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Posted on October 11, 2015

6 Predictions for Season Six of The Walking Dead!

After what seems like years of waiting, we are now mere hours away from The Walking Dead’s season six premiere! And so in between baking Carol cookies and coiffing my Eugene inspired mullet, I bring to you predictions!

6. – Daryl Gets His Groove Back
As a huge fan of Daryl (Norman Reedus) from seasons one and two, it’s been disappointing to watch what was once a nuanced character become so, well, emo. The expected arrival of comic fan favorite Paul Monroe, aka Jesus, puts the position of Daryl somewhat in jeopardy. Monroe is an able survivalist who becomes one of Rick’s most trusted allies. Sound familiar? The show needs to remind viewers of the reasons why we first fell in love with Daryl, and so I’m expecting to see a less teary-eyed and more badass Daryl take center stage. And if this metamorphosis could involve Carol (Melissa McBride), that would be even better!

5. – You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!- The Carl Version
It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I am not Carl’s (Chandler Riggs) biggest fan. And so it might be with more than a little sadism on my part that I am actively hoping that one of the comic book’s most memorable storylines comes to fruition. Carl losing his eye actually opens up a wealth of storyline potential and could be a defining moment in helping to transition that character from child to adult in the eyes of the audience.

Posted on October 9, 2015

The Walking Dead and the Return to the Forest

Dawn Keetley

With the upcoming release, in early 2016, of Jason Zada’s The Forest, with its retelling of Japanese myths of people going to the Aokigahara Forest to die, I’ve been thinking about the return, as it were, of plants, trees, forests in recent horror film and TV. Not least in AMC’s The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead is, of course, shot (and mostly set) in the beautiful lush landscapes of Georgia—and I definitely felt the absence of the richly enveloping, even devouring, vegetation as I was watching Fear the Walking Dead’s LA landscapes.

The vegetation of The Walking Dead is much more than background, though. There is a resonant connection between the vegetation and the walkers. Not least walkers often lurk in and stagger through fields and forests, blending in more and more as they decay.

Posted on October 8, 2015

The Walking Dead and The Sympathetic Zombie

Elizabeth Erwin

As a pop culture juggernaut that shows no signs of slowing down, AMC’s The Walking Dead is the unusual zombie narrative that has managed to capture the attention of both horror and non-horror fans alike. With its sly humor, grotesque kills and nuanced characters, the show both reflects and reimagines the ways in which zombies can be used to create a distinct sense of dread. But unlike their living dead predecessors, the zombies of The Walking Dead are not mere monsters. Instead, the show offers a zombie construct that is both identifiable and malleable. While it would have been easy to cast the zombies as simple monsters, the show often challenges its audience to sympathize with the zombies. The end result is a much more complicated and socially aware narrative.

The notion of a sympathetic zombie seems at first contrary to the genre. After all, zombies are traditionally designed to be decaying shells whose threat revolves around their complete lack of intent. Steve Bruhm notes that zombies serve as a “barometer of the anxieties plaguing a certain culture at a particular moment in history.” Season one of The Walking Dead reflects this thinking in its utilization of zombies as the main source of the narrative’s horror. Where The Walking Dead succeeds in remaking the horror of the zombie is in its gradual personalization of it. The zombies occupy, intentionally, both an impersonal and a personal position within the narrative.

Posted on October 6, 2015

No, Conservatives Can’t Have The Walking Dead!

Dawn Keetley

In his recent article in The National Review, “In the Zombie World, Only the Conservatives Survive,” David French argues that zombie fiction (notably AMC’s The Walking Dead) “may be the most conservative fiction of all.”[i] I disagree.

French predicates his case on three claims: (1) in zombie fiction, the government is incompetent and almost immediately collapses; (2) you’ll only survive if you have a gun and know how to use it; and (3) people end up being the most dangerous animals of all in the post-apocalyptic world.

First of all, the points French makes certainly have some truth to them, but they offer only a partial view. First of all, conservatives can be as enamored of the government as any liberal—to the extent, of course, that government embodies conservative values. (Kim Davis, the Kentucky country clerk who’s refusing to sign marriage licenses for gays and lesbians comes to mind here.) Liberals and conservatives each love their own particular incarnations of the government. If anyone’s going to be dancing when the government inevitably collapses, it’ll be the libertarians.

Secondly, yes, you need a gun (or a katana or a cross-bow) in the zombie apocalypse. But, as the NRA loves to remind us, guns don’t kill people, people kill people—and having a gun, and surviving with it, always depends on who you are and who you’re with. As The Walking Dead and every single zombie fiction repeatedly shows us, there is strength in numbers: you survive only with a group. Yes, humans may be dangerous (French’s third point), but humans are also their own salvation, and the people you choose to ally yourself with are the single most important predictor of survival. More important than guns, in short, is community.