Alive In Joburg

This is the original short which served as the inspiration for District 9. Think about what's similar and what changed over the course of the adaptation. The interviewees on this version were not actors. They were asked to consider or respond to the recent surge of Zimbabwean refugees fleeing from political turmoil related to Mugabe's transitions to autocracy. How should we read this? What point is Blomkamp making? How does his decision to ask black South Africans to weigh in complicate the allegorical relation in the face of South Africa's history of apartheid?

Blog Post--I Am Legend

Matheson's I Am Legend seems to combine features of both the vampire and the zombie mythology, and in this way it bridges the gap between the last two units, serving as a liminal exhibit to investigate what we expect from these horror memes. After reading the novelette, what strikes you as novel or suggestive in Matheson's apocalyptic vision? In what way does it mirror Dawn of the Dead or Walking Dead, and to what extent does it do something different? What fears are being writ large in Matheson's book and how do the monstrous incarnations of these fears reflect them?

Blog Post--Dawn of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead (1979) represents a significant shift from Romero's first foray into the zombie genre. In this post, identify scenes or features that seem to add new or extended approaches to cultural critiques made by the film. Harper and McGurl both identify the zombie as the "lumpenproletariat" of the monster world--what, in the contemporary American context, is the film using the zombies to refer to? Alternatively, what do you make of the introduction of parody and satire to the genre? What is added by featuring the zombie genre, already by 1979, as a site of comedy as well as horror?