“…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.