Postcolonial Theory and Late Capitalist Criticism Aplied to The Night of the Living Dead Trilogy :: Movie Film Essays

Postcolonial Theory and Late Capitalist Criticism Aplied to The Night of the animation Dead TrilogyTurn and Turn ab let on in these shadows from whence a new dawn entrust break, it is you who are the zombies.* Jean-Paul Sartre, Preface to The Wretched of the primer* It is fitting that Sartre uses the zombie as a metaphor for both the colonise and colonizer. He states in the preface to Frantz Fanons The Wretched of the Earth that European colonizers had relegated inherings living in colonial states to the role of zombie. The colonizers power structure has rendered the natives as a mute subaltern, suitable for slave labor and exploitation. But he goes further to say the natives rebellion will render the colonizers as zombies the native will no longer see their dominators as human beings, and they will assign the Europeans to the role of subordinate, dehumanizing and incommunicable. All of this is fitting because the colonizer, whatever his national origin, has espouse a stance t oward natives that follows the Hatian tradition The zombie is a human who has been killed and ressurected as slave labor, a much more docile and controllable tool of burden.It also makes sense that Hollywood adopted the metaphor. Throughout the 1930s and 40s films similar White Zombie, Revolt of the Zombies, King of the Zombies, Revenge of the Zombies, Zombies on Broadway, and Voodoo manhood reinforced the traditional view of zombies as ultimate Other. These zombies are without burnish or free will, controlled by a mystical villain, often vie by Bela Lugosi, who runs a sugar plantation or some some other such exploitive business. These films are tales of the oppressor, bringing to light the hardships and uncertainty go about by colonizing forces. It is possible for the zombie slaves to revolt, further for the most part these films warn of the perils embedded in shoddy colonial governing.In 1968, George A. Romero set out to rework the zombie archetype. He created the flesh e ating zombie, a whale born not out of religious or mystical effort, but created by the faults and flaws of the society. With his first film, Night of the Living Dead (1968), he began a trilogy that would deal with the ills of our contemporary American society. Influenced by the turbulent 1960s, events such as Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and rampant consumer culture, Night lays the groundwork for a series of heathen critiques.