Seminar: The Coming Catastrophe: The

Apocalypse in (Popular) Culture

Dozent: Marlon Lieber

Presenter: Sidra Umer

Zombie Apocalypse

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What is a zombie? Which traits does a
zombie carry?

• A zombie is a fictional creature

• Created out of a human corpse
• Found in horror/fictional films
• Cannibalistic in nature
• Not similar to ghosts, monsters or vampires
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The two zombie films under discussion

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Night of the Living Dead (1968)
• It
was „the real launching point of zombies into
mass culture“ (Williams)
• Among the „foundational films“(Williams)
• Thefirst zombie of the movie „looks like nothing
so much as a homeless drifter of sorts, a gaunt
raggedy man“ (Williams)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lek1LnWMTn8
(5:10-7:25)
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„Zombified Karen“

„The eating and hunting practices of zombies was not to

fill their bellies but to continue eating the freshly living
snack. It demonstrates the bare anti-hunger and shameless
consumption.
A zombie compelled to rise for no purpose beyond the
mere repetition, cosumption, and imitation of life.“
(Williams)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lek1LnWMTn8 (1:24:17-1:25:10)
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Dawn of the Dead (1978)
• Second film made in the series
• Demonstrates in a larger scale the apocalyptic effects
on society
• The reanimation of the dead, who prey on human flesh
• Considered as one of the most compelling and
entertaining zombie films ever made
• Brilliant exploration of the American consumer society
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Cont…
• Settingof a shopping mall, where the survivors
tend to enjoy the shopping spree, gleefully looting
money, clothes, and guns.
• It
is evidently criticism on the rampant and
chaotic materialism and instant consumerist
gratification.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd-z5wBeFTU (trailer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ2kyjaPPRs (3:57-4:17 and 7:35-8:01)

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Zombie Apocalypse
In a zombie apocalypse, there would be a
widespread rise of zombies, who are obviously
hostile to human life. They would engage in a
general assault on civilization. The two movies are
an evidence of a zombie apocalyptic narrative, and
in the first movie “the construction of the tropes
and clichés that show us what it looks like for the
world to end at the hands of the stumbling dead.”
(Williams)

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Thematic subtext and story elements of
zombie apocalypse
• The narrative of a zombie apocalypse carries strong connections to
the turbulent social landscape of the United States in the 1960s.
• Zombies allow people to deal with their own anxiety about the end
of the world.
• The response of authorities to the threat is slower than its rate of
growth, giving the zombie plague time to expand beyond
containment. This results in the collapse of the given society.
Zombies take full control while small groups of the living must fight
for their survival.

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Emerging questions?

• Dofeel that zombie apocalypse could turn into

reality?
• How to survive the zombie apocalypse?

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Thank you!

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