Commodity Cannibalism

In George Romero’s, Dawn of the Dead, the main subject of horror underneath the blood and guts is the fear of purposelessness.  This is the main factor Marx and Engels address in their communist manifesto in the dystopian society.  They propose that through the separation of the worker from labour and his product the society becomes dystopian.  The idea behind this theory is not dissimilar to the old saying, idle hands make the devil’s works. 

This can be seen in a multitude of moments throughout the film.  Whilst the main characters hide and play house they become more agitated the less they have to do, after annihilating the zombies from the mall they have nothing to do but wait.  The zombies outside are content because they still have their focus of getting passed the doors to their meal.  

Stephen is almost useless from the start in that he cannot fight or aim a gun and is extremely inexperienced in even handling a weapon.  But he is the only one who knows how to fly a plane.  This is the reason he gets so disgruntled when Francine wants to learn to fly, because she is effectively taking away his only purpose.  And it is for this reason, I believe, he becomes a zombie.

The reason for Francine's agitation with the men during their conversation over her fetus is due to her feelings of purposelessness not because it's her body.  This becomes the one thing in the world that she can do is to decide about whether to bring this child into the world and to keep herself alive until she has at least made that decision.  Once she decides to keep it she becomes much more capable and forward about her decisions, as if to say, once you find your purpose you wont have to be a vacant zombie anymore.

Roger doesn't start to become depressed until his legs gets bitten, this is the moment when his purpose gets taken away from him and he is forced to experience the zombification of inability.  Though this is a slower process because the group still gives him tasks but once he becomes too sick to do even that, he becomes what they are all fighting to stop.

Peter has a purpose throughout and Francine gains a purpose, the reason both Roger and Steven’s zombification is they lost their purpose.

This is why the zombies never stop, because they have a clear reason for being, to eat and to consume.  It is in this way that the comment works as a dual sided attack on the current economic state.  The surface of this idea is that people are slowly becoming slaves to their greed for the things of the world and have lost whatever it was that made them human.  The comment here being that we are all mindless automatons buying and eating ourselves into purposelessness.

            I liked the equalizing manner in which Romero makes this film, in that no one survives for their place in societal hierarchy, but for their usefulness to the group.  This is a very progressive manner in which to deal out the death scenes.  This is a good thing and a bad thing for the characters in that they are all treated equal but they are all seen as not much better if not worse than the zombies.

            This is why I said, worse than face eating zombies, because the continued taunting and disrespect for the undead paints the living characters throughout the film as truly awful people.  The zombies are basically newly born children; they have no understanding of the world or how things work.  It is through this ignorance that the zombies become able to be empathized with and the humans slowly become more monstrous.