Night of the Living Allegory: The Politics of Zombies

Born in Haitian folklore and inadvertently reinvented by director George A. Romero, the zombie is the most flexible metaphor in horror fiction, if not all of popular culture. It can represent a war, a virus, a natural disaster, terrorism, capitalism, climate change and much more. In fact, it’s hard to tell a zombie story that isn’t political in one way or another. Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey follow the trail of the walking dead from the Caribbean to Night of the Living Dead and the global outbreak of zombiemania in the 21st century. What does the zombie tell us about life, death and civilisation? How can it contain so many different meanings? And why do the living dead remain uniquely disturbing after all these years? Support Origin Story on Patreon for exclusive benefits including bonus chat about how Ian and Dorian make each episode: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod  Resources: Books Kyle William Bishop — American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture, 2012 Kyle William Bishop — How Zombies Conquered Popular Culture: The Multifarious Walking Dead in the 21st Century, 2015 Max Brooks — World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, 2006 Greg Garrett — Living with the Living Dead: The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse, 2017 Zachary Graves — Zombies: The Complete Guide to the World of the Living Dead, 2011 Peter Haining, ed. — Zombie!: Stories of the Walking Dead, 1985 Richard Matheson – I Am Legend, 1954 Kim Paffenroth — Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth, 2006 George Romero & Susanna Sparrow — Dawn of the Dead, 1979 Jamie Russell — Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema, 2014 Colson Whitehead — Zone One, 2012 Tony Williams — The Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead, 2015 Films, TV and games White Zombie, 1932 I Walked with a Zombie, 1943 The Last Man on Earth, 1964 Night of the Living Dead, 1968 Dawn of the Dead, 1978 Day of the Dead, 1985 Resident Evil, 1996 28 Days Later, 2002 Shaun of the Dead, 2004 28 Weeks Later, 2007 I Am Legend, 2007 Dead Set, 2008 The Walking Dead, 2010-22 The Last of Us, 2022 Online Doug Gross, Why we love those rotting, hungry, putrid zombies, CNN, 2009 https://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/10/02/zombie.love/index.html Torie Bosch, First Eat All the Lawyers, Slate, 2011 https://slate.com/culture/2011/10/zombies-the-zombie-boom-is-inspired-by-the-economy.html Thomas Jones, Les zombies, c’est vous, London Review of Books, 2012 https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n02/thomas-jones/les-zombies-c-est-vous Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Max Brooks Is Not Kidding About the Zombie Apocalypse, New York Times, 2013 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/max-brooks-is-not-kidding-about-the-zombie-apocalypse.html Interview with Alex Garland, 2015 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/interview-director-alex-g_b_7038618 Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production. https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices