I Am Legend Analysis

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The movie “I Am Legend,” a post-apocalyptic science fiction film, directed by Francis Lawrence in 2007, is regarded as one of the most popular modern vampire-like creature films. It is also credited as the main influence to portray vampires as the characters we know nowadays. Of course, it is not the first time that the concept of a ‘living vampire’ is used in the film industry, and this is actually the third adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend in 1954, which was published after the Cold War when people viewed the world as a duality of pure good and evil. In this case, the latest I Am Legend movie, constructs a representation of a zombie-vampire like world that resembles more than just monsters, it resembles society’s biggest …show more content…
Which concludes that for members of a social species, such as the human species, the horrors of being alone is very real and very rational. Moreover, the approach of isolation in I Am Legend not only resembles society’s biggest fears, but it also becomes very similar to a system that we have in the United States today and that has become a concerned issue; solitary confinement. The article “Torture: The Use of Solitary Confinement in U.S Prisons,” talks about prolonged solitary confinement in the U.S Prisons and how they have become torture for prisoners, causing “devastating psychological and physical effects such as chronic depression, hallucinations, emotional flatness, irrational anger, etc” (CCR). Ever since solitary confinement came into existence, it has been used as a tool for repression, but the results have been disastrous. As Cohen argues in his essay, “monsters can illuminate the secrets of its time” (Cohen). Besides the movie displaying the desire to hate monsters, it reflects upon society’s fear of being dominated by another species, and the severe consequences of isolation. Humans fear this idea because it is practiced in our culture today and we are aware of the disastrous …show more content…
He divides his analysis according to the film genre and states that genre determines how a text is received by its audience. In I Am Legend, given its titular identification as a horror film, we know from the start that it will present a world in chaos; there is no sense in which the apocalypse is anything other than a catastrophe. Also, some of his principal arguments are that many horror films contain political references contemporary to its production. In the movie, for example, the role of an African American as the hero, in a time where racial equality is still evolving in the United States. Neville is considered a hero to its audience because he found a cure to the virus that costs the life of many people and also for saving the lives of the mom and the little boy. In a world, where racial equality is still a work in progress, the author wanted to remind our world that anyone can be a

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