Dawn of the Dead

Aden Lungstrom

Matthew Harris

ENGL 3040

4-24-16

Dawn of the Consumer.

            This was my second time watching Dawn of the Dead and I picked up on a few things that I didn’t notice the first time watching it. With my second viewing of the film I noticed a large amount of criticism of the cultural and economic roles that played in the American society in the late 70s. The view and allegory for consumerism is pretty much a given for this film, however what I noticed the most was the historical representation of the Cold War and the fear of communism. The question of “who is who?”. Even though the Red scare and McCarthyism were at its peak in the mid-60s, the aftershock of the hysteria lingered in films like Dawn of the Dead many years later. 

In the film, we the audience, witness a small group of American survivors fight an enemy which looks human but in undead. Romero played with the idea that these zombies were the communists of the film, but in fact I would argue that the zombies played the role of the common American consumer, or capitalist, and the survivors played the role of the communist. When the survivors arrived they are greeted by a massive horde of zombies, in this case the survivors are the foreign invaders that need to share resources in order to survive.  These survivors had to live in a socialist community in order to survive. The zombies, a community that thrives on consuming, did not take the survivors presence too kindly. However they slowly picked off the survivors one by one until Peter and Francine flew off. The context behind these allegories is that in 1978 communism was still a threat to the American society as well as the problems it created by using extreme solutions.

When there was a broadcast there were usually two people on the show the host and an esteemed scientist. However the scientist’s opinion of how to deal with the zombies kept changing each time. At first the scientists wanted every viewer to know that these creatures are not human and should not be treated as such. Even if they were a neighbor, family member, lover, whomever they should be exterminated immediately. The mindset of the scientists is similar to how authorities dealt with communists in America. McCarthyism played much of this role in history, if someone knew or found out that they know a communist it was their “American duty” to liquidize the threat.  In this case the zombies play the role of communistic invaders. After all, the fear was of the domino effect that would spread much like disease across America. This fear is identical to how quickly the zombie epidemic is represented in the film, all it takes is a bite and there’s no going back.  Eventually the scientist’s opinion changed; in the last broadcast the scientist suggests taking the “logical approach” and feed the zombies. Even the host begins to question him, his response is “we must remain logical”. It is possible the scientist was making a contemporary comment to aftermath of McCarthyism.  Perhaps the argument of  there is no escaping the idea of communists being in America, instead we should begin to understand them and see what they have to offer.

The allegories of the red scare are heavily present throughout the film; however it is difficult to tell at times who exactly the communists of the film are. Both the zombies and survivors share similar roles as individual consumer,  yet also have the roles that show case a communistic society.  I thoroughly enjoyed this film and the unique political commentary that it provided.