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?
During our discussion in class, I was particularly struck by the scene in which Fran is seen staring through the glass at the zombie on the other side. The effect is undeniable, Romero is utilizing the glass as an almost mirror to imply that Fran is actually staring at herself in zombie form. Though Romero examines the line between zombie and human in his first movie, The Night of the Living Dead, his claims in Dawn of the Dead are much stronger and often times much more obvious. Indeed, in Dawn of the Dead, the distinction between the zombies and the humans is consistently blurred. The zombies, though still operating mostly as a mass, have individual clothing and are identifiable and distinguishable throughout the movie. While the humans are often shown emulating the mannequins, and at times even the zombies. Thus, by merging and blending the seemingly opposite identities, Romero successfully reinforces the idea that "they are us."
ReplyDeleteThe zombies in the 'Dawn of the Dead' are a metaphor for the rampant consumerism that took shape in the 60s and 70s with the large scale build out of malls throughout US.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Romero introduced parody and satire as mediums for cultural critique in the 'Dawn of the Dead'. This is in sharp contrast to the 'Night of the living Dead' where atmosphere is lot more gloomy and tense and which lacked any lighter moments.
Some scenes that highlight this new approach in the 'Dawn of the Dead' are:
1) When Peter and Stephen are in the gun-shop, Peter comments while trying on an expensive telescopic gun "the only person who could ever miss with this gun would be the sucker with the bread to buy it". Herein, the film makes mockery of middle / higher income consumer desire to possess items of luxury. In real life, this idea is epitomized by rich people's desire to say own a vineyard even though they don’t know (or intent to) how to grow grapes or to hoard up artifacts / paintings even though they themselves don’t appreciate the artist's intended symbolism.
2) When Peter, Stephen, Roger and Francine are standing staring at the zombies who are trying to get into the mall, Fran asks "What the hell are they?" to which Peter responds "they're us." Through this comment, the film shreds the thin veil separating the zombies from their human counterparts as audience is able to see their own reflection in the zombies. At various instances in the film, the human survivors are shown exhibiting the same mindless / irrational urge to consume / own for which the zombies serve as an allegory.
3) Towards the end, a biker is about to run away with a TV set when another one comments “what are you going to watch on that thing?” (Emergency Broadcasting had ceased by that time). The film makes a mockery of the consumer credulity and how desire to own takes precedence over utility. Interestingly, bikers invading the mall draw parallel with crowds storming the malls / outlets on Friday post thanksgiving or mindless pursuit of online deals (read Groupon) in today's context.
4) On witnessing bikers looting the mall, Stephen tries to resist and says "It's ours... we took it." Given the fact that Peter and Stephen were vastly outnumbered, this was an irrational response (Stephen pays with his life for this mistake) and makes a parody of our "material insecurity and envy" (Stephen Harper).
In Dawn of the Dead, Romero is making the zombies more of a reflection of consumerism in American society. In the film, zombies navigate subconsciously to places they felt comfortable in during their human lives. Since the mall is where the zombies keep going, it implies that people would rather be shopping than doing anything else. Like Peter tells Stephen, the zombies are after the place not them. The zombies also reflect what people look like when they are wandering aimlessly through the mall. Romero highlights this by showing the four main characters looking very similar to mannequins and zombies. In one scene the makeup and perfume counter captivates Fran where she is seen applying makeup in a trance-like state. When she is finished, her face and hair have a striking resemblance to the mannequins in the room.
ReplyDeleteRomero also uses the mall to show that people can turn it into whatever they need it to be in order to be fulfilled. For example, even though the world is under attack, Roger, Stephen, Fran and Peter are overjoyed while shopping, eating and playing video games in the mall. At first, the mall was seen as a place to safely hide out and to obtain needed supplies. After the first day, the men were so captivated by the mall that they did not want to leave. It’s as if the mall has its own gravitational force, which pulls people in.
After watching Dawn, it is easy to see where Romero saw these comparisons between shoppers and zombies. Shopping addicts are another example of people turning into a zombie and maybe the modern day zombie of consumerism.
Brittne R.
The second generation of zombies that Romero depicts in the Dawn of the Dead evolved along with the times. A decade later, they are much more picturesque than their predecessors – shown in color and more individuated. This appearance change reflects the shift in American cultural consciousness from the turbulent race and Vietnam discourse of the 60’s to the satiated complacency of the 70’s. The Dawn is pregnant with details that launch an offensive against pandemic consumerism. To start, the action unfolds in the consumerism Mecca – shopping mall, the focal point of the town where the living dead are habitually headed. The way the mannequins are symbolically shot next to zombies also suggests their relatedness. Most importantly, the director alludes to social inequality, the exploitation of the less fortunate to produce the bounty for the well-off. Therefore, Romero’s shopping paradise, like the gun Peter admires, is only for those who can pay for it. To accent the exclusive nature of American consumerist paradigm, Romero stakes the monstrous consumers with an auxiliary tool this time. Besides the horror scenes of violence and cannibalism, he imbeds in the Dawn a sheer dose of satire. In his Monster Culture (Seven Theses), Jeffrey Cohen argues that “the cooptation of the monster into a symbol of the desirable is often accomplished though the neutralization of potentially threatening aspects with a liberal dose of comedy…” (18). That is precisely what Romero does to reveal our hidden longing for commodity amassment that is the inherent flip side of our seeming contempt for mass consumerism. Indeed, the survivors that fight zombies- the epitomes of consumerism – end up entangled in this malady themselves. After some time, we find them enjoying the surreal yet idyllic existence amidst the material comfort of brand new furnishings and changing outfits that are accompanied by merry musical tunes. Despite its obvious destructiveness, consumerism traps and leads to the downfall of the human survivors that end up joining the zombie mass. Sad in the surface, keeping up with the Jones is nevertheless so tempting!
ReplyDeleteDawn of the Dead shifts away from the racial and patriotic critique of the 1960’s and instead analyzes the rampant consumerism that has begun to captivate the country a decade later with the rise of the shopping mall. The zombies in this sequel are more abundant, yet they appear to play less of a role than in Night of the Living Dead. Having shot Night in real-time, the zombies’ pursuit of human flesh creates a much more relentless feeling, the thought that they can break through that door is always on the viewers mind and it creates tension. In Dawn of the Dead, they are easily avoided, less frightening, and actually at times quite comical. This satirical approach puts more emphasis on the humans struggle to work together and highlights the growing need for excess by consumers. After arriving at the mall the group finds all they need as far as food and supplies to aid them in their survival, yet they choose to risk their lives for excess material goods of leisure. The consumerism debate is undeniable with all of the in your face examples. Several times different characters remark, “They remember that they want to be here” referring to the zombies inexplicable continued gatherings at the mall. With frequent usage of lines like “We have the keys to the kingdom,” or “It’s like Christmas down there,” along with the “stuff we need” which includes a TV, radio, jewelry, clothes, money, “all kinds of great stuff,” all of which is followed by “this place is great,” never mind the fact that they are essentially trapped without fuel and surrounded by flesh eating zombies. The zombies are consumers as well. One zombie is witnessed picking change out of the fountain, while another steals a gun only to exchange it for a better one toward the end of the film, and of course they are great consumers of humans. The satirical element is interesting, almost making a mockery out of the whole situation when the band of bikers start dousing the zombies with pies toward the end, almost eluding to a point that the zombies have become less threatening then the humans. The scene where the last biker is making his escape, Peter has him in the line of fire through the scope of his rifle, and although the man at this point is no further threat, Peter chooses to shoot him anyway. There is also the element that Flyboy has claimed the mall for himself and ignites the attack against the encroaching bikers to protect what’s his, even though the mall doesn’t really belong to him. Finally, there is the opening scene where Fran questions her boss “Are you willing to murder people by sending them to stations that are closed down?” And he emphatically answers yes, “They won’t watch us if we don’t run rescue screens, they’ll tune out,” implying that ratings, even in an apocalyptic scenario are still of paramount importance.
ReplyDeleteFirst rural farms, now urban malls, what’s next Los Angeles? Zombies continue to show their dominance over mankind despite their obvious lack of brainpower. Romero one-ups himself by shifting focus from a ‘controllable’ desolate countryside dilemma to rampaging monsters in urban centers. His film Dawn of the Dead (1979) places the zombie in the back seat as the humans drive full speed to their own destruction. Supplied with a helicopter and a mall that acts as a veritable fortress, they still manage to meet their demise considerably quickly in this. They seem to have an almost lackadaisical demeanor despite the impending global apocalypse. Focusing their attention on jewels and worthless money rather then searching out a fuel point for the helicopter. The even camouflage themselves from future looters, when they could have tried to reach out to other living humans. This defensive mindset condemns them in the end as they attack to keep the other people for stealing what is “rightfully” theirs. The arrival of the bandits also highlights the comic relief of the picture. As out of place as it may be, it demonstrates mainly the gross lack of seriousness. By this point no one seems to fear the zombies. If anything they are there for the remaining people’s amusement. This reaches it’s peek the pies begin to fly free. The undead can’t cope with the hurled pastries and become helpless. Almost warranting a sincere feeling of sympathy for the poor, mistreated, and abused monster. This sympathy seems almost mutual between the audience and the occupants of the mall. The ability to poke fun at oneself limits others to do so. This blunt identification helps to mitigate many of the zombie’s obvious comical limitations. It is plausible that this attempt to self identify led to the creation of the zombie satire film.
ReplyDeleteZombies are funny. They’re awkward, slow, and not very bright….and just like any other poor creature that has the misfortune of being more awkward, slower, and less bright then the lowest common denominator of human beings….they’re going to get made fun of. In fact, it’s even funnier because in addition to being slightly handicapped they aren’t very nice, which takes away all of our guilt and allows us to laugh as much as we want. As Romero seems to have discovered, once you get past the horror of people you love coming back to life, the comedic potential is huge. But I don’t think that the cheesy humor in Dawn of the Dead is merely an exploitation of a potentially hilarious subset of non-people. People are fond of saying “I have to laugh, or I would cry,” meaning that if they are unable to find the humor in their situation they will crack. When you consider the situation that the people in Dawn of the Dead are in, the constant strain that they’re under, the ugly truths that they are trying to avoid facing; can you blame them for making fools of themselves in front of a security camera while robbing a bank? To laugh is to imply that everything is fine. It’s reassuring to you and those around you. It relieves stress. Huddled in a bombed out building in Beirut as a child, I remember my relatives laughing. I remember them watching wrestling on TV, when the power came on intermittently, and laughing and cheering as though the outcome of a wrestling match was the most relevant thing in the whole world. There was absolutely nothing funny about our situation, and the fact that the guy we were rooting for won the match didn’t change anything….but if we hadn’t laughed, we would have cried. The use of comedy in Dawn of the Dead almost makes the movie more valid, in my mind, because it’s a realistic reaction to being trapped in a situation and not knowing if you’re going to make it out alive. It’s very human….in contrast to the non-human epidemic confronting the characters. In the case of Dawn of the Dead, the stress-relieving properties of laughter are also an important tool the director uses to heighten terror. It lightens the mood and creates a greater contrast, a bigger “oh crap!” factor, when the horror returns.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching both Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead, one gets the impression that in his first movie featuring zombies, Romero is testing to see the reaction of the audience. Getting a positive reaction, he decides in his second run to give a double dose of zombie invasion in the form of the power of number. There is a stark contrast between the amount of zombies used in the first film and that of the second. The humans are easily outnumbered as the zombie population grows astronomically and they appear to attack in large numbers. It takes only a few minutes to become a zombie after dying and so the speed with which they multiply is dazzling. The fact that they are out to annihilate the human race in their quest to satisfy their desire for food is pretty apparent. The question is: why are they constantly famished? Are they never satisfied in spite of all the flesh that they devour? Do these zombies and their craving for flesh represent today’s consumers and their desire to acquire large quantities of goods? Think about the bulk shopping that goes on in some of these mega stores. Their motto: “The more the cheaper; the more the merrier”. As these zombies tend to over eat so the consumers tend to over buy. They buy for buying sake not because they need all that they buy. Dawn of the Dead reflects this behavior in several scenes when the four survivors go shopping in the mall that they secure for themselves. They choose the biggest and the best of everything and also in large quantities. For example the big loaf, the caviar and the wine.
ReplyDeleteIn Dawn of the Dead, Romero uses both the zombies and the humans to refer to consumers. The zombies strolling in the mall appear to be exactly like some shoppers in these gigantic department stores in midtown wandering about with no set destination, just looking for a great deal. The four human survivors in the movie, on the other hand, represent the greedy consumers with the means to buy and who keep on shopping, buying everything in sight because they can afford it. Even if the items they buy are never used or seldom used, the urge to possess outweigh any logic therefore they buy. As Harper puts it, “consumerism empowers capitalist subjects by granting them a limited, but politically important space in which to live out Utopian fantasies of autonomy.” He also states that consumers may be temporarily empowered by the experience of shopping. Subsequently, Romero’s depiction of the dazed zombie shoppers and the greedy consumers with the buying power can be seen in every shopping mall that one enters.
Audrey H.
The main shift noticeable in Dawn of the Dead is in the film’s tone. Previous works, such as Night of the Living Dead, maintained what Stephen Harper called “cultural verisimilitude” in his article “Night of the Living Dead: Reappraising an Undead Classic.” This means that while zombies, are of course, fictional, the film gives a realistic portrayal of what might happen if they really existed in our world. The protagonists act in ways that the audience can understand and one even gets the sense that they might do the same thing in that position. Dawn of the Dead, on the other hand, makes no attempt at preserving this realism. The entire movie is a parody. The characters behavior is ridiculous and impractical and none of their actions are relatable. There are many instances of them making jokes and teasing the zombies. There are scenes where they steal money from a bank, slide down the escalator banisters, and ice-skate. They don’t live in the constant state of terror that one would imagine to be typical of a zombie filled, post-apocalyptic world. They take unnecessary risks with their lives and are reckless to an almost unimaginable degree. It creates a feeling that there isn’t really at anything at stake. If the characters do not take their own lives seriously, why should we? This gives Dawn of the Dead a completely different feel from any of its predecessors. It might seem as if this undermines the seriousness of its critique but it actually helps to reinforce it. Because the film looks at the mindlessness of consumerism and the artificiality of the happiness that it brings, it similarly adopts a feeling of unrealistic brazenness and comically overblown happiness to reinforce that point.
ReplyDeleteI think Sarah brings up a very interesting point. I had never looked at the satirical nature of Dawn of the Dead as a coping method for the people who are fighting to stay alive. Whenever people are placed in stressful situations, there is always someone there trying to make a joke and lighten the mood. I think it is human nature to try and turn a bad situation into decent situation and at the very least to make the best out of it. Another example I can think of where I know of this to have happened was a story I heard from some friends of mine who were affected by the recent tsunami. This family was evacuated along with all of their neighbors in preparation for the tsunami but instead of panicking, they drank and bbq'd the night away. Luckily, they were in Okinawa so the tsunami did not affect them but in the end they turned a scary situation into a pleasant one. The four characters in Dawn of the Dead did the same thing by shopping, eating good food and entertaining themselves in the mall even though chaos and turmoil was happening right outside of it's walls. They lightened up the situation and turned a horrible situation into a pleasant experience.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Romero in his movie 'Dawn of the Dead' has specifically used a mall as the basic setting but his central idea of consumers' feverish pursuit of goods can be easily extended to online shopping in today's context. Retailing is going through a seismic shift with more and more consumers now preferring to shop online from the comfort of their own homes. There is no waiting in long lines at the checkout counter and these virtual marts stay open 24x7.
ReplyDeleteAlthough these online shoppers are no longer flocking to the malls, their behavior remains the same. They are prowling the internet in search of deals, buying stuff not because they need it but because it appears to be a good bargain. They gain satisfaction not from the marginal utility of a product but from the mere idea of possessing it. Websites such as Groupon are fueling this frenzied search for deals as well as this mindless purchasing. This online version of "Commodity Fetishism " (Karl Marx) reaches a crescendo on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday (Monday immediately following Thanksgiving Day) as different websites start selling their discounted wares at midnight which means consumers throughout USA are sitting like zombies in front of their laptops / desktops; quickly moving from say BestBuy.com to Walmart.com trying to grab a piece of a deal before it gets sold out.
If Romero were to shoot this film today, there will likely be a scene in which a zombie will be shown mindlessly typing on a keyboard or playing with the mouse while any recognizable shopping website such as Amazon.com will be shown to be open on the actual computer screen.
With regard to the introduction of parody and satire into the zombie genre in this film; it served few important purposes:
1. It expanded the audience pool of zombie movies. Many people do not watch horror movies as they are afraid of monsters. However, the same people would be more willing to watch a zombie movie if it has other elements (such as comedy) which they find more appeasing. A bigger audience pool in turn, helps the movie from both a commercial perspective as well as conveying the underlying message (Romero's views on consumerism) to as many individuals as possible.
2. In Dawn of the Dead (1978) neither the survivors nor the bikers (towards the end of the film) appear to be afraid of the zombies. This is in sharp contrast to the fear evident on the faces of Barbra, Harry Cooper etc in Night of the Living Dead (1968) or other popular horror films such as Evil Dead (1980). By introducing satire and humor into this genre; Romero has skillfully taken away the fear of the undead from the audience's mind. Stripped off this encapsulating layer, the audience is more easily able to focus on the underlying message of the film and interpret what the zombies actually represent.