Dead, White and Blue: The Zombie and American National Identity

Dead, White and Blue: The Zombie and American National Identity
ISBN-10
1476650276
ISBN-13
9781476650272
Category
Performing Arts
Pages
208
Language
English
Published
2023-05-17
Publisher
McFarland
Author
Aaron W Clayton

Description

Science fiction and horror television shows predict how the world might be different if zombies were real, or if artificial intelligence could develop consciousness. Pop culture critics reveal that these not-quite humans are often proxies for race, and the post-apocalyptic landscapes set the stage for reimagining social and political institutions. This book advances horror scholarship by placing those stories within a long tradition of mythologizing U.S. history. It demonstrates how Disney's Zombies reenacts the civil rights movement, how The Walking Dead fulfills Thoreau's fantasy against the backdrop of founding a new nation, and how Westworld permits visitors to experience the Old West while bearing witness to Indian Removal. Each of these narratives imagines a future that retells the past. The chapters within look at that tradition in order to understand the present.

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