Class 4

During last class, we studied zombies (and their representation). Everyone agreed that zombies are dead persons brought back to life who try to eat the living. They’re different from other monsters because they’re not particularly known for their intelligence or feelings.

Zombies are very common in the cinematic universe. Soon, you will be able to discover in theaters the adaptation of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. The movie (and the book) takes the character of the Jane Austen novels and puts them in a world where a zombie apocalypse is happening. So the Bennet family, just as odd as in the original book, is slaying zombies too. 

In this movie, the representation of zombies seems to be ordinary : they’re scary, want to eat flesh and are following the “slave and master of slaves” scheme (and they end up dead). 

There are however other ways of representing zombies. As an example we can use the CW show iZombie. The main character, Liv Moore, a promising young doctor, becomes a zombie at a boat party after being scratched by an infected person. After that, she has to quit her old ambitions and starts to work at the morgue, where she can find free brains indefinitely.

In the show, as long as a zombie can eat brains, he remains almost human (except for the color of skin, hair, and the absence of pulse and breath, almost like a vampire). However if they can’t feed, they’re “regular zombies”.

Liv "full zombie mode"

These human-look-alike zombies have super-strengh, and, when angry or in danger, can activate the ‘full zombie mode” (a term used by Liv Moore herself). When they eat a brain, they take the personality of the person it belonged to, which caused Liv some trouble. They also have a special taste for spicy food. In each episode, we can see Liv cooking the brains in a very appetizing way (like in Hannibal for example).

They also have visions about these dead persons. Liv is therefore working with the police to stop criminals, pretending to be a psychic. So we’re pretty far from the “zombie slave” stereotype here. But like everywhere there are good and bad zombies (as there are bad and good persons). However, except for a few people directly involved, the population is not aware of the presence of zombies amongst them, because of their ability to look like regular persons, making them more dangerous and imprevisible.

Furthermore, in this show, being a zombie is considered an illness (referred to as zombiism) that could eventually be cured and that's apparently due to a soda produced by a multinational company...