Understanding Our Fears: Post-9/11 Zombie Cinema and Participatory Culture in

Understanding Other

Jaime Saure

Outline:

• Topic: Post-9/11 cultural consciousness• Focus: culture helps recycle into new way to look at

the other more positively• Method: Content Analysis, Discourse Analysis• TOA: Representations in four films and Participatory

culture; Zed-Events, RFYL 5k, Zombie Squad• Goals: Understand the zombie’s racist manifestation,

prove cultural consciousness in film, and discuss about the positive nature of participatory culture.

Literature Review

• Haitian Folklore Voodoo ‘Zombie’ and the United States

• Birth of the Contemporary Zombie

• More than Just Our Fears

Content Analysis

• Dawn of the Dead (2004 remake)• Shaun of the Dead (2004 remake)• 28 Weeks Later (2007)• Land of the Dead (2005)

Discourse Analysis

• Zed-Events: Two audience reviews

• Run For Your Lives 5k: One audience informative blog

• Zombie Squad: Wikipedia, Home Page, Guidelines with the Press and Media