As we all know, diseases, viruses, and bacteria have no boundaries. They may travel from one host to another without a problem and have the ability to spread quickly on a global scale. The movie World War Z portrays very similar characteristics with a zombie epidemic that traveled internationally infecting people, damaging infrastructures, and threating the existence of the human race. Although the movie features a virus that we may never encounter in real life, many diseases can relate to zombie infections. Many diseases have the possibility to not just infect and kill people but also produce the collapse of societal infrastructures. It is important to analyze the film because it portrays possible real life outcomes from a viral global infection. World War Z uses rhetorical strategies that contribute to making pandemic a prominent fear of today’s media landscape. The movie evokes fear with visuals that anyone can relate to. Presenting it in a way that really horrifies the audience. There is a heavy usage of metaphors that go to support the importance to pandemics. The metaphors used in the film consist of the military, stereotypes of developing nations and anthropomorphism of Mother Nature as a killer. Also, the portrayal of the zombie in World War Z also reflects on our worries about human diseases.
This blog is going to first discuss about literature on zombies in film and the different ideas that are presented within it. Second, the history of the zombie is presented, from when and where did the term zombie first come from. Third this blog will accomplish a series of rhetorical analysis of the film World War Z; Metaphors, fear features and the figure of the zombie will be examined. Finally, as a conclusion, there will be fun zombie ideas presented such as music, zombie make up tutorials, etc.
The film War World Z is based on the novel World War: and oral history of the zombie war by Max Brooks. The film was released in 2013 with Marc Forster as the director. The film stars Brad Pitt as the main character, Gary Lane.
The term zombie originates from Afro-Caribbean mystical arts from Haiti. This term was known as “zonbi”. The Haitian zonbi is known to be believed by slaves as a return of the body. “A person bodily raised from the grave and turned into a slave worker (McAlister, 2012, pg. 2). The body and soul are separated and are compelled to work. The CDC defines ancient zombie as “a duel identity of zonbis. One form of zonbis is an ambulatory body without a living soul, and the other, lesser-known form is a soul wandering without the body” (Narisruddin, Halabi, Dao, Chen and Brown, 2013). Through time, the US pop culture of the zombie in film has evolved in many ways. This is because the zombies today do not resemble being dead and coming back to life like the Haitian zonbis. The zombies as we know it are infected by a virus as opposed to being awakened by spiritual, voodoo magic. The dead are still alive and have turned into a creature that eats its own kind. The zombies in film today are hungry for human flesh, pale, disgusting, and have lost all personal autonomy. Today, zombies are a very popular pop-culture. They appear in films, TV shows, video games, graphic novels, comic books, and songs. “What nearly all understandings and depictions of popular culture zombies have in common is a flexible creature designed to evoke our macabre and natural disasters, conflicts and wars, and crime and violence” ( Todd, 2013). The best part about it is that the zombie is portrayed differently every time and has evolved drastically. Every literature about the figure of the zombie is always different from one another. Therefore there is really no singular definition of the zombie because of the inconsistent representation of zombie characteristics.
There were a few literary works analyzing the metaphors of zombie films and zombie as a plague itself. This includes Stephanie Boluk & Wylie Lenz, Allan Cameron and Ruth Mayer. Mayer presents interesting aspects in the article “Virus Discourse: The Rhetoric of Threat and Terrorism in the Biothriller.” In this article, Mayer explores the metaphors that were developed within popular narratives such as 28 weeks later and I Am Legend. The examples Mayer uses entail the horror of threats- which in turn connects fantasy worlds to our reality because these narratives are plausible with scientific theories. Many ideas presented in this article relates to metaphors shown in the film World War Z. In “Infection, Media, and Capitalism: From Early Modern Plagues to Postmodern Zombies”, Boluk & Lenz discusses the media in relation to plagues. Included are patterns of metaphors often seen in viral thriller films and the anxiety associated with it. This literature also dive into the fear devices behind different types of metaphors. The article “Zombie Media: Transmission, Reproduction, and the Digital Dead”, Cameron similarly assess how the zombie body and the human body are metaphorically connected. This article also observes the figure of the zombie and how it contributes to the metaphors within zombies films.
The literature analyzing specifically fear strategies within Zombie films is “Living Dead: Fearful Attractions of Film” by Adam Lowenstein. Lowenstein discusses about creating fear and traumatic events within films by using specific examples from other Zombie films such as Land of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later. “Viral Networks and Zombie Invasion: Conceptualizing Control over (Post) Human life”, by levina also evaluates fear. Levina addresses the fear in the loss of humanity and its social networks. The fear of complete societal collapse as a result of global apocalypse
Literature analyzing the history of the Zombie includes “Slaves, Cannibals, and infected Hyper-Whites: The Race and Religion of Zombies” by Elizabeth McAlister, “Locating Zombies in the Sociology of Popular Culture” by Todd K. Platts, and “Zombies-A Pop Culture Resource for Public Health Awarness” by Narisruddin, Halabi, Dao, Chen and Brown. All of these three articles pinpoint the origin of the zombie, a term from Haitian Voodoo arts which has evolved tremendously within film over the past decades. Platts discussed specifically about how difficult it is to define the term zombie due to its diverse portrayals in different zombie films. Platts also identifies that zombie films play off of cultural fears to create social anxiety and build the pop culture of the zombie. The literature “Zombies-A Pop Culture Resource for Public Health Awareness”, does not only go over the history of zombies but it also investigates the ways in which zombie films can create awareness to public health issues such as rabies. The literature that review the figure of the zombie is “Zombie Pedagogy: Rigor Mortis and the U.S Body Politic” by Christian Moraru. In this article, Moraru addresses the affects of a zombified body and how we see ourselves in return. Boluk & Lenz also touches on the zombie figure and what fears lie behind the portrayal.
World War Z uses several rhetorical approaches to make pandemic important. By making it important, the movie is emphasizing the need to understand and critically think about the disease, In order to find a cure or to stop the threat, one must comprehend how it spreads, what it does to the human body and ultimately the diseases’ weakness. A rhetorical strategy that was often used was the establishment of fear. “This pattern comprises panic, dissolution of socioeconomic structures, and despair, succeeded by a makeshift return to normality once the disease has run its course” (Boluk & Lenz, 2010, pg. 126). In the film World War Z, it showed scenarios of economic and societal collapse with cities going into total darkness, empty homes and streets, and people breaking into grocery stores taking all they will need to survive. The movie encourages the fear affect with scenarios that are a possible in real life. The fact that the audience can relate to these fear tactics allows them to visualize them in the sense of reality. In the article “Viral Networks and Zombie Invasion: Conceptualizing Control over (Post) Human life”, Levina describes that the zombie virus imposes fear over the loss of control. This loss of control means the loss of human networks and the control over human essentials to survive. For example in World WarZ, characters become displaced due to the virus. People are being forced to be in environments that may not be safe, loss of family communication, the fear of what to do and where to go next, etc. The formation of fear in World War Z is present to not only make the move entertaining but to also heighten the sense that this scenario could apply to real life situations, playing a role in the importance of pandemics by making people think.
The way World War Z produces fear is by producing trauma. This trauma is made to look realistic in order to create fear to the audience. “ I believe that since the horror film is a genre built upon depicting frightening, often traumatic experiences yet rarely considered “serious” enough to portray traumatic history, its engagements with historical trauma are particularly valuable” (Lowenstein, 2010, pg. 109). World War Z produces trauma through the military characteristics. In the film, there was a war raging on against the zombies. In addition to that, nuclear bombs were being used and heavy combat was present. This is trauma because in real life we know the nature and the consequences of such weapons. We have all seen the War in Irag on the news, learned about other wars such as WWI and WWII. This in turn creates fear because the military trauma we have seen or learned about in real life is being portrayed in World War Z.
Metaphors
Another rhetorical strategy that was used to make pandemic important was the military metaphors. The most obvious metaphor used in the movie was the war against zombies. The title itself, “World War Z”, resembles the names of historic wars in the past such as WWI or WWII. The military had a big part in fighting against the virus with heavy combat and the usage of weapons to kill zombies. The military was in total control of any kind of transportation, and served as the protectors of the human race. In one scene, the US military commander told Brad Pit “There is no room for no essential purposes on this ship”, his family was later forced to relocate to land. Even at the end of the movie when the CDC found a way around the virus, a CDC official stated “this camouflage can make our troops invisible to the enemy”. This scene supports not just the fact that the movie continues to stress on the military and its safety but it also proves that there is a war against the disease. Referring to the disease as the enemy shows us that the disease is its own group of objects. That zombies are the enemies we need to kill. In the article, “Virus Discourse: The Rhetoric of Thread and Terrorism in the Biothriller”, Mayer states “the phobic rhetoric of othering instrumentalized”us” versus “them” is far from defunct. Still, the most fearful suggestion in contemporary representations of terrorism, warfare, and other national and international conflict scenarios is that self and other have become indistinguishable” (Mayer, 2007, pg 5). The movie World War Z exemplifies this point because there has become a clear difference between “us” and “them.” In many scenes the zombies and the humans are seen as two groups. The zombies travel in waves and are out to devour, eat, or bite human flesh. The humans also attack as a group with military equipment in order to keep the zombies away. For example, in the movie when Brad Pit reached Israel in search for answers of the cure, Israel had already built a wall to keep out the zombies. There was military surveillance with helicopters and solders surrounding the whole perimeter of the wall. This scene refines the notion of warrior versus enemy.
Further more, the wall in Isreal in the film World War Z contains symbolic meanings. The wall portrays the attempt to keep away the diseases from penetrating the human body. The way the wall was governed by the military and helicopters alludes to the medications and vaccinations we take in order to prevent the virus from getting into our body. In this particular scene, the zombies were able to pile themselves up on each other, eventually breaking through the wall and infecting people. All it takes it just one zombie to bite a human for the disease to go viral. This works in real life diseases as well because all it takes is just one strand of a disease and it multiplies in the human body for example HIV AIDS, parasitic diseases, Ebola, etc. The wall is also a symbol of quarantine. In World War Z, it was used to keep out the sick and keep in the healthy. This alludes to how we deal with diseases in real life as well as we quarantine others who are sick to keep them away from the healthy.
Along with the economic and societal collapse shown in World War Z, a metaphor was also present in the grocery store scene. In this scene, the zombies have reached Philadelphia, Brad Pitt and his family must relocate to find a safer place. In the process they came across a grocery store to grab food and his daughter’s asthma medication. The grocery store was a chaotic mess and people in haste to grab food and leave. There was no need to pay because people needed to move quickly since the zombies were coming. This scene was a metaphor in the destruction of capitalism due to the fact that money is not longer being operated. People are taking whatever they need from the grocery store without having to worry about paying. The “plague acts as a social leveler, infecting regardless of any class, racial, or national distinction. It ignores borders and destroys the perceived demarcations between self and other” (Boluk & Lenz, 2010, pg. 129). In World War Z, no one is safe. The zombies infect anyone, rich or poor, and anywhere. This is as a result is a metaphor of the collapse in capitalism portrayed in the film.
In addition to metaphors, World War Z emphasizes that the disease itself is a metaphor. There was a scene where a doctor stated “Mother nature is the serial killer here, and the best out of all serial killers. She committed a crime and they need to find blame. She leaves crumbs, clues to the virus. You must pay close attention because she disguises her weakness and strengths”. This metaphor is saying that the zombie outbreak is due to anthropomorphism of Mother Nature as a serial killer and she is running her course. Analyzing this metaphor, one can find that many diseases today are also known to have been caused by Mother Nature. This metaphor in the World War Z is once again trying to relate the zombie virus back to real life viruses and alludes to the importance of pandemics. In the film, the zombie virus started from a rural area in China. In real life a few diseases start from rural poorer regions as well. The idea here is that in World War Z, the virus started from a remote location with fewer medical resources, a poorer community and no knowledge how the disease first spreads. The film is reinforcing the stereotype about developing nations. Many diseases are able to relate to the fact that the first sign of the illness is found in poor rural locations. In addition, many diseases strike poorer countries the hardest and more lives are affected as opposed to wealthier countries. This was also seen in the movie because the United States was not the first to be hit with the zombie virus. It eventually traveled to the United States but by then the virus was already seen on the news.
The figure of the Zombie
The portrayal of the zombie in World War Z is a reflection of who we are as humans. In the movie the zombies and the virus is talked about almost as two different objects. The virus is what turns you into the zombie; it is transmitted through biting and transfusion of bodily fluids. The virus spreads in a matter of second and the process of getting the virus makes the body twitch, muscles tense, bones cracking, and eye balls rolling back. The zombie however is seen as ruthless, strong, hungry for human flesh, and has animal like instincts. As a reflection, the zombie figure goes to show how we fear the human race becoming a monster against itself. In World War Z, humans who turn into zombies are now considered “the enemy.” It is the fear of a disease that will use the human body to attack other human bodies. The zombie figure also shows that we are frightened of such pathogen that will spread and turn people into such crazy brutal creatures. The zombie serves as the visual of a plague with powerful possibilities in wiping out the human society. It shows that we are afraid of the unmanageable, the uncontrollable and uncontainable (Boluk & Lenz, 2010). The figure of the zombie infects life itself and turns whole populations into a whole different species and ultimately showing that we are afraid of becoming unhuman.
We live in such an individualist society and everyone is unique to their own character as humans. The figure of the Zombie is stripped away of individuality and becomes part of a brimming group of zombies. The article “Zombie Pedagogy: Rigor Mortis and the U.S. Body Politic” by Moraru, states “Accordingly, the zombie being one or turning into one, performs the unadulterated difference between the inhuman in its serial and mindless form, on one side, and the human and its equivalents, the individual and the rational, on the other” (Moraru, 2012, pg. 107). In the film World War Z, one moment you are human and once bitten, this “thing” emerges out of you. Your appearance changes and you become a zombified body, hungry for human flesh. The portrayal of the zombie in World War Z is an operational and fully functional creature. This to us is frightening because the zombies possess an entity of its own, eliminating the person it was once before. All souls and spirits have turned into a cannibal creature.
The zombies in World War Z are your typical brainless zombie who eats and infects humans once bitten. What is different about them is that they are extremely ruthless, fast strong, jumps high from roof top to roof top, and are sensitive to noises. In World War Z, zombies banging their head on car windows just to break through. The zombies have the capability to pile up on each other to get over a 100 ft. wall. As brainless as these zombies were, they have animal like instincts. In the film, they do not infect those who are sick with a chronic illness, and they do not target the elderly. In one scene, Brad Pitt goes head on with a zombie after injecting himself with a disease; the zombie looked almost disappointed prowling around him. Being close to each other in the same room, this zombie did not touch Brad Pitt at all. It was as if the virus wanted to create a whole population of its own species, therefore only targeting those who were going to prolong the zombification. In this case, the figure of the zombie in World War Z is reflecting that we are afraid of a disease that has the mind power to populate a species of itself. A disease not only having the potential to eradicate the human race but while doing so, creating a whole population of monsters. This is definitely a unique characteristic of the figure of the zombie in World War Z.
Zombie Films and Public Understanding
Zombie films such as World War Z do have the power to influence people’s perception about global pandemics. Although it may be based off of a fantasy disease that turns people into zombies, many of the elements in zombie films like World War Z are very real with the portrayal of the military being heavily involved, the societal and economic collapse, etc. These are all very imaginable, “what if” events. “In “Epidemic Entertainments,” The media responds to a variety of demands (from consumers as well as advertisers) to shape popular culture knowledge about experience of contagious diseases, public health, and the possibilities for personal social action” (Wald, 2002, pg. 621). The main thing about zombie films is the over dramatized situations. The disease itself spreads in 15 seconds in World War Z, from a bite. This may over exaggerate people’s perception of the spread of diseases if they were to go viral. In general, everyone is influenced by what they see in the media. There is then no doubt that zombie films have the power to influence perspectives on diseases and how it may operate as well.
Some diseases have the ability to destroy whole communities. Infectious diseases that spread from one person to another can be extremely dangerous. The movie World War Z imposes meaning under many aspects to the spread of the zombie virus. These aspects include the fear associated with pandemic crisis, military involvement and metaphors that appeals fear to the audience. This movie is significant in the way the disease was developed based on real life uncertainties. Situations were dramatized for the entertainment of the audience yet it never loses sight of evoking the fear of reality to the viewers. Zombies may be a little far-fetched when it comes to applying it to real life but many diseases are able to relate.
Boluk, S., Lenz, W. (2010). INFECTION, MEDIA, AND CAPITALISM: From Early Modern Plagues to Postmodern Zombies. The Journal For Early Modern Cultural Studies, 10, 126-145.
Carmeron, A., (2012). Zombie Media: Transmission, Reporduction, and the Digital Dead. Cinema Journal: The Journal of The Society For Cinema & MedisStudie, 52, 66-89.
Mayer, R. (2007). Virus Discourse: The Rhetoric of Threat and Terrorism in the Biothriller, 2-21.
McAlister, E., (2012). Slaves, Cannibals, and Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race and Religion of Zombies. Anthropology Quarterly, 85, 1-13.
Todd, K., P., (2013) Locating Zombies in the Sociology of Popular Culture. Sociology Compass.
Narisruddin, M., Halabi, M., Dao, A., Chen, K., and Brown, B. (2013) Zombies- A Pop Culture Resource for Public Health Awarness. Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Moraru, C., (2012) Zombie Pedagogy: Rogor Mortis and the U.S. Body Politic. Studies in Popular Culture, 105-122.
Levina, M. (2008).Viral Networks and Zombie Invasions: Conceptualizing Control Over (Post) Humans Life.
Lowensteing, A., (2010). Living Dead: Fearful Attractions of Film. Representations, 105-126
Wald, P., Tomes, N., Lynch, L., (2002). Introduction: Contagion and Culture. American Literary History, 617-624.
The Zombie War 