'The Whole Burden of Civilisation Has Fallen Upon Us'
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‘The Whole Burden of Civilisation Has Fallen upon Us’. The Representation of Gender in Zombie Films, 1968-2013 Leon van Amsterdam Student number: s1141627 Leiden University MA History: Cities, Migration and Global Interdependence Thesis supervisor: Marion Pluskota 2 Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 4 Theory ................................................................................................................................. 6 Literature Review ............................................................................................................... 9 Material ............................................................................................................................ 13 Method ............................................................................................................................. 15 Chapter 2: A history of the zombie and its cultural significance ............................................. 18 Race and gender representations in early zombie films .................................................. 18 The sci-fi zombie and Romero’s ghoulish zombie ............................................................ 22 The loss and return of social anxiety in the zombie genre .............................................. 26 Chapter 3: (Post)feminism in American politics and films ....................................................... 30 Protofeminism .................................................................................................................. 30 The emergence of mainstream feminism ........................................................................ 33 Women’s Liberation ......................................................................................................... 34 Backlash and postfeminism .............................................................................................. 36 The influence of feminism on gender in film ................................................................... 40 Cinematic backlash and hypermasculinity ....................................................................... 42 Female action hero ........................................................................................................... 43 Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 4: Quantitative analysis .............................................................................................. 47 Character demographics .................................................................................................. 47 Character domesticity ...................................................................................................... 57 Character appearance ...................................................................................................... 59 Masculine traits and stereotypes ..................................................................................... 67 Feminine traits and stereotypes ...................................................................................... 69 General traits .................................................................................................................... 73 3 Character sexuality and sexual violence .......................................................................... 75 Survival and death ............................................................................................................ 76 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 81 Chapter 5: Qualitative analysis ................................................................................................. 84 Gender before the apocalypse ......................................................................................... 85 Male heroism in World War Z and Return of the Dead ................................................... 90 Critiques of masculinity in Romero’s Nights and Dawn ................................................... 93 Critiques of masculinity in recent zombie films ............................................................... 97 Female heroisms and oppositions ................................................................................. 103 The restoration of order (?) ........................................................................................... 111 Chapter 6: Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 113 Primary Sources .................................................................................................................. 118 Secondary Literature .......................................................................................................... 118 Appendix 1: Codebook ........................................................................................................... 129 Demographic Character Information ............................................................................. 129 Character Appearance .................................................................................................... 130 Characteristics and Gender Stereotypes ........................................................................ 132 Sexuality and Attraction ................................................................................................. 134 Violence and Apocalypse ............................................................................................... 135 Appendix 2: Score sheets ....................................................................................................... 137 4 Chapter 1: Introduction The subject matter and purpose of this thesis is aptly illustrated by an opening scene of George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead (2007), the fifth instalment in his Living Dead series. A group of film students is working on what appears to be a cliché-ridden mummy movie. The scene they are shooting involves the mummy chasing a girl who is wearing a long abdomen crushing dress and high heels, both of which purposely slow her down and render her prone to stumble. When she does fall, however, the mummy is not supposed to catch her, because ‘this is the beginning of the fucking movie. You catch her now; it’s all over.’ The director goes on to suggest that the mummy should only grab the actress by her dress, immediately provoking a reaction from the female victim, who aptly distinguishes the desired effect: ‘so my tits fall out? Ain’t gonna happen! You know, can somebody please explain to me why girls in scary movies always have to, like, fall down and lose their shoes and shit? It’s totally lame! And why do we always have to get our dresses torn off?’. When it is clear that the male participants do not seem to care for her polemic, she remarks that she should have stayed with her auto repair job.1 This dialogue captures and criticises the essence of the way in which gender is commonly represented in the horror film, including all of its different subgenres. The female character is often portrayed as a passive victim, in need of male protection and treated as an erotic spectacle. While the horror film could be regarded as a misogyny perpetuating genre for such reasons, and because its primary focus is sexual difference and sexual identity2, it should, however, not be dismissed because of this. The focus and clichés of this genre are particularly what make it an interesting research subject, because they could be used as an analytical background to study films that deviate from genre (and gender) conventions. This is particularly true for the apocalyptic zombie film subgenre, in which alternative visions of gender relations can be created.3 It is predominantly the transformation from a functioning society into a post-apocalyptic zombie-ridden one that facilitates this idea, because 1 George A. Romero, Diary of the Dead, (2007), 5:00-6.10 2 See for an overview of this conceptualization: Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chainsaws, (Princeton 1992). Clover suggests that horror films have the tendency to victimise sexual active female characters while celebrating pure/virginal female characters, who are often the only ones to survive. 3 N. Patterson, ‘Cannibalizing Gender and Genre: A Feminist Re-Vision of George Romero’s Zombie Films’, in: S. McIntosh and M. Leverette (eds.), Zombie Culture: Autopsies of the Living Dead, (New York 2008), 103-118: 108-109 5 organisations and institutions, as well as ideological constructions, are diminished or have ceased to exist altogether, thus leaving room for rethought relations.4 Despite this ‘hopeful’ premise, the space for alternative gender constructions often seems to not be as large and facilitating as thought. According to Tammy Garland, who researched how violence is used as a means of curbing female characters’ gender role transgressions in the Walking Dead comics, a societal collapse in this material meant a return to a more “natural” or “primitive” society in which patriarchy is reinforced as the dominant social structure and gender roles neatly fit into – and are violently made to fit into – an essentialist binary.5 Moreover, Barbara Gurr, who edited a collection of essays on race, gender and sexuality in (general) post-apocalyptic fiction, suggests that alternative gender representations