Abstract
These zombies being portrayed all throughout these films are a symbolic figure on the view on how there is a social anxiety of us being controlled by the government. My field report was a viewing of downtown Burbank, watching the people eats with friends, be with their family and enjoy a day’s evening. The visual rhetoric was able to provide me a deeper meaning on a certain location and how that really has a big impact on the people that use up this location. The lit review was able to provide me with a site inform of all these sources and how others think of this idea of having this zombies being placed everywhere in broadcasting and media. The analysis provides a view of how these certain spaces are relatable to how we live and how the thought of social anxiety lives on throughout these spaces. The zombies are not just a factor of horror that is being used in these stories, they have a lot more to them and every author and director has their own view on it.
Field Report
Friday, March 13th I went to Downtown Burbank with a couple of friends to go out and eat. We were tired of walking around, so we decided to sit down on these tables outside on Panera, across from Buffalo Wild Wings and the AMC theatre. It was 8pm and there seemed to be plenty of people enjoying their Friday afternoon wandering around with company. There were plenty of lights to keep the place lit during the night to attract people. You can hear the people talking amongst each other, the lady at the theatre selling tickets with the distorted sounding microphone, the guy calling out people’s parties for their table at Buffalo Wild Wings, and from a distance the cars passing by the road. You can notice that all these tall buildings around the area surround you. These huge palm trees that give this place a nice and relaxed vibe. It is fairly narrow compared to other places that hold the same kind of departments. This spot fits in well with the people around since there is a lot to choose from. You can grab some food, shop around, watch a movie, or just sit down and listen to the guy playing his acoustic guitar and singing some slow romantic songs. There are a wide variety of people, from teens to adults. You can see the place flooded with families during the daytime, but after 8 this place starts to attract more teens and young adults with friends. These people are just out to talk to friends, grab some food, and have a nice relaxing afternoon surrounded with others. Everyone definitely feels the chill vibe that this place seems to set out for people. This place is not overcrowded but there are a lot of people walking around from time to time. You can tell when there is a good movie playing by the quantity of people walking around here.
People come to here to be surrounded by others; the fact that there are always people here makes others want to come. If not, you can just go grab a bite somewhere else. The people is what makes people want to come, if people would show up with this place being empty, it definitely wouldn’t feel the same, even people would leave somewhere else. This space is needed for those that feel the need to be out in public with friends, not crammed into a dark lonely room. There is a lot of lighting for a reason. We want to see others smiling, having a good time. That’s what really sets the mood here. The power lies in the people that are here, they make this space what it is. I remember I came here once just to grab a coffee from starbucks and sit to talk to a friend. There is a starbucks no more then 4 minutes away from my house but I wanted to be surrounded with more then just the people using their laptops or reading their books in the starbucks. I wanted to feel a sense of community and that’s what this place does. I believe we hold the power in this setting, without us this place would be an abandoned outside mall. We are the ones that come and spend our time and money to use up these resources. We choose to eat out, we choose to buy our clothes in person, and this is why we are the ones that keep this place going. These places need us to spend our money and we choose to spend it to have a good time, live with our friends, and make memories. The movie theatre relies on us to be lined up for a brand new blockbuster movie, and the restaurants surrounding relies on theatre to attract people that will be hungry after or even before the movie starts. It’s a cycle that us humans have created and without us, this place would not mean anything to the city of Burbank.
In Season 3 Episode 2 of The Walking Dead, the group shelters in a prison. In our present time a prison is limited to prisoners and security authority to control this location and the people within. The prison is ran by government and high authorities of the state. Inside, prisoners eat, sleep, and life their daily lives surrounded by walls that separates them with their freedom. In the Episode of The Walking Dead, they run into prisoners that have been using the resourceful prison that has helped them out with food and shelter. Usually people try and stay away from prisons but in this case, they actually want to be inside to feel secure. The prisoners explain the group of survivors on how the prison is theirs and they are not able to stay in with them, yet Rick’s counter-argument is on how he is the sheriff and in reality it is actually his prison. The security gates and very durable windows are what make this place a safe place to stay at where they will not have much of a fear of zombies breaking in. The fact that in this period of time, the safest place that they have came across is a prison which in present time it’s a place where no one really wants to go. There’s always violence and other types of crimes being dealt with in this location that some may refer to it as hell.
In a scene of the book of The Walking Dead, Rick decides to go to a gun store in the city with Glenn. In present time, a city particularly downtown, there is always excitement, energy, tons of people roaming around. Downtown serves a purpose of attraction to the people who live in city. There are many venues, activities, and events to experience. The government is in controlling with controlling the streets. In the scene, the city is nearly empty of people, yet roaming with zombies. They try and disguise themselves, so the zombies that are around the city would not notice them. This can be looked at the same way that celebrates sometimes try and disguise themselves so that they are not noticed by the many people that are always in the cities. The same way that Rick and Glenn are trying not to be noticed by all the zombies around. If one of the zombies spots them, then everyone will follow. Same way if a person spots a celebrity in the city, everyone will follow them and take away all of their personal space. This city is not a fun place to be in during the time of that they are living in. The city is better to be left alone unless you want paparazzi of zombies coming towards you.
Literature Review
Zombies have been used as a certain symbol to represent many different ways of viewing society. Everyone has a different opinion on why the figure of a zombie has us going crazy for more. Our media is covered with zombies; they are basically everywhere when we look at television media and movies. We need to really consider these messages that the directors and screenwriters are trying to tell us about these zombies. They aren’t simply an icon of horror or the dead anymore; they have now become icons for modern society and the many different ways in which we view it. Zombies have taken over our media and we need to make sure that our future is not headed towards the direction that these zombies are trying to warn us about. Zombies bring us upon the social anxiety of being alone against our current society and our government. These zombies have been traced back for years on their evolution with their effect on society. We are not sure of what the outcome of these zombies has to offer.
Daniel W. Drezner, an American professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University has an article that views zombie as a global phenomenon called “The Lessons of Zombie-Mania”. Drezner reports about the many facts that zombies have really cost us. “The ratings for AMC’s hit series “The Walking Dead” (12.9 million viewers for its recent season finale) and $2.5 billion in annual sales for zombie videogames” (Drezner 1). There is no surprise from where this whole zombie invasion was brought up. Going back to the first movies with zombies, as well as the ideas of relating zombies and diseases. The author is allowing all of our society to take a look into what a zombie really means and why they are all over the medias. It’s important for us to know why this is the most brought up figure in the media for the past couples of years.
David Paul Strohecker, who is a fifth year PhD student who studies cultural change conflict, and social theory has an article that talks about the evolution behind these zombies and how they have become who they are in our society today. “Theorists of zombie culture (such as Kyle Bishop or Jamie Russell), attribute the origin of the zombie to Haitian folklore and the hybrid religion of voodoo. But the zombie didn’t make its away into American culture until the 1920s and 30s, when sensationalist travel narratives were popular with Western readers” (Strohecker 2). Going back in time when monsters were being the main characters in movies, the zombies were as a same form of monsters, now they have evolved to be the same type of people that we are forming into. Tracing back zombies into a form of creature that is basically unable to be formed from nature, we simply have made this creature.
Jaime Holguin, writer from CBS news talks about the many ways that movies have portrayed the role of a zombie in their films in his article, “Messages beneath the horror”. All of these films that revolve around the idea of having a zombie tends to lead us to certain messages that these films are trying to allow us to view. Each individual director and screenwriter of these films tends to have a different message and idea that follows us on the zombie being a part in the movie. “”28 Days Later” screenwriter Alex Garland, best known for the 1998 novel “The Beach,” saw the zombie epidemic as a form of paranoia inherent in modern society. “In exact proportion to how safe they’ve gotten, people are increasingly afraid of street violence or domestic violence … and terrorism now” (Holguin 2). The writer explains to us on how these directors view the zombie. Everyone has different suggestion and us certain information that is happening now to back it up.
Sarah Juliet Lauro, professor at Clemson University of South Carolina and Karen Embry, department of English at UC Davis both talk about the life that has brought out of these zombie creatures in their story “A Zombie Manifesto”. Both tend to showcase on how this zombie has taken over media such as video games and comic books. They provide many resources on the different ways that these zombies can be identified to a present human. “The zombie, we feel, is a more pessimistic but nonetheless more appropriate stand-in for our current moment, and specifically for America in a global economy, where we feed off the products of the rest of the planet, and, alienated from our own humanity, stumble forward, groping for immortality even as we decompose” (Lauro & Embry 9). Explaining a view on how these creatures have such an effect in America.
Sean Posey, a photographer, activist, and historian. He graduated the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in a photography program and holds a graduate degree in the field of history from Youngstown State University. Posey has an article, “ A country walking dead” and it explains the effect that these films and shows about zombies is having towards our way of living in our society that is being ran by the government. “The popularity among public intellectuals and its potent symbolism is best reflected in the zombie films of the past few decades, which have traced long-term problems in American society” (Posey 1). The author gives us a much broad view on how overtime this zombie’s effect has evolved.
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, a professor of English and the director of the medieval and early modern studies institute at the George Washington University in Washington DC. With a PhD in English from Harvard University, Cohen provides us with an extensive approach on these monster figures on zombies in his story, “Monster Culture”. The author goes all these that have came about from all these monsters that have set to play a role in the world of a zombie. Each individual monster is viewed from a historical perspective with its background being traced and taken into consideration. Going back to the times of all these births of the different kind of monsters and their certain view that is being held back on them, Cohen is able to view these theories and bring them into a current time plot.
Marcia R. England, professor at Miami University at Oxford and Stephanie Simon who is the senior education reporter for POLITCO Pro have both brought forward an article that brings up points on how these zombies give us a form of social anxiety towards our home and what surrounds us. They both really bring up the idea of space and how that plays a huge role in the part of zombies towards us. “Urban space can been seen as a space of fear for many and those fears are not restricted to any one age, class, gender or race, although those social markers can play a role in geographies of fear” (England & Simon 3).
Jon Stratton, an Australian Academic currently serving as Professor of Cultural Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of Essex. His article “Zombie Trouble” reflects on the many ways that zombies have been a problem in our society. “The genre of the zombie apocalypse centres on laying siege to a place that is identified as a refuge for a group of humans. In these texts it is possible to read an equation of zombies with displaced people who are ‘threatening’ the state. Indeed, the rhetoric used to describe these people constructs them as similar to mythical zombies. This article includes analyses of a number of zombie films including Shaun of the Dead, Fido and Undead” (Stratton 1).
Cause & Effect Analysis
It is a fact that Zombies have become a part of our society as being used as a form of fear. Whether that fear being caused by the dangers of how these zombies might kill us all or the fact that they are being used as a metaphor to express society and what we are turning into. Either way, we are scared of this because we cannot predict what will happen. We can all kill a zombie and move on with our lives, but when they are a new source of species that we have to be aware about, that’s when we realize that we are scared of these spaces that are being brought into different view from the effect of these zombies. These zombies bring us upon the social anxiety of being alone against our current society and our government. If we are not working together as a group, everything will fall apart and this will lead us onto a new world.
In the walking dead, space is being involved in every situation that they run into. Going from place to place, where they are located is a big deal when it comes to knowing that you’re life would be more at risk if you are in the wrong place. They want to stay away from certain locations where they could be spotted by the government. This explains how the government is not there to help them with this situation but to make it even more scrambled then it already is. The government was the main cause for this and the only thing to do is to try and hide his mistake to the other people. Therefore, the survivors cannot look for help from the government. This relates to a modern day society on the many problems that the government has brought onto us. We do not have a word on how to change these things in our society today. We can only try by sticking together and working as a group.
The different spaces in the walking dead give us an inside look into what they are going through and how we can relate to this in our society. For example, they find themselves inside a prison to keep out zombies and have shelter for a while. They notice that there are prisons in there before they actually settle in. For the prisoners, this prison is home to them. They have lived there for so long and don’t feel like letting others into there. Yet, the fact that Rick is an officer and that represents a form of government, it allows them to say that the prison is actually belonging to him. Prison is a place where nobody wants to enter. People die, they lose control, and are always surrounded by prisoners. They are not free to do whatever they want. In this case, Rick and his group are not free to do what they want, they need to be safe and stay secure. Something a prison is able to do in this situation that they are facing. This prison is bound to free them with the world but that’s exactly what they need.
Another space that can be examined in this form could be places where the community and the people are constantly being relayed on to make the place this so special place that it is to the city. For example, Atlanta is represented as the land of the free soul and for the director to choose this setting is no coincidence. He specifically used this setting to give us a representation of what the city of Atlanta should actually be in the words that it stands for. By showing us how the zombies are seemed to take over the whole city, and the government not being able to help out in this situation, the whole idea of being the “land of the free soul” totally contradicts itself. There is no free soul roaming around, other then those who have no soul, that being the zombies that are trying to kill everyone that is left. The government is no help, but there is no control over the people and their safety on how they would be able to survive in this world.
In the walking dead comic book, there tends to be many scenes of space being used in different ways. These certain locations that the author uses are ideal because many of them actually have a specific purpose behind them. For example, the location of a campsite. When people go camping they always have the social anxiety of being in nature. Being isolated from the city away from everything. They choose to have a campsite to set it up as a spot for the survivors to stay at since they are trying to isolate themselves from what is going on in the real world, and that’s the zombie attack that is going on. They do not want to have any contact with the government. People want to be left alone when it comes to being out in the nature. There tends to be no satellite signal for your phone or other electronic devices as well as no major way of communication with those outside the Forrest. Yet, we still seem to put our lives at risk when we are in a Forrest without any help. We give ourselves the belief that we can do this on our own and that we simply do not need any help for this to go well. In the situation that the survivors of the walking dead are facing, they know what is coming so they try and hide it for as long as they can. There is no warning, just how a bear might attack your campsite or maybe even a group of foxes. We are not sure, yet we are always trying to be prepared. The characters in the walking dead are actually hoping to settle down on the campsite since they think it’s the most hidden place that they can find. It’s like they’re playing a game of hide and seek with the zombies and the government, and the Forrest seems to be the biggest and best spot to be hidden in. There is no surveillance to expose them or any form of communication to try and reach a signal for someone to find them.
In the walking dead, going to the city is basically dangerous for them. We tend to feel safe in a place that is always surrounded by others living their everyday lives. There is a social anxiety in a big city, there needs to be the latest trending topics from fashion, to music, to talk and eat. The conversation is always going, the trending features are being shown, all types of classes tend to be able to tend this free facility, there is no pay needed for parking in the best spots and hopping into the big clubs. In person we feel as that we need the other hundreds of people walking around the city to keep us entertained. The fear is that we lose all those people who are always being there in the town to make us feel as if today is another day and there has been change. The government expects us to follow daily routines as if we were some kind of zombies with no word or say on what they can and cannot do to us. If the people stop going to these crowded cities, it’d get lonely for the people that always have to be there selling food, and having spots to entertain people. The money would be cut down and out of what the government makes. This will then lead to a new change since everyone who has a job there will now how to find some other way of living. The income was based on a set factor that the people will always come and spend their money in the city. Comparing it to the walking dead, there are many differences in the fact that they don’t want to head down to the city because they do not want to be spotted by the government that will then turn against them. Down to the zombies who will kill them with no harm felt.
All these different places each represent something deeper then the location. There is a meaning that shows why this location stands out. The authors and director use their setting in this part to keep the reader and viewer thinking on how the actions in the movie relate to a certain place that it is being taken place on. In real life you can sit down and experience the setting that you are located in, then observe what’s going on. What makes the people keep moving, what makes the people keep coming, and also what makes then leave. There is many reasons behind these certain location but you have to actually look into the details to realize what’s going on and why these setting are being chosen.
Works Cited
Cohen, Jeffrey. Monter Culture (Seven Theses). N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
“A Country Walking Dead: The Zombie as Metaphor in American Culture and Film I The Hampton Institute.” A Country Walking Dead: The Zombie as Metaphor in American Culture and Film I The Hampton Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
England, Marcia R., and Stephanie Simon. “Scary Cities: Urban Geographies of Fear, Difference and Belonging.” Social & Cultural Geography 11.3 (2010): 201-07. Web.
Lauro, S. J., and K. Embry. “A Zombie Manifesto: The Nonhuman Condition in the Era of Advanced Capitalism.” Boundary 2 35.1 (2008): 85-108. Web.
“The Lessons of Zombie-Mania.” WSJ. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
“Message Beneath The Horror.” CBSNews. CBS Interactive, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
“Sociological Images.” Sociological Images RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
Stratton, J. “Zombie Trouble: Zombie Texts, Bare Life and Displaced People.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 14.3 (2011): 265-81. Web.
Michael's Dreams & Nightmares 