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The Dead Are Rising: Gender and Technology in the Landscape of Crisis

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Generation Z

Part of the book series: Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education ((CSTE))

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Abstract

This chapter investigates the gender-technology divide through the Zombie Apocalypse. Zombies ‘provide indexes of how we collectively [grapple] with past (and present) social issues’ (Platts, Social Compass 7(7): 547–560, 2013), indicating that they are a social barometer of both our past and present situation. They may be “read” in a variety of ways, suggesting that the zombie is both metaphor and symbol, and that the zombie apocalypse narrative is largely allegorical. George A Romero’s Living Dead series begins in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead and has had numerous sequels. For the purposes of this chapter, Diary of the Dead (2007) has been selected for exploration. While DOTD did not have a major cinematic release in the US, it has been selected for three very important reasons: it fits into the wider Night of the Living Dead (1968) franchise; it privileges an unorthodox, amateur filming and editing style that has become increasingly employed in the contemporary horror film (Was popularised by the Blair Witch Project (1999) and utilised sporadically until Paranormal Activity (2009) repopularised it with such a profound impact on contemporary horror films); and, finally, it represents American university students engaging with filmmaking education and simultaneously applying this amateur style to their own project before the Zombie Apocalypse pans out.

I guess in my pictures you’re either doomed or you’ve got yourself a hell of a job(George A. Romero)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Romero’s Living Dead Franchise is comprised of these films: Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Land of the Dead (2005), Survival of the Dead (2009).

  2. 2.

    Was popularised by the Blair Witch Project (1999) and utilised sporadically until Paranormal Activity (2009) repopularised it with such a profound impact on contemporary horror films.

  3. 3.

    For a more in-depth study of the connections between the Gothic and the Zombie, see Kyle W. Bishop’s (2010) American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture.

  4. 4.

    By contemporary, I am suggesting from Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead on ward, as this has been the most influencing film on both the Zombie and the Zombie narrative (Heffernan 2002: 75; Platts 2013: 550).

  5. 5.

    This notion draws from Ellis’ division of the Gothic narrative into two strands: the masculine and the feminine, where the former being the travelling narrative and the latter being the domestic.

  6. 6.

    I am not suggesting one theory of developmental stages over the other; rather, I am illustrating the application of those stages to the representation of students in Diary of the Dead.

  7. 7.

    This is a highly understudied area of film studies, particularly as universities and university students feature in numbers of major Hollywood productions with a large portion of them falling within the genres of comedy and horror. See, for example, Black Christmas (1974 and 2006), Animal House (1978), The House on Sorority Row (1983), Scream 2 (1997), Dead Man on Campus (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Cry_Wolf (2005), Sorority Row (2009).

  8. 8.

    This is not to ignore the important contribution and continuous enrolment of men in these humanities-based subjects, rather highlights how women have historically been “conditioned” to enter into these liberal arts subjects (Bagilhole and White 2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Art, Media & American Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR47TJ, UK

    William Patrick Bingham

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  1. William Patrick Bingham
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education & Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Victoria Carrington

  2. Faculty of Education, Department of Teacher Education, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada

    Jennifer Rowsell

  3. School of Education & Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Esther Priyadharshini

  4. School of Education & Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Rebecca Westrup

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Bingham, W.P. (2016). The Dead Are Rising: Gender and Technology in the Landscape of Crisis. In: Carrington, V., Rowsell, J., Priyadharshini, E., Westrup, R. (eds) Generation Z. Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-934-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-934-9_4

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