The article ‘Terror in Horror Genres: The Global Media and the Millennial Zombie’, conducted byBirch-Bayley Nicole, aims to explore zombie as an iconography and allegory of society from the post-modern to modern era, focusing especially on zombie films. First, the author suggests the symbolic meaning of the post-modern zombie with regard to racism, capitalism and imperialism. Then, Birch-Bayley analyses “28 Days Later” (2004), “Dawn of the Dead” (2004), “28 Weeks later” (2007) and “Diary of the Dead” (2007) to make social comments. The plots, setting and even character dialogs are analysed carefully to demonstrate how these media products reflect the society’s fear of terrorism and epidemic, particularly after the 11/9. The article links the millennial zombie to the social anxieties in the era of globalisation. Additionally, this paper designates how these modern films shed a light on the hostility and anxieties of the universal media in the new millennium.

The article is highly readable because it is well structured and organized. The author also takes advantage of other frameworks in the same field to fortify his arguments. For the whole of this paper, Birch-Bayley indicates the impotence of the military and the government in dealing with global crisis. In those films the military is portrayed to be extremely ineffective, which strongly fits in with the current worldwide situation. Around the world, military is still being used by many countries to deal with their conflicts instead of diplomacy. The paper takes the intercession of American troops in Iraq as an example to the way the America tries to assist in solving the outbreak in “28 Days Later”. However, in this situation, taking the occupation of Iraq can be a bias because this issue is being debated no-stop because of its controversy. There might be political or economic ambition, rather than a mere solving conflict attempt.

The paper introduces valuable key insights of how changes in media remarkably bring zombie film making to a completely new level as well as the important role of media in presenting global issues. Combining with other works focusing on studying the origin of this horrified figure, this article is very useful for those who want to research zombie culture. Furthermore, this paper raises a question which I find it significant: has human race become resistant to international crisis and violence? Audiences should be scared of horror film as mentioned in the article (Birch-Bayley, Clarens cited in 1967). The author also suggests that viewers, in many cases, do not recognise the connection between zombie fantasy and reality. They are supposed to be aware of the threat associated with zombies, not to become desensitised to them. Therefore, further research can be conducted to clarify this issue.

Reference:
Birch‐Bayley, N 2012, ‘Terror in Horror Genres: The Global Media and the Millennial Zombie’, Journal of Popular Culture, vol.45, no.6, pp.1137-1151.

In the article ‘Dead Subjectivity: “White Zombie”, Black Baghdad’, Jenifer Fay focuses on exploring the old style zombie as an allegory of history and society in a period of time, focusing particularly on “White zombie” (1932) as an example. The author proposes the symbolic meaning of the post-modern zombie in terms of cultural, economic and political context. In this article, Fay analyses the movie “White zombie” as the main study subject to make social comments. The story line, character system and even the setting are analysed carefully to illustrate how the film reflects the American society with its colonialism which rules over other regions. In addition, the author also analyses “Black Baghdad”, a book published in 1933, to suggest the two modern versions of America-Haiti relationship. The paper not only links the origin of zombies in “White zombie” to Haitian voodoo magic but also implicates Americans in a colonial economy and slave labour during their occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934. Many paragraphs of her work devote to indicate that zombie is a result of consumerism by comparing the movie to the occupation.

White zombie – 1932

Black Bagdad – 1933

Throughout the paper, Fay strongly criticises the colonial policy. For example, she debates that the appearance of Americans in Haiti is just for its geographical, political and economic investment. The author makes a valid point here because the USA still applies this strategy in different forms to gain benefit from other countries; the invasion and occupation of Iraq under George W. Bush is an example of this. Her arguments are well researched and are strengthened by historical evidences and other research conducted in the same field. For instance, Haitians are mentioned as labourers that have to work under an extremely harsh condition (Fay, cited in Schmidt 1971) with an extremely low payment (Fay, cited in Dayan 1995).

Due to the consumerism, both black and white people are vulnerable to exploitation. Moreover, Fay states that the zombies in “White zombie” not only reflect the slave labours in Haiti under colonialism but also the “zombified” workforce worldwide. At this point, the author introduces another reasonable argument. Additionally, those zombies are subservient to their master. Even these days, it is not difficult to find an example of how those zombies represent the labour force, especially in factories. There are countless of people who are working mindlessly with the same process everyday just like those creatures. However, not being well structured is a limitation to the paper. Turning back and moving to different arguments is easy to make readers confused.

In general, the article offers valuable insights for further research on how zombie reflects human society no matter what era we are living in. One area for further investigation could be highlighted here is  whether the link to Haitian voodoo culture is made from awareness or it is made from the western society’s fear of it, and the straining tension between the cultures during the Haitian occupation.

Reference:
Fay, J 2008, ‘Dead Subjectivity: “White Zombie”, Black Baghdad’, CR: The New Millenial Review, vol. 8, no.1, pp. 81-101.

Directed by Edgar Wright, Shaun of the Dead is a mixture of romance, horror and comedy. Our main character is Shaun, a typical boring employee who follows the same routine every day. Even though, he notices something wrong is happening in the world around him but ignores all of them. Hilariously but metonymically, the zombies in this movie still follow their mindlessly processing routine as if their brains are still functional.

Image from http://isys6621.com/

However, the issue raised here is that whether they are zombies before becoming  zombies or not?

“…The zombie can be understood as tracking a range of cutural, political and economic anxieties in North American society.”

(Birch-Bayley, p.1148)

Nowadays, it’s not difficult to find an example of how zombie represents us. There are so many people are walking with their headphones, sticking their eyes to the phone screen without any awareness of actual things happening around them. Moreover, the film turns zombies into economical account and use their condition to fill low working class roles at the end which somehow implies that human is ready to exploit anything to make profit while ignore all the risks.

Reference:
Birch-Bayley, N 2012, ‘Terror in Horror Genres: The Global Media and the Millennial Zombie’, Journal of Popular Culture, vol.45, no.6, pp.1137-1151.

“…The zombie can be understood as tracking a range of cultural, political and economic anxieties in North American society.”

(Birch-Bayley, pp.1148)

“White zombie”, directed by Victor Hugo Halperin from 1932 was the very first zombie movie ever made. In “White zombie”, the African American are reanimated by a white priest using black magic and exploited by a white master. They are slave labour who work without complaining about working condition or payment. Not just the African Americans, the female white character is also turned into zombie and subservient to her master.

“White zombie” not only links the origin of zombies to Haitian voodoo magic but also implicates Americans in a colonial economy and slave labour during their occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934. Links to voodoo culture are made from awareness, but rather western society’s fear of it, and the straining racial tensions between the cultures during the Haitian occupation.

In “I walked with a zombie”, directed by Jacques Tourneur, Haitian black was again accused for the source of zombies. However, the plot which the magic power is switched back to the native symbolises the Western society guilt over their colonialism. We can still see the American dominating in this movie through Mrs Rand. She is the one who turn Jessica into zombie, but the native priest (the Houngan) still holds the ultimate power.

Reference:

Birch-Bayley, N 2012, ‘Terror in Horror Genres: The Global Media and the Millennial Zombie’, Journal of Popular Culture, vol.45, no.6,pp. 1137-1151.