So my thesis was divided into three areas, Inclusive communities, zombies and religion. I was very curious about how these three interacted and what was important. I was equally curious as to how the modern zombies depictions arose to what they are today as they have no literary basis unlike vampires, werewolves and ghosts. Vampires owe much of their mythology to Bram Stoker and repressed sexuality of the times, reanimated dead of Frankenstein to Mary Shelley, but the zombie has no germinal fictional or literary source, with its only written origin story being the non-fiction travelogue The Magic Island in 1929 which brought the zombie into mainstream America by the explorer William Seabrook. After WWII the zombies took off in a different direction that of ‘survival horror’ and their depictions became ubiquitous with zombie walks, films, games, TV shows, halloween costumes to name a few.
The portrayal of the zombie is very interesting, as it reminded me of people with disabilities, and more importantly, how people react to people with physical manifestations of mental or physical disabilities, or those with both. People want to avoid those with a disability incase they catch it like disability cooties; people react the same to many who are not classed as ‘normal’. Further to this the walk of the zombie with its dragging legs or leg, is very similar to many people who have cerebral palsy.
So my thesis is entitled:
From the “Living Dead” to the “Walking Dead”: How Modern Zombie Culture Reflects,Challenges and Perpetuates Implicit Negative Bias towards People with Disabilities
Zombies
The main driver in the zombies is their representation and how they came about post WW1. There were no references to zombies before then, although we do have many representations of life after death, but not named a zombie.
The horrors of both WWI and WWII and how man can be so cruel to one another, seem to be the awakening of zombie genre. The horrific images of Hiroshima, shell shock, burns and bodily mutilations all caused by wars, are reflected in the personifications of the zombie.
Question 1. Who was the first recorded person to arise from the dead?
First person recorded as a zombie was a biblical reference, Lazarus followed by Jesus Christ.
Question 2. Why would people see a comparison between zombie representation and disability representation or is this not something that you can see?
Question 3. Do wars solve anything or should we hope for a societal reset in an apocalypse?
Religion
With the seeming increasing need for people to have religion, I was very surprised that religion was not important to people in an imagined post apocalyptic world, and this is also born out by watching the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead television shows.
In one scene from Fear the Walking Dead, set in Mexico where culture and religion have a different dynamic with death and celebrate the day of the dead around halloween times, one of the characters states that Mother Nature is taking back the earth as we have abused it and another reference to the dead are always walking amongst us only now we can see them.
Throughout history the ancient writings, religiously bias as only the wealthy educated or religious people could read and write, have a negative bias towards disability and most disability was attributed to something the mother did wrong and this was her punishment. In the bible disability is widely referenced with Jesus Christ in the New Testament, being a disrupter of the Jewish religion and his renunciation of the idea of disability and individual fault. Before this disability had in the Old Testament viewed the disabled as legally unclean, and the disabled had the status of prostitutes or women who were menstruating, and and it is important to view this information through the lens of the time as in Roman times, soldiers disfigured by war, as opposed to birth defects or diseases, were viewed positively and the Spartans would not leave disabled children out to die as is often talked about, but revered any body that could be used in war.
In Haiti, the supposed birthplace of the modern zombie, the prevalent religion was catholic but the slaves would practice voodoo and pretend to be catholic. The original Vodou arose from an amalgamation of beliefs and traditions from a group of people forced to accept a colonial regime of oppression whilst trying to retain their original cultures and identities (Moreman & Rushton, 2011). Zombie beliefs are widely held and the Haitian penal code even contains references to zombies in Article 246 (often misquoted as article 249). Translated from the original French, this article reads: “It shall also be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made against any person [using] substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the person had been buried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows.”
Question 1. Do you believe in life after death and how does that change how you interact with others in your communities?
Question 2. Is religion relevant today for successful communities?
Question 3. Why did religion not score higher on if it would be important in a new society?
Question 4. Is disability seen as a positive trait by your religion/culture or one to illicit pity?
Inclusivity and Community
Societal reset with equitable societies having a better chance of survival
Question 1 Why are we so self destructive and has it always been so?
Disability positive representations like deaf signing being a super power, POVERTY
Positivity and Hope
Game of Thrones TV show there are many positive portrayals of people with disabilities: Tyrion Lannister as a little person who likes sex and drinking and is compassionate and intelligent; Bran Stark who is paralysed, unable to walk yet eventually becoming a King; Jaime Lannister who loses a hand yet is determined to learn to fight using his remaining hand, an example of a super crip; and many others, including the Wildlings who are many shapes and sizes including giants . Portrayals like these bring disability into our lives in a positive way, and are a very powerful instigator of change.
The Walking Dead has positive disability representation in using sign language to communicate without having to alert the noise sensitive zombies taught by Connie who is a deaf actress. There is a priest who went blind after having zombie guts in his eye with the biblical eye for an eye (Father Gabriel – Oh the name, I could go on and on!) Machone as a positive strong woman of colour. Fear the Walking Dead has a character called Wendel who is in a wheelchair, that is tricked out as a fighting machine with retractable spikes, hidden guns and knives and anti biting guards for his legs.
The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead both have a great core community who thrive and survive as they care about each other and even when there is a dreadful choice, they act in the best interest of the group. The others do not, so dictatorships and cruel societies seem to implode. To quote from the show Fear the Walking Dead “You loose people…you loose yourself”
Representations in the Media Changes Opinions
In the real world we live in now, social media and other digital medias of television and internet streaming of entertainment, can have huge positive influences. Ye or Kanye West has made having Bipolar a trendy thing. Unfortunately we also have campaigns like Bell Media Lets Talk campaign, that are profiting from this mental health awareness uprising and over simplifying the complexities of mental health issues so all you need to do is get counselling and all will be well – the fault and solutions are just a phone call away
Question 1. do you think campaigns like Bell Lets Talk help the conversation?
Question 2. Are there any ways you see media representations that help?
Question 3. Is the root of the problem poverty?