Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/SIC/2.4.LC.2
Zombies in Revolt: The Violent Revolution of American Cinematic Monsters
Dunja Opatić
Abstract
This paper unveils the revolutionary potential incarnated in the post-9/11 transformed figure of the cinematic zombie. It is my contention that zombies, through their cinematic (r)evolution, came to embody Deleuze and Guattari’s vision of the nomad war machine. Zombie films are used as a vehicle for addressing the tension between the hegemonic fear of the violent multitude in revolt and the counter-hegemonic liberatory potential of the rising masses. It is impossible to achieve a final resolution between these contradicting tendencies since the narrative structure of zombie films remains open-ended. The characteristics of the zombies and the meaning ascribed to them transform over time but they also maintain a continuity with a difference with the previous expressions of the monstrous. The monstrous characteristics which have pertained since George A. Romero’s paradigm shift in the 1960s (the zombifying contagion, violence and swarm attacks), joined with the new features appearing in the American zombie cinema of the new millennium, formulate a response to the manifest and latent violence of the State apparatus.
Keywords
zombies; film; hegemony; nomad war machine; multitude; State apparatus
Hrčak ID:
132925
URI
Publication date:
10.6.2014.
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