Zombies and Sexuality CONTRIBUTIONS TO ZOMBIE STUDIES White Zombie: Anatomy of a Horror Film. Gary D. Rhodes. 2001 (2006, paperback) The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia. Peter Dendle. 2001 (2011, paperback) American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture. Kyle William Bishop. 2010 Back from the Dead: Remakes of the Romero Zombie Films as Markers of Their Times. Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. 2011 Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture. Edited by Stephanie Boluk and Wylie Lenz. 2011 Race, Oppression and the Zombie: Essays on Cross-Cultural Appropriations of the Caribbean Tradition. Edited by Christopher M. Moreman and Cory James Rushton. 2011 Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead. Edited by Christopher M. Moreman and Cory James Rushton. 2011 The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, Volume 2: 2000–2010. Peter Dendle. 2012 Great Zombies in History. Edited by Joe Sergi. 2013 (graphic novel) Unraveling Resident Evil: Essays on the Complex Universe of the Games and Films. Edited by Nadine Farghaly. 2014 “We’re All Infected”: Essays on AMC’s The Walking Dead and the Fate of the Human. Edited by Dawn Keetley. 2014 Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead. Edited by Shaka McGlotten and Steve Jones. 2014 Zombies and Sexuality Essays on Desire and the Living Dead Edited by Shaka McGlotten and Steve Jones Contributions to Zombie Studies McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Zombies and sexuality : essays on desire and the living dead / edited by Shaka McGlotten and Steve Jones. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-7907-8 (softcover : acid free paper) ♾ ISBN 978-1-4766-1738-1 (ebook) 1. Zombies—Social aspects. 2. Sex in literature. 3. Zombies in literature. 4. Queer theory. 5. Zombie films. I. McGlotten, Shaka, 1975– editor. II. Jones, Steve, 1979– editor. GR581.Z65 2014 398.21—dc23 2014030916 BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE © 2014 Shaka McGlotten and Steve Jones. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. On the cover: poster art, Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave, 2005 (Denholm Trading Inc./Photofest) Printed in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com Table of Contents Introduction: Zombie Sex Steve Jones and Shaka McGlotten 1 Take, Eat, These Are My Brains: Queer Zombie Jesus Max Thornton 19 Victorian Values: Necrophilia and the Nineteenth Century in Zombie Films Marcus Harmes 36 A Love Worth Un- Undying For: Neoliberalism and Queered Sexuality in Warm Bodies Sasha Cocarla 52 For a Good Time Just Scream: Sex Work and Plastic Sexuality in “Dystopicmodern Literature” Denise N. Cook 73 Laid to Rest: Romance, End of the World Sexuality and Apocalyptic Anticipation in Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead Emma Vossen 88 Queering and Cripping the End of the World: Disability, Sexuality and Race in The Walking Dead Cathy Hannabach 106 Re-Animating the Social Order: Zombies and Queer Failure Trevor Grizzell 123 v vi Table of Contents Gay Zombies: Consuming Masculinity and Community in Bruce LaBruce’s Otto; or, Up with Dead People and L.A. Zombie Darren Elliott- Smith 140 “I Eat Brains … or Dick”: Sexual Subjectivity and the Hierarchy of the Undead in Hardcore Film Laura Helen Marks 159 Pretty, Dead: Sociosexuality, Rationality and the Transition into Zom- Being Steve Jones 180 Bibliography 199 About the Contributors 213 Index 215 Introduction Zombie Sex Steve Jones and Shaka McGlotten How would you respond to the onset of a zombie apocalypse? Given only moments to live and faced with the prospect of shambling endlessly through the world as one of the mindless undead, what activity would top your “bucket list”? Luckily for the unimaginative procrastinators among us, zombie narratives offer various helpful suggestions. For exam- ple, in Zombies vs. Strippers (2012), ecdysiast Jasmine elects to give infected strip- club bouncer Marvin a final lapdance. Whether or not this sounds appealing, Zombies vs. Strippers also presents a warning: our desires are worth reflecting on in detail, since they might not play out exactly as we hope they might. Moreover, as we move into undeath, our desires may also mutate in unbidden and unforeseen ways. Marvin and Jasmine’s misinterpreted exchanges exemplify such slippage. When Marvin moans about his bodily failure (“I can barely see. I’m so stiff”), Jasmine thinks that he is “talk[ing] dirty.” As Marvin posits that he is “so close” (to death), Jasmine assures him, “It’s okay baby, you can come.” Amorousness and mortality meld. That amalgam finds its fullest expres- sion when Marvin finally turns. Jasmine thinks it is “sweet” when Marvin declares that he values Jasmine for her “braaaaains” rather than her looks, but she does not bargain on Marvin proving it by immediately biting her face off. The next time the couple are depicted, Jasmine (now faceless and topless) continues to dry- hump the fully zombified Marvin. In this instance, living sexual desire and the zombie’s carnal longings are indistinguishable from one another. The motto of this particular story may be that love transcends even death. Maybe Jasmine and Mar- 1 2 Introduction vin’s tryst signals that once enflamed, our passions are unstoppable forces. Alternatively, these gyrating sacs of viscera might underscore that even grotesque ghouls need a little lovin’. Whatever conclusion one reaches, the unpalatable combination of zombies and sex is provocative, triggering a multitude of questions about the nature of desire, sex, sexuality, and the politics of our sexual behav- iors. Colleagues’ and friends’ varied responses to our proposal for this volume attest to how stimulating (intellectually or otherwise) the idea of zombie sex is. Their reactions ranged from polite curiosity to surprise, from disgust to shock. Yes, zombies and sex. Is the juxtaposition really so surprising? Zombies are increasingly ubiquitous cultural figures most commonly associated with a decaying half- life and a mindless appetite for human flesh (and/or brains). Sex is even more ubiquitous, manifest- ing as erotic attachments and practices that are variously reproductive, fun, banal, troubling, and carnal. Whatever form sex takes, it is central to virtually every human life and form of sociality. What is perhaps more shocking than the combination of “zombies and sex” is how infrequently this juxtaposition has been addressed in extant scholarship, not least since our book proposal resonated with so many: we received nearly 50 abstracts in response to our call for papers. We were surprised by the range of cultural texts—pornographic, straight, and queer—that our contributors drew upon, by the multifarious ways in which zombies and sex have been brought together in zombie texts, and by the latent sexual themes zombie narratives explore. Zombies crystallize fears and desires related to contagion and consumption, to the body and sociality, to autonomy and enslavement. They represent a rarified drive that under- pins our conscious desires: to consume. In zombie narratives, this drive impels contagious forms of contact, sweeping up new bodies as it builds. The result is that human sociality is fundamentally altered, taking form as a collective comprised of individuals seeking connection with one another, or a swarm of bodies devoid of individual subjectivity, for exam- ple. The essays in this book explore what happens in the wake of these encounters, when sex and undeath are brought together. The Zombies Are Coming Since the early 2000s, zombies have become an increasingly sig- nificant presence in the landscape of popular culture. They have flour- ished in their customary locale: the horror film (28 Weeks Later [2007]; Zombie Sex 3 Survival of the Dead [2009]), and they have also found success in genre mashups, where horror merges with comedy (Zombieland [2009]; Juan of the Dead [2011]; Cockneys vs. Zombies [2012]). Zombies even make appearances in family fare like 2012’s animated ParaNorman. They have spread beyond film into stage musicals (Fleshed Out [2012]; Musical of the Living Dead [2012]); videogames (Dead Island [2011]; Left 4 Dead [2008–2009]); and comics (Chaos Campus [2007–present]; Marvel Zombies [2005–present]). That same ethos of amalgamation is evident in transmedia manifestations of the zombie myth, such as videogame/ film adaptations (Resident Evil [1996–present/2002–present]; House of the Dead [1997/2003]), literature/film crossovers (Warm Bodies [2012/2013]); World War Z [2006/2013]), and television/graphic novel adaptations (The Walking Dead [2003–present/2010–present]). The mixed- media remake Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated (2009) and the literary mash- up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) further exemplify the zombie’s transmedia circulation. Indeed, as Max Thornton observes in his contribution to this volume, the zombie offers a bridge between an iconic object of print media (the Christian Bible) and con- temporary Internet meme culture. The zombie’s ubiquity also underscores its theoretical applications. As monsters that straddle the gulf between life and death, zombies dis- turb established ontological and epistemological categories, as well as hegemonic norms. Those disruptions are frequently associated with an assortment of social anxieties: about viral contagion, biological warfare, neoliberal and totalitarian securitization, environmental collapse, and capitalist end- times. Unsurprisingly, our contributors evoke some of these themes, either implicitly or explicitly; Emma Vossen’s analysis of The Walking Dead concentrates on the apprehension and anticipation that follow in the wake of global economic crisis. In this regard, Vossen’s essay reiterates that in the horror genre zombies commonly symbolize appre- hension over social precariousness and radical change.