The Monstrous Fantastic Conference Paper Abstracts - International ...

23. (FTV/H) Now I’m Feelin’ Zombified PalmChair: Haley HerfurthUniversity of Alabama"I always wanted to see how the other half lives": The Contemporary Zombie as Seductive ProselyteKyle BishopSouthern Utah UniversityOver the past decade, audiences have struggled with increasingly ambivalent attitudes towards zombies. What were once horrifying creatures,monsters born from imperialistic violence and enslavement, are now more complicated figures. Recent explorations of the zombie have askedaudiences to see them in more empathetic terms, as misunderstood victims of an uncontrollable infection. In fact, as many film posters, DVDcovers, and book jackets indicate, the contemporary zombie seems to be reaching out to its human counterparts, inviting them to join theirunified and heterogeneous ranks. For the first time in the zombie’s century-old tradition, recent narratives suggest being a zombie may not, infact, be that bad after all. Flying in the face of established euthanistic practices, Cholo, from George Romero’s Land of the Dead (2005), openlyrefuses to be executed after being bitten by a zombie, saying instead, “I always wanted to see how the other half lives.” Similarly, Helen, theplucky housewife from Andrew Currie’s Fido (2006), defiantly tells her husband, “Bill, get your own funeral. Timmy and I are going zombie.” Andmost recently, on the AMC-produced teledrama The Walking Dead (2010– ), Jim makes the same choice: “Just leave me. I want to be with myfamily.” Recent zombie narratives challenge the customary definition of “monster,” demonstrating the potential benefits of being a zombie.The coda of Shaun of the Dead (2004), for example, shows how Ed, although zombified, enjoys a carefree lifestyle, playing videogames with hisbest friend, presumably forever, as the infection preserves him in an eternally unchanging state. For those tormented by post-9/11 anxietiesand the stresses of millennial living, contemporary zombie narratives cast the former monsters as almost redemptive “missionaries” promotingan easier, less angst-ridden existence.Grief of the Living Dead: George Romero and Elizabeth Kubler-RossDeirdre CrimminsIndependent ScholarThe paper argues the relationship between humans and zombies in George Romero’s first four zombie films follows the stages of grievingdescribed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in On Death and Dying. Romero’s films each show a different stage in a zombie outbreak, starting from thefirst night of the scourge in Night of the Living Dead to many years after the plague has destroyed nearly the whole world in Land of the Dead.Kubler-Ross’s book aims to explain the stages of grief that terminal patients step through while trying to accept their imminent death. UsingRobin Wood’s theory that horror films are about three things, the monster, the normal, and their relationship, this paper explores the fact thatthe only changing factor between the films is the relationship between people (the normal) and zombies (the monster). In Night of the LivingDead the people are in denial of having any relationship with the zombies. In Dawn of the Dead the characters have obvious anger and hatredfor the zombies, and are intent on killing them just for sport to express their frustration for the situation. Day of the Dead features scientiststhat are trying to reverse the zombie outbreak, which is essentially an attempt at bartering with the zombie situation to try to undo theepidemic. Land of the Dead shows characters eventually accepting and existing alongside the zombies. Each film sequentially represent a stageof grieving. Going through each film, scene by scene, this paper explores how Romero’s grief for the loss of his generation’s ideals ismanifested through the characters in his films, both living and undead. The close film analysis is supplemented by additional texts on Romero,horror films and zombie films as a genre and sub-genre, and theories of authorship in film.More Than a Symptom: The Zombie and ApocalypseMark McCarthyUniversity of South FloridaIn nearly every modern iteration, the zombie is shown as both harbinger and instrument of the apocalypse. Yet their intimate relationship tothese end of world scenarios has allowed a crucial aspect of the zombie to be overlooked. That is, more than simply the mode of destruction,they are concomitantly the reification of a society facing destruction. In its evolution the zombie has shown an uncanny ability to symbolize ahost of cultural anxieties as diverse as consumerism (Lauro & Embry, 2008; Loudermilk, 2003; Harper, 2002; Shaviro, 1993), capitalism (Lauro &Embry, 2008), gender and race relations (Aizenberg, 1999; Dendle, 2007), colonialism (Dendle, 2007), identity (Shaviro, 1993), hybridity (Boon,2007), and biomedical ideologies (Mulligan, 2009). They have proven so adept at this that that have become, in Peter Dendle’s words, a“barometer of cultural anxiety” (Dendel, 2007, p. 45). This paper will show that their embodiment of these anxieties has effectively obscuredthe fact that they are not simply manifestations of the anxiety du jour, but rather, they represent a society constituted by imperfect institutionslike capitalism, colonialism, and the biomedical complex, yearning for its own destruction. These exposed anxieties are simply the symptoms ofa sickened body that, in the popular imagination, is a decaying carcass ripe for reveal-destruction-rebirth. Žižek once quipped, “It is much easierfor us to imagine the end of the world than a small change in the political system” (Mead, 2003, p. 40). The zombie allows for this imagineddestruction while revealing all that is thought to be rotten in our world.