Night of the Living Allegory: The Politics of Zombies

Origin Story

Born in Haitian folklore and inadvertently reinvented by director George A. Romero, the zombie is the most flexible metaphor in horror fiction, if not all of popular culture. It can represent a war, a virus, a natural disaster, terrorism, capitalism, climate change and much more. In fact, it’s hard to tell a zombie story that isn’t political in one way or another.

Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey follow the trail of the walking dead from the Caribbean to Night of the Living Dead and the global outbreak of zombiemania in the 21st century. What does the zombie tell us about life, death and civilisation? How can it contain so many different meanings? And why do the living dead remain uniquely disturbing after all these years?

Support Origin Story on Patreon for exclusive benefits including bonus chat about how Ian and Dorian make each episode: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod

Resources:

Books

Kyle William Bishop — American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture, 2012

Kyle William Bishop — How Zombies Conquered Popular Culture: The Multifarious Walking Dead in the 21st Century, 2015

Max Brooks — World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, 2006

Greg Garrett — Living with the Living Dead: The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse, 2017

Zachary Graves — Zombies: The Complete Guide to the World of the Living Dead, 2011

Peter Haining, ed. — Zombie!: Stories of the Walking Dead, 1985

Richard Matheson – I Am Legend, 1954

Kim Paffenroth — Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth, 2006

George Romero & Susanna Sparrow — Dawn of the Dead, 1979

Jamie Russell — Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema, 2014

Colson Whitehead — Zone One, 2012

Tony Williams — The Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead, 2015

Films, TV and games

White Zombie, 1932

I Walked with a Zombie, 1943

The Last Man on Earth, 1964

Night of the Living Dead, 1968

Dawn of the Dead, 1978

Day of the Dead, 1985

Resident Evil, 1996

28 Days Later, 2002

Shaun of the Dead, 2004

28 Weeks Later, 2007

I Am Legend, 2007

Dead Set, 2008

The Walking Dead, 2010-22

The Last of Us, 2022

Online

Doug Gross, Why we love those rotting, hungry, putrid zombies, CNN, 2009

https://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/10/02/zombie.love/index.html

Torie Bosch, First Eat All the Lawyers, Slate, 2011

https://slate.com/culture/2011/10/zombies-the-zombie-boom-is-inspired-by-the-economy.html

Thomas Jones, Les zombies, c’est vous, London Review of Books, 2012

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n02/thomas-jones/les-zombies-c-est-vous

Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Max Brooks Is Not Kidding About the Zombie Apocalypse, New York Times, 2013

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/max-brooks-is-not-kidding-about-the-zombie-apocalypse.html

Interview with Alex Garland, 2015

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/interview-director-alex-g_b_7038618

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.

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