Zombies are a phenomenon that almost everyone has heard about. Shambling mindless corpses trying to feast on the flesh of the living. The idea of the undead has been around for almost as long as people and their culture have. There have been multiple cultural variants of zombies and ideas of how to keep the dead from coming back to haunt the living such as the theory behind the origin of the tombstone was that it was literally a giant rock that cavemen rolled on top of graves to keep the body pinned down if the corpse reanimated. The first modern zombies originated in Haiti and has become a massive part of American culture through the stories of American authors and reporters that had visited Haiti in the nineteen twenties and thirties.
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It is the first piece of media to depict a true apocalypse of flesh eating zombies. The idea of a zombie infestation dispersing all across America and no body being safe was a brand-new idea and became very popular very quick. The idea of hordes of undead roaming the streets looking for the flesh of the few living so they could eat them and then turn them into zombies was something the world had never seen before. The movie played on a new fear and Americans loved it. The movie also played on the fears of the time. The film was released in 1968 which was during the Vietnam War. In the movie, death doesn’t help the protagonists win. Death doesn’t do anything really which is a commentary on how the countless deaths in Vietnam weren’t helping the cause at all. The protagonists also don’t win in the end of the movie which was rare for a movie back then. The main character is accidentally killed at the end of the movie when mistaken for a zombie. This is a bleak and hopeless end which is commentary on the bleak outlook on the future American’s had in the 1960s with the endless fighting in Vietnam and the assassination of JFK only happening a few years earlier. Another point of interest in the movie is the main protagonist. The main protagonist, Ben, is portrayed by a black actor, Duane Jones. The film’s director Romero claims it is because …show more content…
The idea of the apocalypse appeals to so many people because it is the end of the world as they know it. A story that involves the apocalypse shows a world that is unrecognizable even though it is our own. People, especially people today, like this because it shows a word that is free of laws and safety. The idea of the zombie apocalypse has gained popularity very quickly since Night of the Living Dead and saw another large jump after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. This jump in popularity of the idea of the zombie apocalypse can be attributed to the mindset of the people in the culture that the media is created in. Apocalyptic stories are typically not joyous stories with happy endings. They are normally stories of mass death and end with an unfixable world. These stories have seen a jump in popularity during times of civil unrest. Ever since the first peak in popularity in the 60s during the Vietnam war there have been peaks in the number of stories about the zombie apocalypse during the Cold War, the U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and post-9/11 attacks. These stories of the end of the world may have a depressing and overall dark tone to them but they also tell the story of the end of the world. The end of the world means that there is nothing after it. “Theologically, the violence and
It is the first piece of media to depict a true apocalypse of flesh eating zombies. The idea of a zombie infestation dispersing all across America and no body being safe was a brand-new idea and became very popular very quick. The idea of hordes of undead roaming the streets looking for the flesh of the few living so they could eat them and then turn them into zombies was something the world had never seen before. The movie played on a new fear and Americans loved it. The movie also played on the fears of the time. The film was released in 1968 which was during the Vietnam War. In the movie, death doesn’t help the protagonists win. Death doesn’t do anything really which is a commentary on how the countless deaths in Vietnam weren’t helping the cause at all. The protagonists also don’t win in the end of the movie which was rare for a movie back then. The main character is accidentally killed at the end of the movie when mistaken for a zombie. This is a bleak and hopeless end which is commentary on the bleak outlook on the future American’s had in the 1960s with the endless fighting in Vietnam and the assassination of JFK only happening a few years earlier. Another point of interest in the movie is the main protagonist. The main protagonist, Ben, is portrayed by a black actor, Duane Jones. The film’s director Romero claims it is because …show more content…
The idea of the apocalypse appeals to so many people because it is the end of the world as they know it. A story that involves the apocalypse shows a world that is unrecognizable even though it is our own. People, especially people today, like this because it shows a word that is free of laws and safety. The idea of the zombie apocalypse has gained popularity very quickly since Night of the Living Dead and saw another large jump after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. This jump in popularity of the idea of the zombie apocalypse can be attributed to the mindset of the people in the culture that the media is created in. Apocalyptic stories are typically not joyous stories with happy endings. They are normally stories of mass death and end with an unfixable world. These stories have seen a jump in popularity during times of civil unrest. Ever since the first peak in popularity in the 60s during the Vietnam war there have been peaks in the number of stories about the zombie apocalypse during the Cold War, the U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and post-9/11 attacks. These stories of the end of the world may have a depressing and overall dark tone to them but they also tell the story of the end of the world. The end of the world means that there is nothing after it. “Theologically, the violence and