Origins
of Zombies
·
Theorists of zombie culture (such as Kyle Bishop or Jamie Russell), link the origin of
the zombie to Haitian folklore and voodoo.
·
The zombie didn’t make its way into American culture until
the 1920s and 30s, when travel narratives were popular with
Western readers. W.B. Seabrook’s book The Magic Island is
often credited as the first popular text to describe the ‘Haitian zombie’.
· The first
major zombie film was Halperin and Halperin’s (1932) White Zombie, which depicted a Haitian voodoo priest capturing
the female actor as a zombie slave. Other early zombie films
include: Revolt of the Zombies (1936), King of the Zombies (1941),
and I Walked with a Zombie (1943).
· The
zombies of these films was not the cannibalistic zombie we know now.
These zombies were people put under the spell of voodoo. In these films, the
true terror is becoming a zombie, not being bitten by one.
·
What all
these films have in common is their depiction of Voodoo and Haitian culture
more generally as dangerous and superstitious. Many people are keen to note that the messages and signals contained in these films
are not subtle, and present stereotyped versions of Haitian culture aimed
largely at a mainly white audience. Many of these films also
contain an all-white cast, with several members in 'blackface' as comic relief for the more “serious” scenes.
Classic
Zombies
·
In
1968, the classic black and white film, ‘Night of the Living Dead’ was released
by George A. Romero in theatres across America.
·
Prior
to Romero’s take on the zombie genre; zombies largely reflected the spirit
of the times in which these films were made e.g. the fears of racial mixing
found in White Zombie (1932) and the fears of mind control
found in Invisible Invaders (1952).
·
However,
Romero changed these trends when he made the zombie into something more than
simply a machine of mind control or voodoo; Romero introduced the
“flesh-eater” into the zombie world.
·
In
addition, Romero made his zombies into a form of infection: A single bite from
a zombie will similarly kill and turn you into a zombie, playing into
fears of loved ones and strangers turning on one another.
·
What is interesting to note about Romero’s film is its not-so-subtle use of race relations to convey to the audience the
tensions of the Civil Rights era. Although Romero
himself has stated that his casting of a Black man as the lead role had nothing
to do with race, the impact was felt by audiences.
· Romero included still
photos at the end of the film, in which aggressive white police officers
drag the corpse of Duane, the lead character, by meat hooks, with canines and
armed civilians. These graphic pictures are
reminiscent of white lynch mobs in the southern United States.
· Romero took his social criticism one step further in his
second zombie film, Dawn of
the Dead (1978). In this film,
a group of survivors lay low in a shopping mall as zombies invade from outside.
The images of zombies mindlessly walking, groping, and drooling over consumer
goods provides an image of the cult of consumerism and American
capitalism.
Modern
Zombies
· The first blockbuster film of this era, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) is often
credited to raising the stakes in zombie films and is a cult classic.
·
Perhaps
most importantly, Boyle’s film is also credited in the creation of a new breed
of zombie, the fast-moving, disease-infected living type.
· These
zombies are no longer robots, but enraged, wild, feral, and overcome with
madness. They sprint rather than shuffle aimlessly; and more than brains they
seek to spread the infection further, spewing blood and bile onto their victims
in addition to just eating them.
·
28 Days Later also set the stage
for a dramatic expansion of the zombie narrative, both in terms of special
effects and in scope. In the film, the entire world is said to have been taken
over by the “rage virus” and the characters must struggle to survive without
the safety of social institutions. The very social institutions established to
protect humanity become threats to their survival, as the protagonists find out
when they attempt to live with a group of soldiers, who attempt to rape and
kill them.
·
As well as this, the
Zombie sub-genre spilled into other genres e.g. comedy, romance. In 2004, Shaun
of the Dead was released, a British horror film labelled a ‘ZomCom’.
Types
of Zombies
The zombie can be reduced to three main types:
·
The somnambulist (i.e.: mind control slave-zombie),
·
The cannibalistic corpse (i.e.: undead eaters)
·
Infected living (e.g.: the “rage virus” of 28
Days Later).
Genre
theory + theorists
Name
|
Theory
|
Daniel Chandler
|
Conventional
definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute
particular conventions of content (such as themes or settings) and/or form
(including structure and style) which are shared by the texts which are
regarded as belonging to them.
|
Steve Neale
|
·
'Genres
are instances of repetition and difference' (Neale 1980, 48). He adds that
'difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre': mere repetition
would not attract an audience.
·
Argues
that Hollywood’s generic regime performs two inter-related functions: i) to
guarantee meanings and pleasures for audiences ii) to offset the considerable
economic risks of industrial film production by providing cognitive
collateral against innovation and difference.
·
Genre
is constituted by “specific systems of expectations and hypothesis which
spectators bring with them to the cinema and which interact with the films
themselves during the course of the viewing process.”
|
John Hartley
|
·
Texts
often exhibit the conventions of more than one genre.
·
John
Hartley notes that “The same text can belong to different genres in different
countries or times.”
·
Traditionally
genres were regarded as fixed forms, but contemporary theory emphasises that
both their forms and functions are dynamic.
|
David Buckingham
|
“Genre is not… simply
‘given’ by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation
and change.”
|
Tom Ryall
|
Genre provides a
framework of structuring rules, in the shape of
patterns/forms/styles/structures, which act as a form of ‘supervision’ over
the work of production of filmmakers and the work of reading by the audience
|
