THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE WASTELAND: THE POST-APOCALYPTIC GENRE AND THE WESTERN IN CINEMA By CASEY MCDERMID RATTO A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Program in American Studies MAY 2019 © Copyright by CASEY MCDERMID RATTO, 2019 All Rights Reserved © Copyright by CASEY MCDERMID RATTO, 2019 All Rights Reserved To the Faculty of Washington State University: The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of CASEY MCDERMID RATTO find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. Carmen Lugo-Lugo, Ph.D., Chair Mary Bloodsworth-Lugo, Ph.D. Rory Ong, Ph.D. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT First, I want to acknowledge the committee for all their help and support throughout the process. I want to thank Professor Carmen Lugo-Lugo for agreeing to chair the committee and being a source of great help. Without her, this would be a drastically different project and she has my eternal gratitude. I want to Professor Mary Bloodsworth-Lugo for her comments and guiding me through the defense process. I also want to thank Professor Rory Ong for his feedback throughout the entire process. They were always fantastic and even though I might have not had the time to use them all, I plan on using them when I hopefully transform this into a book. All three members of the committee have my eternal thanks and gratitude and without them, none of this would be possible. I also want to thank my family who acted as a source of constant encouragement and inspiration through the process. For that I thank: my mom Robyn, my dad Richard, my sister Amanda, my brother Ian, my brother Patrick and my sister-in-law Rebekah. Finally, I would like to thank my friends who kept me both sane and entertained during the grind of writing. I would like to thank Chris and Shannon Trapani, Jared Woldseth, Lucas Rosen, and Pitor Cymbalski for not only being the greatest friends I have ever had but for also tolerating my passion for the game of baseball. iii THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE WASTELAND: THE POST-APOCALYPTIC GENRE AND THE WESTERN IN CINEMA Abstract By Casey McDermid Ratto, Ph.D. Washington State University May 2019 Chair: Carmen Lugo-Lugo This dissertation examines the relationship between the Western and post-apocalyptic genre in cinema. Specifically, how the post-apocalyptic genre translates and adapts key tenets of the Western to create a genre that is both foreign and familiar. However, this translation compromises the post-apocalyptic genre due to baggage of the Western genre especially racism, sexism and imperialism. These issues complicate the regenerative capabilities of the post- apocalyptic genre by never moving on from the old world. Chapter 1 explores the relationship between the archetype of the savage and race in post- apocalyptic cinema, specifically focusing on in the inverted frontier and the universalized savage via zombie cinema. Chapter 2 explores how by translating and adapting the Western genre frontier, the gender norms of the Western haunt the post-apocalyptic genre and compromise the possibility of a new world. Chapter 3 examines the intersection of the apocalypse and colonialism as represented by the Mad Max quartet of films. Chapter 4 analyzes the relationship between Western genre locations and low budget post-apocalyptic films. Chapter 5 examines the iv spatial temporality of the post-apocalyptic genre and how it is in the past, the present and the future. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT ................................................................................................................ iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iv CHAPTER CHAPTER ONE: APOCALYPTIC APPROPRIATION: ZOMBIES, WHITEWASHING AND THE UNIVERSALIZED SAVAGE .......................................................................... 1 Western History and Archetypes ................................................................................... 5 White Zombie: More Human Than Human ................................................................... 9 Night of the Living Dead: Whitewashing the Zombie ................................................. 21 28 Days Later: The Urban Zombie ............................................................................. 31 CHAPTER TWO: LITTLE HOUSE ON THE WASTELAND: HYPER-MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY IN THE POST-APOCALYPTIC FRONTIER ................................ 45 Positionality of Women Within the Western Genre .................................................... 47 A Boy and His Dog: Apocalyptic Americana .............................................................. 50 The Book of Eli: The Next Generation of Gunslingers ................................................ 61 Children of Men: A Permanent State of Exception ..................................................... 72 CHAPTER THREE: CYCLICAL DESTRUCTION: POST-APOCALYPTIC COLONIALISM IN THE MAD MAX SERIES ................................................................ 84 Mad Max: The Collapsing State .................................................................................. 90 The Road Warrior: The Black Leather Gunslinger ..................................................... 94 Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome: We Need a Hero ................................................. 105 Mad Max: Fury Road: The Nation-State Redux ....................................................... 114 vi CHAPTER FOUR: LIGHTS, CAMERA, WASTELAND: PRODUCTION, AESTHETICS AND COST IN POST-APOCALYPTIC CINEMA ............................... 128 The Paradoxical Plains .............................................................................................. 130 The Tiny Town and the Encompassing Desert .......................................................... 135 A Boy and His Dog: Wasteland on a Budget ............................................................. 138 The Real and the Metaphorical Desert ...................................................................... 142 Mad Max: The Global Gunslinger ............................................................................. 148 The Gunslinger in Black Leather .............................................................................. 154 Stake Land: Horrors of the Post-Apocalypse ............................................................ 158 Macro and Micro: The Individual and the Institution at the End of the World ......... 163 CHAPTER FIVE: THE NEVER-ENDING FRONTIER: THE FUTURE, THE PAST AND THE PRESENT OF THE POST-APOCALYPTIC GENRE ................................ 174 Snowpiercer: The Train That Never Ends ................................................................. 178 Natural Born Killers .................................................................................................. 181 The Road: To Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions .................................................... 185 The Rover: Ennui in the Australian Wasteland ......................................................... 191 The Postman: Tracking Number Not Required ......................................................... 199 Selective Regeneration .............................................................................................. 203 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 213 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 228 vii Dedication For Ginger, Lola and Sammy viii CHAPTER ONE: APOCALYPTIC APPROPRIATION: ZOMBIES, WHITEWASHING AND THE UNIVERSALIZED SAVAGE Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves -George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road Man isn’t a noble savage, he’s an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved- that sums it up. I’m interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it is a true picture of him. -Stanley Kubrick Essential to many stories is the battle between the protagonist and the antagonist and it is through these roles that the plot is produced. Good vs evil, light side vs dark side, and man vs machine. In each scenario, the protagonist triumphs over the antagonist and nowhere is this better illustrated than the Western genre. Due to the simple but infinitely adaptable formula, the Western genre relies on strict archetypes to populate its world. In discussing the simplicity of the Western formula, John Cawelti in The Six Gun Mystique states that “the simplest version of all has the hero protecting the townspeople from the savage, using his own savage skills against the denizens of the wilderness.”1The role that the antagonist inhabits is called the savage and is an essential part of any Western story. In linking the frontier to the savage, the archetype has racial connotations due to the nostalgic interpretation of the past that the Western portrays. The savage in the Western is always tied to race even though the archetype theoretically can be inhabited by anyone. Corrupt bankers, outlaws and bandits can inhabit the role quite freely. Even though the savage archetype can be portrayed in numerous different ways, the archetype in the Western is that of the antagonist. For civilization to spread out across the frontier, the savage must be dispatched. Different genres have adopted the civilization