Till Death Do Them Apart Gender and Risk among the Walking Dead Maximilian Mietzelfeldt Risk Technologies and the Gendered Body (BA Research Seminar) Abstract As Mousoutzanis wrote, science ficFon movies are used “[…]
for the expression of visions of apocalypse and catastrophe,
something that might seem paradoxical for a genre originally
associated with ideas of scienFfic progress and technological
utopianism” (458). The realizaFon of this idea can be seen in
the high presence of zombies in media of modern society.
The walking dead exist in several movies like the brand-­‐new
Word War Z or video games like Resident Evil. Whole TV
series like The Walking Dead or interacFve adverFsements
like Deliver Me To Hell have a great fan community as well.
The zombie genre is extremely popular, and Resident Evil is a
great example for transmediality because it has a high
amount of video games, movies, computer-­‐animated films
and comics. Because of this presence of zombies I will
analyze the catastrophic situaFon Mousoutzanis described,
focusing on gender in I Am Legend and Resident Evil to see if
the use of the walking dead is helpful for presenFng
catastrophe. The quesFon that has to be solved in this research is:
How is gender represented in I Am Legend and Resident Evil
and how are animals related in this risk society? What are
the func?ons of gender and animals here? By comparing the two movies it is apparent that I Am
Legend represents masculinity as powerful and femininity as
the weak gender, whereas in Resident Evil it can be the other
way round. The use of different genders also supports the
use of emoFons in I Am Legend, in Resident Evil there are
none. Both movies use zombie animals because they “[…] do
not have the same moral status as humans“ (Gordon 332)
and therefore increase the risk in the society. Methods For the Analysis scenes from both movies, I Am Legend and
Resident Evil were compared. For I Am Legend the alternate cut was chosen. This
version contains an alternate ending which supports the
representaFon of gender of the undead bodies in this movie
even more. The chosen scenes where put into relaFon to each other
to compare the role of gender on the one hand and the
funcFon of animals on the other. The analysis is based on the theoreFcal work concerning
animal studies by Gordon and Fraiman and risk theory
according to Beck. Theories concerning zombies and their
behavior are based on the wriFngs by Boluk and Lenz. Analysis Results Risk of Infec?on dog biIen by zombies and mutated shortly aNer virus transmiIed via wounds or the air Representa?on of Male Zombies strong male main zombie weak male zombies Representa?on of Female Zombies While masculinity of zombies in I Am Legend represents the
power against human kind, in Resident Evil femininity is the
way to describe power of zombies. Both genders support the
power of the main character in each movie because in I Am
Legend we have a male hero and in Resident Evil a female
one. The gender also allows to give the walking dead
emo?ons to each other. Therefore the male zombie in I Am
Legend does not aIack Dr. Neville for revenge but for geLng
his beloved one back. In Resident Evil it is represented the
other way round and zombies even try to eat their beloved
ones. According to Gordon animals do not have any morals
like humans have. ANer an animal turns into a zombie even
the last bit of moral is gone, like the obedience of Samantha
in I Am Legend. This dog is a special example here because at
the beginning it is introduced as Sam and therefore as a
male. Here she is powerful and escape a zombie aIack.
During a second fight she got biIen by a dog zombie and
then she is introduced as Samantha and therefore as a
female dog. This shows the connecFon between gender and
animals in the movie because now Sam is a weak female too. Conclusion strong female zombies weak and only female zombie Animals in the Risk Society dog zombies and licker as animals without gender dog zombies and Sam as a female dog zombie Emo?ons of Zombies emoFons between male and female zombies sister tries to eat her brother The way of fast infecFon shows that there is a high risk of infecFon in both movies. They make use of male and female zombies, whereas male zombies are strong in I Am Legend and weak in Resident Evil and vice versa. Here a comparison to the gender of the main characters is visible. By the mutaFon of animals to zombies it can be seen that morals clearly have gone and for them it is now only a struggle for life and they only act like killing machines. The zombies in I Am Legend sFll have these morals because the main zombie did not fight for revenge, but for love and for his beloved one, while in Resident Evil these morals are missing and zombies even try to eat beloved persons like their siblings. Workshop  RISK TECHNOLOGIES AND THE GENDERED BODY July 12, 2013!
As Beck wrote in his arFcle the “Modern society has become a
risk society in the sense that it is increasingly occupied with
debaFng, prevenFng and managing risks that it itself has
produced” (332). This can be clearly seen in the examples of I
Am Legend and Resident Evil. In both movies there is
technology used to live longer or cure cancer, but it turned
into a virus that creates zombies. Nevertheless Beck’s statement about the “[…] expression
of visions of apocalypse and catastrophe [...]” (458) in science
ficFon movies totally fits with both movies. Men and women
are affected as well as animals. For all of them a struggle of
life begin in an apocalyp?cal world because of a catastrophe
created by humans, but all of them have their special
funcFons in this risk society. References Beck, Ulrich. World Risk Society. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2009. Print. Boluk, Stephanie, and Wylie Lenz. GeneraFon Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture. Jefferson,
NC: McFarland, 2011. Print. Fraiman, Susan. "Pussy Panic versus Liking Animals: Tracking Gender in Animal Studies.“ CriFcal Inquiry 39.1
(2012): 89-­‐115. Print. Gordon, Joan. “Animal Studies.” The Routledge Companion to Science FicFon. Ed. Mark Bould. London:
Routledge, 2009. 331-­‐340. Print. I Am Legend. Dir. Francis Lawrence. Perf. Will Smith. Warner Home Video, 2007. Blu-­‐ray Disc. Mousoutzanis, Aris. “ApocalypFc SF.” The Routledge Companion to Science FicFon. Ed. Mark Bould. London:
Routledge, 2009. 458-­‐462. Print. Resident Evil. Dir. Paul Anderson. Perf. Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez. Highlight, 2002. Blu-­‐ray
Disc.