Module 15 - Zombie Narratives

I will be analyzing module 12. This module contains the popular culture of zombies. We were assigned to watch one of the earlier movies. I choose to watch the movie king of the zombies, produced in 1941. I will also be dissecting the subject through the lens of race. Although slavery of the African-Americans was outlawed, that does not mean they were culturally accepted immediately. This was displayed in the movie on several occasions. One occasion was when the Mantan Moreland, who played the character Jeff. Jeff and his white associates, seem to be on good terms, but Jeff remains a subordinate as he is their valet. The portrayal of an African-American during the filming of the movie would hold African-Americans to a secondary role. Both actors and the characters that were portrayed would generally be secondary characters. This is affirmed as all of the entire servants of the Dr. Sangre were only of color. Jeff is casted as a comedic relief for the movie, making little jokes and talking about with smart remarks. At one point, Jeff asks to spend the night with his white associates, who were a portrayed as a more prestigious role such as a pilot or a colonel in the military. Even the main evil antagonist was a white actor as well. The portrayal of the servants in the movie shown that they were happy and content with their position in the cultural hierarchy. Not interested in talking back to their master or achieving more. At one point, the slaves notice one of Jeff’s associates was slacked and converted into a zombie. The servants were surprised because they have never seen a white zombie before. This does not seem normal to the servants, but because of the circumstances, the Doctor has to kill one of the associates to prevent further snooping. Eventually, Jeff and his remaining associate manage to escape the island and return to the mainland. Although strides and changes have been made as popular culture constantly changes, a good example of this would be Star Wars. They have successfully casted a minority, as well as a female lead. Despite a few major movies recently, representation of women and minorities in movies are still bleak or unchanged (Bahr, 2017)

CITES

King of Zombies. Jean Yarbrough. Perf. Dick Purcell, Mantan Moreland, Henry Victor. Distributor, Sterling Productions inc. 1941. Film. 
Bahr, Lindsey. "People Want to See More Diversity in Movies, but It's Not Happening Fast Enough." Business Insider. Associated Press, 31 July 2017.Web. 26 Apr. 2018.
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Wichita and Little Rock

For this week’s assignment, I chose to watch Zombieland. Zombieland came out in 2009 and is based around a group of strangers who survive a virus outbreak that turns everyone else into zombies. Throughout the film, these strangers must do what they can to survive from the zombies. Using survival rules and killing strategies, the group does what they can to make their way to Los Angeles, the safe haven from murderous, brain eating zombies. For this post, I will focus mainly on feminism. The movie opens up with the two girls, Wichita and Little Rock pulling a stunt on a worker at a gas station. From this point, the girls are showing that they protect each other’s back. Further into the movie, the two play a trick on the male protagonist lead acts, convincing them to hand over their gun and ultimately their “power”. This stunt shows that the girls are not damsels in distress, but rather two women that aren’t afraid to do what is absolutely necessary when they need to be ruthless.  

I Am A Cosplayer and I'm Not Sorry

Firstly, I apologize if this comes out in a terrible format because I have never really "blogged" before, so I hope the technical aspects take care of themselves.

As per the title of this post, I can confirm that the area of pop culture that interests me the most is Cosplay. For those who have never heard this term before, it is the combined concept of "costume" and "roleplay," meaning that you not only dress as a character that you like, but you act like them, and while dressed you do your best to fully become them. Now, there are definitely many different levels to this act, as any beginner or casual fan could tell you but that shall remain a topic for another time. I will simply state that I would consider myself at the upper echelon of cosplay, in that I try to make my costume as accurate as I can and do try to speak or act as that character would most of the time.

Myself as Maya the Siren from the "Borderlands" video game series at Boston Comic Con 2015.

Cosplay is important to me for more intrinsic reasons than I could probably count, but the most major reason is that it is very social by nature, there are thousands and millions of others who like to wear costumes to conventions and I just plain love making friends! Secondly, it speaks volumes to my artistic nature; not everyone endeavors or is capable of making their own costumes, but it is an artistic challenge that I thoroughly enjoy testing myself on.

Myself, my husband Nick, and friend Sammy as characters from "Metro 2033" and "Fallout" at PAX East 2016.

As to what I expect to learn - conversely I intend to include the things I know in order to contribute to the amazing discussions we are about to share and I expect to learn more about the things I have likely been avoiding. For instance, I have never been particularly fond of zombies. The original idea of roaming deceased humans is wildly entertaining, but I feel it has become very overrated. The market has been completely saturated with zombie-themed things and frankly, I quickly tired of it. However, I promise to give it another chance as perhaps one of my classmates enjoys that part of pop culture and would be willing to elaborate in order to convert me :)

Myself at Boston Comic Con as Ezio from the "Assassin's Creed" video game series at Boston Comic Con 2015.

Night Of The Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 zombie film. Within this film the main character, Ben hold up in a Pennsylvania farm house while at the same time trying to protect themselves from the recently dead - the zombies. However, this film tackles race not within the movie as much as it does on the outside.

Though from the outside this movie may look like the classic zombie horror film it made a giant decision within its casting. During a time where black actors were not often cast as the lead, Duane Jones portrayed the main character Ben. During the 1960's black characters were often given the over the top personalities as we saw in Spike Lee's "Bamboozled," but instead Ben was a central character with no "ethnic" personality traits. As reported in How Casting a Black Actor Changed, Night of the Living Dead, "Director George Romero agrees with that recollection: “Duane Jones was the best actor we met to play Ben. If there was a film with a black actor in it, it usually had a racial theme, like 'The Defiant Ones.' Consciously I resisted writing new dialogue ‘cause he happens to be black. We just shot the script. Perhaps 'Night of the Living Dead' is the first film to have a black man playing the lead role regardless of, rather than because of, his race ("How Casting a Black Actor Changed, Night of the Living Dead.")."  Even the director knew that he was taking a large risk by portraying a script that was written for a non-specific race with a black actor.

Though we still see racial casting problems (#OscarsSoWhite, anyone?) this movie took a giant step towards the right direction. Of course there will always be problems in casting for race specific characters, but for a character that can be portrayed by any race, the door should be open for any one to be casted. In this case Romero knew that Jones was the best character to portray Ben, regardless of the times and the fact that black actors didn't usual play the "serious" role.

King of the Zombies

The film that I chose to watch and analyze was King of the Zombies by Jean Yarbrough. In this movie, a man by the name of Mr. Bill sets off to the Bahamas with his servant Jeff, and a the pilot of their plane. While on their way to the destination, the plane falls off course and crashes on an island in the Caribbean. The three men are greeted and welcomed by a man named Dr. Sangre whom they suspect is hiding something. Jeff one night, while in the kitchen with the staff learns about the living dead or zombie presence in Dr. Sangre’s house. Mr. Bill and the pilot have some doubts about the zombies, but soon find out the truth. Dr. Sangre turns people into zombies to try and get information out of a United States admiral he had captured.

One of the theoretical lenses from the class that is also portrayed in this particular film is race and ethnicity studies. In this film a lot of the characters and situations play on race. During the time of when this movie was made, African Americans had certain stereotypical roles. With that being said, we see African Americans in this film as servants, cooks, and just as the help in general. Around (13:52) we see Jeff in the kitchen meeting the African Americans working in the kitchen. We also see the zombie characters being African Americans. I don't necessarily see this film as racist at all, Jeff, one of the main characters is African American and has a very substantial role and is able to make a name for himself. 

White Zombie

The movie White Zombie was made in 1932; it was directed by Victor and Edward Halperin. This movie is considered to be the first full length zombie film and has been described by critics as the model of all zombie movies. It had box office success, was very popular. The plot in short is the following. Madeleine Short arrives to Haiti to marry her fiancé Neil Parker. On the way to their friend’s, Charles Beaumont’s house she met an evil voodoo master, Murder Legendre, who, grab Madeleine's scarf.  Charles Beaumont, the friend of the couple, loves Madeleine and asks Murder's supernatural assistance. Murder converts Madeleine to zombie using her scarf and she almost kills Neil being in zombie condition. But when Bruner knocks out Murder, he breaks Murder's mental control over his zombies and Madeleine. She awakens and embraces Nail. Undirected by Murder the zombies topple off the cliff. Charles also falls to his death.

Through the lens of racism – there is only one black character in this movie, the coach, though the story takes place on Haiti. Through the lens of Hegemony theory – it is obviously the product for elite taste. The Castle, where all characters live, its furniture, cloths, servants, etc. – everything is designed according to taste of elite. So the movie itself is a product of pop culture, but made by elite standards and for elite. Through the lens of feminism this movie can’t pass Bechdel test. There is majority of male characters. The only female character has no personality at all; it’s just object to gaze. Madeleine beautiful face is shown by numerous close ups but it is impossible to say anything about her personality. She is an object of three men desires and nothing else.  Female servants are shown briefly, it is impossible to tell anything about them. 

Module 12 Example: Bring Out Your Dead!

PROMPT

For this week, you will be providing an analysis of the zombie film that you watched. The analysis should draw upon one or more of the mini-lecture videos from this course (not including the one that is actually on zombies) such as feminism, race & ethnicity studies, the Frankfurt School (also known as critical inquiry; also, don't forget Part 2 & Part 3), symbolism, post-modernism, and hegemony.

• White Zombie (1932)- 65 minutes 
• Revolt of the Zombies (1936) - 62 minutes 
• The Devil’s Daughter (1939) - 52 minutes  
• King of the Zombies (1941) - 67 minutes 
• Night of the Living Dead – 96 minutes 

What you should include in this post:

1. Clearly identify the the film.
2. A description of content (1 paragraph)
3. A brief discussion of a theoretical lens that you want to use  (1 paragraph).
4. Applying the theoretical lens to the film to explain what newer meaning is derived by using the lens on the film  (1 paragraph). 
5. Where possible, a direct reference to a specific time (meaning how many minutes into the film) or a brief video clip that helps to illustrate your point.

Relevant Labels/Tags: Zombies, [Name of movie you examine], [Name of theoretical lens that you use].

EXAMPLE

So I decided to do my critique of King of the Zombies.  The film follows the exploits of a pilot, Mr. Bill, and Jeff (his African American servant) when they crash land on a jungle island somewhere in the Caribbean.  They encounter a Dr. Miklos Sangre (Spanish for "blood"), who welcomes them into his home.  While initially the pilot and Bill are fine with things, Jeff learns about and encounters zombies or the "living dead" within the house while stationed with the other (black) servants.  The rest of the film is a mixture of discovery by the white protagonists of the existence of zombies and Dr. Sangre's goal of turning people into zombies in order to ultimately get information from a US admiral he has captured.  All is thwarted but there are some many fascinating things going on in this film. 

The films could be analyzed through a great many lens.  The one I will talk about in this post is through the lens of feminism.  To discuss women within the film, it is also necessary to recognize that race also plays into this discussion. The representation of women is as troubling as the depiction of African Americans and people of African descent.  In particular, the servants of Dr. Sangre (to whom they call Master) is particularly telling.  Within this film, the maids faithfully serve Sangre, even though at times, their men have been enslaved from beyond the tomb.  Samantha's former husband now walks about the place as a lifeless zombie and she seems entirely content with this.  (This scene occurs around 44:00 minutes).  Coupled with this are the ways in which women are entirely passive (the wife of Dr. Sangre) or disregarded or made to be pawns of the men and eventually ends up dead (Sangre's niece).  In total, the film plays to a male-aesthetic in its presentation of women--particularly younger women as visually appealing and meant to be looked at (a la Mulvey) and are props for the men's machinations.

Rick Grimes; Modern Cowboy

As we learned this week in Module 3 there are still ‘cowboys’ in our modern day popular culture. Although our “Cowboys” may not be your typical “standard role of a cowboy in the wild wild west to steer the cows in the right direction,” they are all around us in movies, television, and books. A modern day cowboy could have some traits of being a rough edged man, goes against the law, and follows his own sense of a code. 

A cowboy that is in one of our popular culture Television series that isn’t a straightforward cowboy in my eyes is Rick Grimes from the well know AMC television series The Walking Dead. Rick Grimes is the epitome of a modern day Cowboy. He embodies the traits of a rough edged man after all he has dealt with because of the zombie apocalypse. He follows a very strict code in the way he deals with life in every single episode. The other characters in the series also look to Grimes as a leader and he is highly respected by almost everyone. Before the zombies, Rick was a sheriff Deputy, which also connects him as being a modern day cowboy in a sense. A little side note, when the series began Rick was known for his beige and brown police uniform, which he paired with a brown cowboy hat. Later his son Carl, in the rest of the series, wears the cowboy hat. The irony of the cowboy hat is amazing to this week’s module and raw topic of a modern day cowboy. Zombies, Modern Cowboys, and Popular Culture are three topics that are truly a great mix. This show is one of my favorites and I encourage everyone to watch it!