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<blockquote data-quote="Fenris-77" data-source="post: 8038368" data-attributes="member: 6993955">There are indeed strong elements of race and class in the genesis of the 'zombie story' as imagined by American cinema. Two things need to be unpacked about that though, IMO. First, I seriously doubt that that is how people in 2020 'read' zombie stories. I suspect that more modern readings, one's not steeped in the fear of communism and cold war, index different things, infection primary among them. In both cases, race and Communism, what you have is an overthrow of the 'natural order' colored by the perspective of whomever is being overthrown, naturally. It's that basic fear, unconnected to race or class, that think is the prime mover in our discussion.This leads me to my second point, which is that the fear at work there, of the overthrow or corruption of the natural order (life and death in the case of zombies), is separate from either of those associations, or any other ones that could be indexed to the zombie genre at various times (AIDS in the 80's, for example). Connected at the time, yes, but separate. That's one of the reasons why more modern treatments of zombies often really push the contagion factor, some issues of body horror, and issues, again, of loss of control and agency, because that's what resonates with audiences now. I think it's important to be nuanced about that separation, otherwise we get, well, what we have, where people either don't know how to, or aren't interested in, any kind of rational analysis, and just throw the baby out with the bathwater.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Fenris-77, post: 8038368, member: 6993955"] There are indeed strong elements of race and class in the genesis of the 'zombie story' as imagined by American cinema. Two things need to be unpacked about that though, IMO. First, I seriously doubt that that is how people in 2020 'read' zombie stories. I suspect that more modern readings, one's not steeped in the fear of communism and cold war, index different things, infection primary among them. In both cases, race and Communism, what you have is an overthrow of the 'natural order' colored by the perspective of whomever is being overthrown, naturally. It's that basic fear, unconnected to race or class, that think is the prime mover in our discussion. This leads me to my second point, which is that the fear at work there, of the overthrow or corruption of the natural order (life and death in the case of zombies), is separate from either of those associations, or any other ones that could be indexed to the zombie genre at various times (AIDS in the 80's, for example). Connected at the time, yes, but separate. That's one of the reasons why more modern treatments of zombies often really push the contagion factor, some issues of body horror, and issues, again, of loss of control and agency, because that's what resonates with audiences now. I think it's important to be nuanced about that separation, otherwise we get, well, what we have, where people either don't know how to, or aren't interested in, any kind of rational analysis, and just throw the baby out with the bathwater. [/QUOTE]

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