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Posted on July 24, 2020

On “Little Monsters” and Teaching in the Apocalypse

Guest Post

No personal protective equipment, no training for the current situation, and no Clorox wipes as far as the eye can see, though you’ve never needed one more. The threat of death lurks around every corner, and your job, nominally developing your students’ minds, now requires jeopardizing your body. It may sound like Betsy DeVos’s plan for the 2020 school year in the US. In fact, it definitely is. But it is also the plot of Abe Forsythe’s 2019 Australian film Little Monsters, a zom-com in which kindergarten teacher Miss (Audrey) Caroline (Lupita Nyong’o) must safely extricate her class from a petting zoo plagued by zombie hordes stumbling over from a nearby American military base.

As US educators watching the film in 2020 (why, God, why????), we find it difficult to overlook how often our supposed “life of the mind” demands making an ultimate sacrifice of our bodies. In that regard, COVID-19 simply replays the tired old arguments around gun violence in American schools. Whether we’re told to arm ourselves with guns or antibacterial gel, our teaching is interrupted constantly by threats we’re not trained or paid to handle. What Little Monsters suggests is that this is modern-day education.

Posted on March 26, 2020

Night of the Living Dead in the Time of Confinement and the Coronavirus

Guest Post

George A. Romero’s classic zombie trilogy, Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985), is the ultimate example of the zombie as a social metaphor. Countless articles have been written about each film, especially the racial undertones of the first film. In the age of the Coronavirus and confinement, Night of the Living Dead suddenly warrants a re-watch. When survivors are trapped inside a farmhouse, the social equilibrium is reset–and the film mirrors some of the worst aspects of human nature during a societal breakdown and confinement. Even the (anti)hero, Ben (Duane Jones), commits heinous acts that he most likely would not have otherwise. Yet, the film also shows a few of humanity’s bright spots.

Though shot outside of Pittsburgh, Night of the Living Dead is a film that could take place anywhere, which, again, makes it all the more relevant during this global pandemic. As of the time of writing this, COVID-19 has impacted every state and nearly every country. Cities have been hit the worst, specifically New York City, but the virus knows no boundaries and has started to spread through rural pockets of the country, more evocative of Romero’s setting. The radio and television reports that speak of the growing outbreak in the film have an eerie parallel to our current moment, as each day brings more grim news. Read more

Posted on May 24, 2019

Black Summer and Zombie Minimalism: Leaving the Horde Behind

Guest Post

Black Summer (2019) has polarized critics and undead fans. Some have called the show a rejuvenation of the zombie genre and others have balked at the story’s zombies and its ending. Wherever the critics and undead-lovers land on the series, there is no mistaking that Black Summer brings a new take on old lore. However, in a landscape of continually evolving interpretations of the walking flesh eater–Train to Busan (2016), Cargo (2017), The Dead Don’t Die (2019), etc.–Black Summer innovates by opposing the massive hordes and the deadeye heroes of current zombie films and television. In doing so, Black Summer masters a minimalistic horror that reignites the fear of the living dead. Read more

Posted on February 14, 2019

Queering the Family in The Walking Dead

Guest Post

From the first, Rick Grimes’ role as a father has occupied a central place in The Walking Dead franchise. Initially, his quest to find his family drives both him and the narrative onward. Later, he competes violently for the status of sole patriarch of his family (a role that overlaps significantly with his role as leader of his group of survivors), forms new nuclear family units after his wife, Lori, dies, and consistently frames his decision-making as oriented towards making a future for his son, Carl. Perhaps his focus on the family does not seem surprising. Perhaps it even seems “natural.” Perhaps, however, it should not.

My essay, “‘We can’t just ignore the rules’: Queer Heterosexualities,” in the collection The Politics of Race, Gender and Sexuality in The Walking Dead, proposes that both The Walking Dead comics and television show overwhelmingly present, in their narratives, language, and visual representations, the dominance of the heteronormative nuclear family, the ideology that underlies it, and the mechanisms through which that ideology is enforced and naturalized.

Posted on July 22, 2016

Barbra’s Monstrous Metamorphosis in Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Elizabeth Erwin

His name virtually synonymous with the cinematic zombie, George A. Romero’s Dead series rewrote the rules of the undead monster. In the original Night of the Living Dead (1968), Romero’s core group of survivors battle each other as well as the zombies in a film which very much reflects the time in which it was made. As one of the group fighting for survival, Barbra is the epitome of the defenseless female. She spends the majority of the film either panicking to the detriment of those around her or catatonic. Her death, via consumption by her zombified brother, is almost a welcome reprieve from her complete ineffectualness.