Almulla 1

Zainab Almulla
English 113B
Eric Barnhart
November 2015 23
The transformation of representation in zombie movies
Fido is a Canadian comedy/zombie film that takes place in a time
between 1940-50s, where the dead are transformed into zombies due to
radiation affects that came from space. The emergence of these creatures
led to zombie wars. However humans took over the situation in the war
and won against zombies and they were able to stop the zombies from
taking over and restore order and keep everyone safe. Although humanity
won, humans were still cautious of the fact that whoever dies turns into a
zombie. Therefor a government corporation named Zomcom took
initiative in fencing the community borders to keep zombies away; they
also created a zombie collar to control the zombies to make them
friendlier and able to live among humans without the urge to eat their
flesh. With the zombies under control, humans were able to live safely
without having to fear of being eaten. Even though the zombies now live
among humans and serve them, they are still treated in a cruel way like
they are less than humans.
In 28 days later, a group of animal rights activists break into a
research facility and try to free a bunch of caged chimps that are being
experimented on. They ignore some terrified researchers' warnings and
1

Almulla 2

end up unleashing some kind of a fast spreading rage virus, that spreads
all over London and infects almost everybody and turns them into raged
murderers. 28 days later, all of London is infected and the people are
either dead or infected. Jim and Selena the main two characters are
survivors who fight to find a safe place that is disease free. And along
their way they meet a man and his daughter who then lead them to a
military facility, in hopes of finding a cure and solution to this issue. As
soon as they find them, the military people reveal their bad intentions by
wanting to harm the girls. Selena and Jim face some hardships and they
fight to survive, however they end up dead.
These two zombie movies hold an important meaning behind them, the
way it was directed, filmed and presented. And the zombies in every
zombie movie represents something different, either some problems that
we are facing in our contemporary time or ones we have already faced in
the past. Zombies didnt start the way we see them and know them now,
they used to look different, act different and they also held a different
meaning behind them. Zombies in Fido represent racism, while zombies in
28 days later represent the civil war which alters the historical
representation of the zombie.
In the movie Fido (Andrew Currie, 2006), the zombie embodies the
African Americans' and how they were treated in the past. Racism is one
of the most common issues, not just in the American history but all over
the world, and this movie had a clear emphasis towards this issue. The
way the zombies were treated in this movie shows how people used to
2

Almulla 3

deal with the African Americans in the past. They were insulted for no
reason and treated in a harsh way, forced to do whatever white people
wanted from them, and they would get punished as soon as they commit
mistakes. In the movie it shows the character Mr.Theopolis, a man who
was fired from his job and was thought to be out of his mind because he
had developed feelings for his female zombie. And in this community
having a relationship with a zombie is something prohibited, and whoever
commits this crime gets to be punished and the entire community repels
from this one person. Just like the way it used to be when a white
male/female starts to develop feelings for an African American
female/male, they would take the African American person and punish
them for their crime, which is developing feelings for a person from a
white community. But racism is not a problem that existed only in the
past; it can also be spotted in our modern time even though it might have
changed along the centuries it still exists. Racism doesnt only mean
hatred towards the African Americans', but it also represents the fear of
interacting with different people. In this movie the fear of having the
zombies living among them is just like having the African Americans' live
amongst the white people in their "white society". That shows in the
movie from the way they treat the zombies, and how they deprive them
from their rights and from making any decision for themselves. It is also
the fear of having to interact with the African Americans and their refusal
of having an African American from taking action or participating in
political matters and popular mobilization. However, in the historical
origins of the zombie they used to represent stereotyping and slavery. At
3

Almulla 4

first zombies used to be a non-flesh eating creatures they were "people

put under a spell" as a representation of slaves and so by becoming a
zombie it is considered as being punished or cursed.
In the movie 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002), the crisis occurs in
London, where everything is a chaos and everyone is dead. This movie
reflects the civil war, how it resulted in having most of the country dead
and in ruins, also the affect that it left in people like the fear of wars. In
the movie when the infection had already spread and the zombies took
over the country, we see the streets and buildings being deserted and had
been set to waste. Where disease and starvation are everywhere, the
signs of war are impossible to miss and the images of acts of violence are
forever carved in peoples' minds. This is similar to the marks that the civil
war had left behind. In 28 Days later there is the character Selena, a black
woman that features in the movie. By being a British women and black
she is considered both from inside of the country and outside by being a
representative of those who have their rights deprived by the
government. Just like black Americans who had face issues and are being
deprived form their rights because of their skin color. In the movie the
apocalypse is a rage pestilence that spreads so fast people won't have
time to react to it, it also represents the fast growing cordiality between
citizens in the modern world. The writer Jayne Brown wrote in her article
The Human Project how the movie 28 Days later is similar to the situation
in the United States of America post 9-11. "Jim's tour through the center of
London, when he awakens in the hospital, is also reference to New York

Almulla 5

City after September 11, 2011.". This movie represents fears and
anxieties that humans nowadays have like the fear of wars and situations
similar to 9-11.
And just like I mentioned before, zombie movies always represent
some kind of an issue along the story. The historical zombies and the
modern zombies are somehow similar by trying to represent the anxieties
and fears that people worry about in their contemporary time, but
different in the type of fear they are trying to represent or share with the
audience. Along time peoples' fears and anxieties have changed. Since in
the historical zombie movies people used to fear of becoming a zombie
rather than being killed by one, and just like David Paul mentioned in his
article about the origin of zombies "these zombies were people put under
a spell, the spell of voodoo and mystical tradition." . While in recent
zombie movies people are more afraid of being killed by a zombie, which
means that their fears had developed and are becoming more of a serious
problem now than it used to be. Since zombies in that time used to
represent slavery people used to fear of becoming slaves, of becoming
zombies themselves and being under the mercy of someone else and
having to obey their orders and rules. It also used to show some kind of
stereotyping in the old historical zombie movies, since those movies were
"mainly aiming to satisfy the white audience, and it also had an all-white
cast" according to Paul.
As for the movies 28 Days Later and Fido, just like I mentioned in 28
Days Later it represents the Civil war and the anxieties that came along.
5

Almulla 6

Just like the anxieties that evoke the memories and feelings of post 9-11
and fears that "re-inscribes the American racial postcolonial anxieties"
(Brown 121). It is also a representation of means of survival in wars and
dangerous situations. And in Fido it represents racism and inequality; it is
a globalized postmodern crisis. However racism is actually a fear of
different people, and fear of interacting with them. Having different people
live among them in their society is something they fear, they worry about
the fact that those different people might one day take over their society
and their government and eventually white people will be the ones who
are considered as outcasts. That is why they tried to deprive them from
their rights to stop them from going further and becoming more powerful.
This shows that the idea of zombie movies arent only about flesh
eating creatures and spreading horror, but it is rather an indirect way of
displaying our modern serious issues that we might not be able to notice.
It also shows how much the idea and the representation of zombies have
changed throughout time, from the fear of being enslaved by others to
post-colonial fears and racism. Those kinds of movies can work as
warnings to our generation or whatever contemporary age it comes out in,
to spread awareness about the issue and stop it from spreading and
.becoming more dangerous

Almulla 7

Dirlik, Arif. Race Talk, Race, and Contemporary Racism. PMLA 123.5
...(2008): 13631379. Web

Murray, Rolland. Black Crisis Shuffle: Fiction, Race, and Simulation.

...African American Review 42.2 (2008): 215233. Web

Brown, Jayna. The Human Project. Transition 110 (2013): 121135.

...Web

On the origin of zombies", The Society Pages, February 17, 2011, "
.Strohecker, David Paul