaphor to compare modern day zombies to unicorns. “[n]o longer are zombies the beloved genre of the lonely, virgin teenage male, the macabre flipside of the girls’ obsession with unicorns” (Bosch, 651). She uses this metaphor to enhance the reader’s reading experience with humor but also by allowing the reader to understand how modern day zombie television shows and movies are looked upon. It is no longer for guts and gore but for fondness of shows and
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 horror genre has been captivating and enthralling the masses for centuries, but more recently in the twentieth century these morbid tales have moved from the old media of oral stories and literature to the new medium of horror pictures. Horror pictures still are not the end of the evolution of the horror genre, as this medium itself has experienced evolutions to satisfy an increasingly desensitized audience. To exemplify this evolution of horror pictures we will be taking a look at an occult classic from 1968 Night of the living dead and a new thriller The Walking Dead. Both horror pictures portray a zombie apocalypse and there are similarities and differences in the main characters, the zombies, and the worlds of the two pictures.
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
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
AHHHHhhhhhh........! Imagine being awakened by a soft, distance scream. Wide awake, the world returns to being silent except for a racing heartbeat. Suddenly, a soft resonating moan starts to fill the empty air of the bedroom. Looking out the window, the world is an eerie grey with nothing moving but the occasional garbage blowing in the wind. Suddenly the horizon begins to change as a crowd of people begin to emerge. Watching nervously, the figures get closer and turn into something much more menacing. They are all disease-invested, flesh-rotted, brain-hungry zombies! Where did these undead monsters come from? How do they survive? What
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.
Ever since the first zombie movie was created in 1932, there has been a constant rise of zombie appearances in popular media. Like with all monsters, the majority of zombie media aimed to represent a certain aspect throughout the society in question. Whereas vampires represented romanticism and Dracula represented how a certain social group was viewed during a certain time period, zombies in Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” aimed to create a situation whereby a group of people had to survive a night together, despite their racial tensions between one another. Being the founder of all subsequent zombie films, “Night of the Living Dead” provided a guideline for zombie behavior. As time passed, more and more versions of the zombie came out, whereby zombies stopped being a plot device and turned into the focus of the film itself. The Walking Dead, currently standing as the fourth most popular TV series, took a turn from this progression and decided to imitate Romero’s take on zombies. By including zombies which simply aimed to sustain themselves by consuming the flesh of the “live,” the creators of The Walking Dead caused the remaining survivors to gather together and rely on primitive human instinct to survive. Even though the zombies in this series run rampant, they play a very minimalistic metaphoric role. Instead, by presenting the zombies as a plot device, the characters in this series were able to demonstrate their true prejudiced view on society, ultimately revealing
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.
In the modern world, media outlets and pop culture constantly revive the idea of zombies taking over human society. From The Walking Dead to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” zombies are portrayed as slow-moving living-dead creatures shown in mass amounts to create the idea of consumption. While this monster as it is depicted in movies and television shows is nonexistent, there are living zombies walking the surface every day. They hide in the shadows of town and often only wear the clothes on their back. They spend every day trying to survive with the little amount of money they can scavenge. Money to them acts as the cure to help them get the necessary resources they need. Many people in this nation and across the world are categorized as living under the poverty line. The spectrum of people ranges from homeless and sleeping on the streets to large families settling in garage-sized apartments. Even when taking out of consideration the similarities in physical appearance, zombies are an accurate representation of the major issue of poverty in today’s society due to the instant eeriness that the stereotypes of both subjects represent and the idea that the poor are unable to receive the necessary health treatments.
During the atomic age, the zombie was born, as a new monster that resembled Cold War anxieties. One of the most known fears was the fear of the spread of communism in the United States that would "[turn] citizens into mindless hordes." Nowadays, zombies have developed and are not stupid and slow as shown in the first zombie movies, but they are smart and fast today. The perfect killing machines. Zombies can be compared to "terrorist sects and sleeper cells [...]" (66). The zombie walked represents insecurity in a culture, about "who we are, who the enemy is, and whether s/he is us." The zombie walk helps participants to express their feelings about cultural anxieties related to death and warfare. The destructive force of zombies is detectible in modern anxieties over terrorism and worldwide war. Here, zombies walks have a deep meaning. They "act as a means for working through [...] the structural conditions of a new and violence that so
Zombies or cannibalistic humanoids are popular among the horror genre of myths and legends. As a result, they have became dominant in the pop culture with their appearance in numerous iconic films and shows. Within these legends, stories or films, zombies have been depicted in different versions. They can either be quick and cunningly vicious or slow and mindless. Some stories even portray them having a smart efficient society where they utilize a strange sense of teamwork. Although all of these versions have its comparisons, zombies always end up having a relation to the infamous virus that infects
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.