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Luis YoungDr. Erin Dietel-McLaughlinWR 13300April 3, 2015Rhetorical Contagion: Zombie Representation and Infectious ConcernsSunday night, the family huddles around the TV for what has become one of their favorite family past-times. They grab the remote, and scan through the channels looking for the right station. AMC at 9 p.m. (Schedule amctv.com), theyve been over this time and time again. Now where is it? they argue amongst themselves. Then finally they find it, and they tune in for Americas newest past time The Walking Dead. This show, like many others in the genre (I am Legend, World War Z, etc.) has captivated audiences across America and the world.In fact, just recently, Season 5 of The Walking Dead broke cable records by getting 17.3 million total viewers, beating its previous record of 16.1 million (Patten, Dominic). Similarly, I am Legend earned $256,393,010 domestically and $328,956,00 internationally to become the seventh highest grossing film of 2007 (Zombie Movies at the Box Office). This combined with World War Zs (2013) success in becoming the highest grossing zombie film of all time (Zombie Movies at the Box Office), illustrates the prevalence of the zombie in contemporary broadcasting. Yet, this general fascination with zombies began long ago. After providing a brief overview of the origins of zombies and zombie films, I will argue that the contemporary zombie distinguishes itself from its origins, due to cultural anxieties about disease and contagion. For the zombie itself is a legendary figure derived from the cultural and folkloric traditions of the Dahomian people of West Africa, who later crossed the sea to Haiti as slaves in the 16th Century (Yoder and Kreuter). Once there, cruel treatment and poor conditions brought suffering to the slaves, whos only pillar for support was their culture. Their belief in voodoo and its supernatural powers played a major part in their culture, and served as the birthplace of the zombie phenomenon. To these people, the zonbi was the spirit of a dead person that [traveled] at night to visit the living (Yoder and Kreuter). They also interpreted it as a dead person who had been brought back to life by an evil sorcerer to do his bidding (Yoder and Kreuter). As Yoder and Kreuter pointed out, western scientific imagination has been fascinated with the latter, the zonbis physical and material manifestation (Yoder and Kreuter). The zombie however, did not spread beyond Haitis borders until 1915 when the US occupation of Haiti began. Glenn Kay recounts that during their stay in Haiti, many US soldiers and families were disturbed by the locals late-night voodoo practices. To such an extent, that when they came back to the US they brought back stories that among other things included the reanimation of dead subjects (Kay 3). And this is where the zombie craze began. In particular, it began with the book The Magic Island (1929) written by William Seabrook. After making a trip to Haiti, Seabrook gave an account of his supposed real-life encounters with zombies (Kay 3). This captivated readers and jump-started the zombie phenomenon in media.As time dragged on, the booming film industry in the US took up the zombie craze in the 1930s. It first came out with films about the supernatural mysteries of Haiti, with its first attempt at the zombie subgenre being White Zombie (1932), which was a surprisingly authentic representation of the zombies Haitian origins, and a box office hit to top it off, getting the zombie movie off to a rollicking start (Kay 5). From then on the zombie continued to make an appearance on film, in movies such as The Ghost Breakers (1940) and Creature with the Atom Brain (1955) (Kay 14, 25). It kept building momentum until finally hitting center-stage of the horror genre through the aforementioned The Walking Dead, World War Z, and I am Legend. Yet, this process not only shows the long-term phenomenon that is the zombie subgenre, but it also details different trends in zombie representation.These of which started with White Zombie. As mentioned earlier, White Zombie stayed true to Haitian zombie origins. In this film, one of the main characters is the owner of a plantation, who, using drugs, zombifies the locals transforming them into mindless muscle who slave on his plantation or assist him with sinister deeds (Kay 6). This is reminiscent of the slaves in Haiti, working against their will for the good of an evildoer. It even utilizes the setting of a plantation, which held many African slaves throughout the 16th Century. This movie highlights why these Haitian slaves relied on their voodoo and occult traditions to get on with life, it was a way of rationalizing their own reality and at times dreaming of redemption. As for physically, the zombies are portrayed with minimal makeup, appearing pale with dark circles around the eyes mainly and wide-eyed expressions (Kay 6). These zombies differ from the monstrous standard we are used to holding them to as fictional horror creatures, here, they are regarded more as slaves than the undead, which speaks greatly about the actual African slaves whos very own wide-eyed expressions represented a lack of hope and despair.In The Ghost Breakers, this same topic is approached through a bald zombie who lives in a nearby shack with his mother (Kay 14). As Glenn Kay puts it, the plight of the zombie is described as, You see them sometimes, walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring (Kay 14). Even here in 1940, eight years after the introduction of White Zombie, there is still no mention of the rotting flesh or carnivorous nature of the zombie. Instead the main goal is to represent the zombie as a hopeless creature, whose fate lies in the hands of those in control. Yet although both movies follow this same pattern of portraying the plight of the zombie as being inhuman (with regards to slavery), this film does take the first steps in making that aesthetically visible. In this film the physical aspect of the zombie gets magnified in relation to previous efforts through the elaborate makeup, in an attempt to make the zombie look less human than before, with presthetics covering the entire head, rather than pasty white makeup on the facemaking him [the zombie in the movie] one of the more impressive and frightening zombies of his day (Kay 15).Creature with the Atom Brain follows a similar route. In this movie a German scientist experiments with radioactive emanations in the hopes of resurrecting the dead (Kay 25). Here in 1955 we see the first instance between these three movies where the zombie is an undead creature. As a fictional monster it is finally moving away from its Haitian roots and settling under a more monstrous identity. Yet, despite the fact that these zombies are more supernatural in nature (such as by having superhuman strength), they are still controlled by a master. Thus, even then in Creature with the Atom Brain, 23 years after the first zombie movie, the zombie subgenre still followed the Haitian model. So why did the zombie get to where it is now, present day? And more importantly, what are the major differences between zombies of the past and those of the present?As noted before, the zombies of the past were the byproduct of an evildoer or plantation owners sorcery. This, along with many other traits, is not characteristic of modern day zombies. Nowadays, our conception of zombies involves the zombies violent bite that transforms civilized humans into rotting corpses (Greene and Mohammad 202), and by rotting corpses I mean other zombies of course. In other words, modern day zombies come from an infectious bite or disease, they are not resuscitated by a sorcerer, or brainwashed by magic, they are killed by disease and then born again as the undead. This brings up another point, zombies of the past neither threatened the living nor ate human flesh (Tenga and Zimmerman 78). They were pre-occupied with their role as slaves and nothing more. Whats more is that these old-age zombies were largely human in appearance, like people asleep with their eyes open, staring, but seeing nothing (Tenga and Zimmerman 78). On the other hand, zombies of today leak disgusting fluids, parts of their bodies are often missing and they are overrun by decay.Furthermore, this distinction between the zombie of the past and that of the present is pertinent considering that a film is a cultural product that reflects the attitudes, values, and anxieties of the time. In fact, over time, images [films] have been used to represent, make meaning of, and convey various sentiments about nature, society, and culture (Sturken and Cartwright 13). Beginning in the 1930s for example, sensationalist reporting conditioned audiences to seek movies with shock appeal, to which Hollywood responded by exaggerating themes, hence zombie-themed films ended up taking center stage (Kay 4). Thus it is of no surprise that over the years, zombie films changed in accordance with the cultural views of the time. Today, with the outbreak of various infectious diseases (take HIV for example), and with the development of resistance in microbesbacterial, viral, or parasitesto therapeutics (Choffnes et al.), a multinational public health crisis has ensued and accelerated over time. To which zombie movies have responded by becoming more viral in nature; for the modern zombie, portrayed as a product of a disease, a scientific process, or a mutation gone wrong, is the result of contemporary anxieties over contagion and antimicrobial resistance. The new zombies reflect this through their infectious nature, their status as drug resistant, and their harmfulness. These can be further appreciated within the films World War Z, I am Legend, and The Walking Dead.For one, disease remains as one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in present times (Choffnes et al.). For example, one of the newest strains of pathogen resulting in many deaths is HIV. An estimated 1,201,100 people were victims of HIV in the year 2011 (HIV Basics), and as of now, HIV is a global pandemic. These sort cases are of special concern now, as the press continues to report on infectious outbreaks across the world. As a result, many recent zombie narratives express anxiety about globalization in terms of infection (Tenga and Zimmerman 83). As Boluk and Lenz note, there is heavy emphasis on quarantine and containment, under constant threat that borders will be breachedwhether literal borders between countries or more figurative borders, like flesh (Tenga and Zimmerman 83). In World War Z, where the world is afflicted by a zombie pandemic that spreads through the zombies infectious bite, the inhabitants of Jerusalem erect enormous walls to keep out the zombies. There are various things to take away from this. Firstly, the ability of the zombie infection to spread quickly across the world and from host to host (people bitten by zombies become zombies themselves within 12 seconds) draws parallels to the way in which diseases such as HIV spread swiftly across borders. This highlights the way in which this new representation of zombies serves as a biological model of viral infection (Boluk and Lenz 3). This, combined with the policy of containment implemented by Jerusalem through their walls, shows that this viral zombie represents our deeply felt post-AIDS, SARS, bird flu, and H1N1 anxieties. In order to address these concerns, the zombie has been rationalized and assigned a pathology (Boluk and Lenz 3).Related to this concern over mass infection, is the overarching concern over multidrug-resistance. The development of resistance in pathogens is neither surprising nor new (Choffnes et al.). Yet, as of late, this is a problem that has risen in scale. Nowadays, some strains of bacteria and viruses are resistant to all but a single drug, and some may soon have no effective treatments left in the medicine chest (Choffnes et al.). As mentioned earlier, the disease burden from multidrug-resistant strains of organisms causing AIDS for one, is being felt in both the developed and the developing worlds alike (Choffnes et al.). After several decades in which it seemed that humans had won the arms race against the pathogens, multidrug-resistant super bugs have become a global challenge. This challenge is reflected in the 2007 film I am Legend. In this movie, scientists attempt at a cure for cancer backfires and mutates into a fatal disease that mutates its victims into cannibalistic and savage creatures. The main character, Robert Neville, who is immune to the airborne transmission of this disease, works diligently in his lab with the hopes of finding a cure for the virus. He experiments on rats, only to find that the disease is resistant to most forms of treatment. This reflects an all too common reality for scientists working towards finding adequate treatment for the pathogen strains of today. These films (and this one specifically) reflect the publics concern over what if? What if humanitys repertoire of weapons against these diseases stops working? Will we be overrun, as was this case for Robert Neville and the zombie outbreak? These are the concerns voiced by directors through these contemporary adaptations of zombies in film.Another separate concern voiced by these zombie adaptations is the physical harm that a zombie pandemic would bring to its victims. As mentioned earlier, zombies of the past differ from present-day zombies in that they look human, with the clearest sign of their zombie state being their blank expression. This cannot be said of contemporary zombies, whose body speaks decay and corruption. These zombies are distinguishable by virtue of their rotting limbs, sunken dull lifeless eyes, and gnashing teeth (Greene and Mohammad 105), and as such: The zombie is a painful reminder of physical infirmity. The Walking Dead makes this point vividly in the episode titled Vatos, in which protagonist Rick Grimes encounters a group of survivors who have taken refuge in a nursing home, where they are caring for elderly survivors. The images of the patients, visibly nearing the end of lifes journey, remind viewers of physical decay and mortality and invite comparison with the undead. This incident highlights not only fear of ageing and death, but the horror of a fate worse than both: eternity in a corrupt bodya body that is partially decomposed. (Tenga and Zimmerman 79)Thus, modern zombie representations voice concern over the physical effects of an infection of that nature. For instead of a peaceful death brought on by natural ageing, disease ravages our bodies and leaves it often scarred and mutilated. In this way, zombie adaptations represent the harm inflicted by infectious disease.Nevertheless, there are those that might argue that this isnt the case. Instead they might say that zombies fill our terror quota(Tenga and Zimmerman 76). In other words, these people may argue that while theres been a decline in vile, gross, and utterly scary creatures in the recent cinematographic industry, the advent of various new zombie movies and TV shows make up for this fact. To a certain extent these people have a point. Take the twilight films for instance, when speaking about the Cullens (a family of vampires) the protagonist describes them as devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful (Meyer 19). This goes to show that for one thing the vampire has drifted away from the status it once held as a true monster. And thats where people argue the zombie comes in; they argue, a deficit in the vampire subgenre has been offset through innovation in the zombie subgenre (Tenga and Zimmerman 76). Yet, this argument fails to take into account why there has been a change in zombie representation. It explains why theres been a recent spike in the amount of zombie-related works, but not why theyve strayed from their Haitian roots and landed upon a more viral state.Similarly, others may argue that this zombie phenomenon reflects a different trend. As older generations point out, the modern youth is over-attached to their cellphones, computers, videogames, and more. In fact, the Australian Communications and Media Authority reported in 2007 that children spend on average five hours a day with technologya figure that has likely increased since then (Berry). In that respect, the modern youth does seem like a zombie. Thus could modern representation of zombies as mindless, rotting, helpless creatures suggest another dimension of the rhetorical situation in which the younger crowd finds themselves (Boluk and Lenz 3)? This is certainly a viable point, but is it the best explanation? I argue that if it were, zombies would still be portrayed as human-like creatures with blank expressions. Instead contemporary zombies lack any shred of humanity, and are depicted as putrid, rotting creatures. Theres no reason why a trend in the younger generations behavior with regards to technology should reflect this vile state. Therefore this does not seem like the clearest answer.However, perhaps an alternate reading of the examples Ive offered is that its not so much a concern about infection, as it is a concern about the rate at which information spreads in this new technological age. Nowadays people are only a phone call away, despite the physical distance that separates them. Our ancestors would be amazed at how quickly information spreads in this new technological age. In fact, as Boluk and Lenz specify in their book on Zombies, people of the past were immensely affected by how quickly the mere newspaper managed to get information across. Although twenty-first century social media may circulate on a level of instantaneity that people of the past could never imagine, Boluk and Lenz maintain that the newspaper did for them what our technology does for usdraw a parallel between contagion and rhetoric (3). In both cases, rhetoric circulates through media as if it were a model of textual contagion, a model that the zombies have inherited through the patterns of recirculation that are seen not only in the zombies bodily infectiousness, but in the repetition of many interconnected sequels, series and spinoffs (Boluk and Lenz 3). So in that sense it could reflect the ever-increasing rate of the dissemination of information. Yet, this stance, though stronger than the last two, still uses the model of plague and contagion to explain the recent phenomenon in zombie representation. The notion that recent zombie representation expresses societal concerns over the spread of information cannot stand alone without utilizing the model of contagion.The aforementioned films exemplify this model of contagion. In this way, these modes of representation highlight the fact that films reflect or are directed towards our societal views, angsts, and preferences. However, for the most part, the work of detecting these social, cultural, and historical meanings in films often happens without our being aware of it (Sturken and Cartwright 19). Rarely do we watch a show and pick apart the reason why we like it, or what it says about us as an audience. Yet, theres a subliminal reason why we gravitate to certain shows, or to why we find these shows interesting. Though it may not be right in front of you, this reason (whatever it may be) encompasses why various TV shows, movies, music, etc. all tend to follow a certain trend. For the producers of these forms of media, they have an incentive to follow the attitudes of the public in order to get more views and thus more money. As for the audience, media tends to be catered to what appeals to them most, to their cultural attitudes and in this case anxieties, and this explains our viewing tendencies. Nevertheless, these tendencies change over time as a result of changing cultural values, which explains why the zombie went from being a mindless slave of Haitian voodoo origin, to a bloodthirsty, infection-ridden pathogen as a result of the anxieties over the war against infection and multidrug-resistance.

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