CALL FOR PAPERS
Mythic Characters and Places Made Real: TV and Film In Situ
An area of multiple panels for the Film & History Conference on Film and Myth
September 26-30, 2012
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
www.filmandhistory.org
Deadline: June 1, 2012
Popular media increasingly are becoming the foundation for “non-mediated” experiences with local, material culture. Now, the representation of certain fictive historical times, people and places on film and TV have led to their commemoration in real places. Fictional settings and characters have become mythic as certain films and TV shows have become depoliticized symbolic inducements with the power to transform the messy complexities of history into desirable but unfulfillable narratives. What does this mean? How are television and film used by the wider public as a resource of collective memory? Why are certain stories selected by civic
boosters for the purposes of place promotion, heritage and tourism production? Why do fans visit these sites and what do they get out of them? Fans of TV and movies much less residents of places that commemorate these media must confront questions of authenticity, popular culture as public culture, and the hyperreal.
This area, comprising multiple panels, will treat all aspects of the relationships between mythic film and television and the real places that are connected to the narratives and characters associated with them.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
Vampire Tourism from Transylvania to Forks, WA (Dracula; Twilight)
- Having a real pint in a mythic bar (Coronation Street; Cheers; Northern Exposure)
- Celebrating the Mythos of the final frontier. (Star Trek enshrined in Riverside, IO and Vulcan, AB)
- Mnemonic Myths: The significance of TV land statues. (Happy Days; Bewitched; The Honeymooners; The Bob Newhart Show)
- Take the Tour: Fandom in Mythic NYC. (Seinfeld, Sex and the City)
- The lasting attraction of Sylvester Stallone statues. (Rocky in Philadelphia and Serbia)
- Fandom and Conventions in TV and Films’ mythic places of origin. (The Prisoner in Portmeirion, Wales)
- Festivals in mythic hometowns: Embracing fictional TV and films as local culture. (The Andy Griffith Show in Mount Airy, NC; Superman in Metropolis, IL; Twin Peaks in North Bend, WA)
- Adaptation and Place Promotion: From Literary Tourism to TV and Film based Tourism. (Anne of Green Gables)
- Popular History and Popular Memory: Commemorating TV and Film in the settings that inspired them. (Robocop)
- Real places become mythic: Fictional Film-based tourism. (National Treasure inn Washington, DC; Transformers in Chicago; The Da Vinci Code)
- Mythic characters and mythic places as heritage tourism. (Alice in Wonderland; King of Kensington)
- Fans and Secular Pilgrimages: Visiting Mythic TV and Film Places. (The Sound of Music)
- New Zealand as Middle Earth. (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit)
- The Horror of being associated with Horror Films. (The Amityville Horror, The Blair Witch Project)
Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information,including an e-mail address, for each presenter. Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by June 1, 2012:
Derek S. Foster, Area Chair, 2012 Film & History Conference
“Mythic Characters and Places Made Real: TV and Film In Situ”
Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film
Brock University
Email: dfoster@brocku.ca
The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation is pleased to announce the forthcoming release of the definitive Harryhausen documentary to be called RAY HARRYHAUSEN: SPECIAL EFFECTS TITAN which will be produced by Frenetic Arts, based in France, and the Foundation. This English language production is scheduled for completion in late 2011/early 2012.
Aside from interviews with the great man himself, shot over five years, there are also interviews and tributes from Vanessa Harryhausen, Tony Dalton, Randy Cook, Peter Jackson, Nick Park, Phil Tippet, Peter Lord, Terry Gilliam, Dennis Muren, Rick Baker, John Landis, Ken Ralston, Guillermo Del Toro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, James Cameron and many more.
For the first time Ray and the Foundation have provided unprecedented access to film all aspects of the collection including models, artwork and miniatures as well as Ray’s private study, where he designed most of his creations, and his workshop where he built them. In addition the documentary will use unseen footage of tests and experiments found during the clearance of the LA garage. Never before has so much visual material been used in any previous documentary about Ray.
Summer 2012 holds some promise for animated films. One of these is ParaNorman, a stop-motion animation film from those who produced Coraline. The official website includes little, but the Wikipedia page includes the following synopsis.
In this comedy thriller, a small town comes under siege by the undead. Only a misunderstood local boy Norman, who has the ability to speak with the dead, is able to prevent the destruction of his town from a centuries-old curse. he’ll also have to take on ghosts, witches, zombies and worst of all, the moronic grown-ups. But this young ghoul whisperer may find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits.
Here’s to hoping that it is good enough to find a place next to The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.
CFQ Spotlight Podcast 2:48.1 with a focus on Trek Nation and the legacy of Star Trek is now online at Cinefantastique Online. There I am a guest with regular contributors Dan Persons, Steve Biodrowski, and Larry French. Click here to enjoy the show.
Today I learned of a new twist that has been associated with the various historical and cultural influences that have gone into our contemporary Christmas holiday. Apparently there is the Krampus creature that comes from European Alpine folklore. This monster accompanied St. Nicholas and whereas St. Nick would pass out gifts to the good children, Krampus brought death and destruction to the bad children.
NPR recently included a brief feature on Krampus which is still featured in seasonal celebrations in various parts of the globe. Some unhappy with the goodness and happiness associated with the American Christmas holiday have even recreated their own Krampus celebration in the States.
Perhaps more Americans should consider Krampus as they reflect on whether they were naughty or nice in the preceding year. At any rate, for those who want a monstrous twist in their Christmas, Krampus would make Tim Burton happy and fit right in with The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The works of Joss Whedon — from his hit television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, to his popular comic book writing on Fray and X-Men, to his upcoming and highly anticipated Avengers film—are among the most influential pop culture phenomena of the last two decades. They are also among the most provocative when it comes to explorations of religion, family, friendship, sexuality, forgiveness, redemption, hope, love, and other dimensions of the human condition. While several volumes have been written on Whedon’s opus from philosophical and cultural studies perspectives, relatively little attention has been given to the theological significance—and implications—of how he portrays these subjects.
We are soliciting abstract submissions for an anthology volume on Joss Whedon and theology. Accordingly, submissions should address any of the above topics or other themes pertinent to Whedon’s work through a broadly theological lens. We are looking for critical engagement from any religious (e.g. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist) or non- religious (e.g. atheist, agnostic, humanist) perspective and also welcome theological approaches informed explicitly by issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, etc.
Please send a 250-300 word proposal and your CV by email. Both should be in Word or PDF format. The deadline for submission is February 29th, 2012. Finished essays will be due by June 30th, 2012. Proposals, CVs, and other questions should be sent to Anthony R. Mills (cardinal.tony@hotmail.com), John Morehead (johnwmorehead@msn.com), and J. Ryan Parker (jamesryanparker@gmail.com).
I recently had the opportunity to watch the new documentary, The People vs. George Lucas. From the DVD cover and the website:
They gave him their love, their money and their online parodies. He gave them… the prequels.
The passion the original Star Wars trilogy inspires in its fans is unparalleled; but when it comes to George Lucas himself, many have found their ardor has cooled into a complicated love-hate relationship. This hilarious, heartfelt documentary delves deep into Lucas’s cultural legacy, asking all the tough questions. Has Lucas betrayed his masterwork? Should he just have left the original trilogy alone? Is The Phantom Menace so bad it should carry a health warning? Utilizing interviews taken from over 600 hours of footage, and peppered with extraordinary Star Wars and Indiana Jones recreations lovingly immortalized in song, needlepoint, Lego, claymation, puppets and paper-mâché, above all this film asks the question: who truly owns that galaxy far, far away—the man who created it, or the fans who worship it?
In TheoFantastique Podcast 2.7 I interview Alexandre O. Philippe, the director of this documentary. The People vs. George Lucas can be added to your library through the TheoFantastique Store by purchase of the DVD and Amazon.com’s Instant Video.
Some recent research for new sources of material led me to the volume Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film: Essays on Belief, Spectacle, Ritual and Imagery (McFarland, 2011), edited by Regina Hansen. Hansen is is a senior lecturer at Boston University College of General Studies. This volume provides a helpful consideration of the important influences and contributions of Roman Catholicism to horror, fantasy, science fiction and other expressions of the fantastic. Following is our discussion of this book.
TheoFantastique: Regina, thank you for your time to discuss a great book. I’m not aware of previous treatments of this topic in book form which, if true, is curious given the prevalence of Roman Catholicism in horror and other genres of the fantastic. How did you come to develop this subject matter and these contributors?
Regina Hansen: I started planning for the book during discussions with friends at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (two of the book’s contributors, Christa Jones and Isabella van Elferen were part of those discussions). You’re right in that there hasn’t been much scholarly inquiry into this particular topic. There have been some terrific books on Catholicism in film, and Victoria Nelson’s essay on “faux Catholicism” in works like The Da Vinci Code was very helpful in our thinking about this book. The great thing is that many of the volume’s contributors wanted to be part of the project precisely because they’d always wanted to write on the topic of Catholicism in fantastic film but never had a chance. I came to the idea from both personal and scholarly interests. My family (at least my mother’s side) were very much steeped in the supernatural aspects of Catholicism: my great-grandmother really understood and studied the various devotions, to Mary especially. My grandfather read Aquinas and Francis of Assisi for fun. Being a part of that tradition really opened me up to the fantastic, to supernatural and metaphysical themes – in the stuff I like to write about, and in what I like to read and see in film. I think you’d find that to be true of many people actually. Still, in putting together the book, I didn’t need or want everyone to have the same point of view as I do. I love being a Catholic; I love everything about the practice of my faith – even though there’s also a lot that disappoints me on the social level. There’s plenty to question and a lot of that questioning has been done by filmmakers and critics in the fantastic. I wanted to have contributors who represented a spectrum of attitudes toward Catholicism and a spectrum of scholarly approaches as well. I think we really succeeded in that goal.
TheoFantastique: Can you comment on the various ways in which Roman Catholicism is uniquely suited to provide material for the fantastic in contrast with Protestantism?
Regina Hansen: The elements of Catholicism that make their way into films of the fantastic tend to be the ones that were rejected during the Reformation as idolatrous or pagan – devotion to Mary and the saints, the use of statues or other physical objects as a means of veneration or an aid to worship. But, I wouldn’t say it’s just a Catholic/Protestant thing. I think filmmakers are drawn to the non-Enlightenment, irrational aspects of Catholicism, in the same way that Gothic novelists used to be. Catholics are supposed to fully believe in a supernatural world, in supernatural events occurring on a daily basis – the priest actually turning bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood, Mary and the saints as intercessors with God, angels, demons, all that stuff. Many Protestants are meant to believe in some of those things, too. The recent movie Exorcism deals with demons, etc. from a Pentecostal rather than Catholic perspective. Still, Catholicism has been around longer, and there is a Catholic presence in almost every country in the world. Catholic practice and iconography are weird and familiar at the same time, especially in the United States, where there weren’t really a lot of Catholics until the 1800’s.
TheoFantastique: Readers might first think of vampires and demonic possession in connection with Roman Catholicism, but while your book touches on these areas it also sketches broader areas of influence. Can you touch on the connection of this branch of Christendom to the broader realm of the monstrous and fantastic?
Regina Hansen: There are a lot of issues. For instance, in fantasy film and literature, so much of the traditional narratives grow out of Medieval romance, or have a Medievalist aesthetic that goes back to the pre-Raphaelites and the work of Morris and Rossetti. That kind of aesthetic is just not possible without dealing with the iconography of Catholicism, even if you end up changing it around a bit. Also, people don’t necessarily think about religious movies as movies about the fantastic, but of course they are. Traditional stories of saints’ lives are as full of that kind of stuff as anything from J.K. Rowling. In our book, Paulo Cunha and Daniel Ribas write about Marian apparitions in film – particularly Our Lady of Fatima. These are films about a supernatural personage appearing to a group of children and performing supernatural feats, like making the sun spin etc. That’s the fantastic right there. Also, one reason I wanted to do this book was to show how often entirely realist films create an atmosphere of the fantastic or uncanny simply by adding elements of Catholic religious practice or belief to the narrative. Kathleen Urda and Brett Gaul talk about this in their chapters, on the new Brideshead Revisited film and Gone Baby Gone respectively. A really great example (not in the book) is in The Godfather when Michael Corleone’s enemies are being slaughtered as he takes part in a baptism, and is supposedly rejecting Satan.
TheoFantastique: One of the chapters I connected with was the one by Christopher McKittrick in his analysis of the films of Terry Gilliam. I was surprised to learn of his being raised Protestant, and yet he has incorporated Roman Catholic elements in his films of the fantastic. How has this religious tradition impacted his work?
Regina Hansen: Again I see the impact in the Medievalist aesthetic of a lot of his work, from the interstitial cartoons he did for Monty Python’s Flying Circus to Monty Python and the Holy Grail to The Fisher King. At the same time, Gilliam/the Pythons pretty cleverly satirize some Catholic beliefs or doctrine, as in the song “Every Sperm is Sacred,” from The Meaning of Life. Chris McKittrick writes about all this but also suggests that the narrative arc of many of Gilliam’s films echoes theological questions that have often brought Catholicism and Protestantism into conflict: free will and the problem of evil, the importance of good works relative to faith. These are interesting things to think about.
TheoFantastique: I enjoyed Em McAvan’s exploration of The Lord of the Rings. How has Tolkien’s text come to involve multiple readings and layers in terms of Tolkien’s Roman Catholicism as well as New Age and pagan elements?
Regina Hansen: Tolkien was an observant Catholic; most people know that. At the same time, we don’t usually see LOTR as having much Catholicism in it. It seems much more based in Anglo-Saxon or Norse mythology, the kind of literature Tolkien studied and taught. Em sees the influence of Tolkien’ Catholicism in the novel’s sacramentality, its use of holy objects. She suggests that objects like “Galadriel’s phial of light and the elvish lembas bread” represent “the sacred embodied in the material.” (43) This idea is certainly central to Catholic practice, though not unique to it. Em also suggests that the films replace that element of sacramentality — of particular objects carrying particular holiness — with a more generalized New Age “reverence for all living things.” (49) So, if you look at the novel and films together, there really is the interplay among paganism, Catholicism and New Age thinking, and also, as Em reminds us, the danger of consumerism – taking objects so seriously, making them so holy that they become more important than what they represent, or just things to be acquired.
TheoFantastique: I’m finalizing some research for a chapter in the forthcoming book The Undead and Theology, so Jana Toppe’s chapter on zombie films and the Resurrection and Eucharist were of special interest. In what ways might zombie “resurrection” and the consumption of flesh and blood be read as a satire of Resurrection and Eucharist?
Regina Hansen: Christianity and Catholicism in particular make certain promises – people will achieve eternal life through the consumption of Christ’s body and blood; there will be bodily resurrection at the end of time. Zombie films sort of half fulfill these promises: Zombies eat flesh. Zombies live forever (or almost, until they get shot in the head) but they live forever without identity, without soul. Zombies are walking resurrected bodies, but just bodies and corrupt ones at that. The Zombie Apocalypse involves the resurrection of the body but, as Jana says, leaves out the promise for a better world. Interestingly, as Jana points out, early zombie films (like The White Zombie) were based on Haitian Voudoun, or a heavily exoticized version of it anyway. Since Voudoun has many Catholic elements, it seems as if Catholicism and movie zombies have been interacting since the early days of film.
TheoFantastique: I was pleased to see a discussion of The Others, a ghost story that was very well done. How does Roman Catholicism inform the identity and struggle of the main character, Grace, portrayed by Nicole Kidman?
Regina Hansen: Grace is obsessed with the “rules” of Catholicism, and her interpretation of them. She follows those rules obsessively, as a way to hide from herself the truth of her present situation (spoiler alert) that she’s dead and also killed her children, that she is the “other,” the ghost in the house. In their chapter, Anabel Altemir Giral and Ismael Ibanez Rosales suggest that in clinging to rules, to dogma, Grace not only blinds herself to her own state of being but to the potential for holiness all around her. They write about Grace’s denial of her “sacramental imagination,” her inability to see the objects and people in the house as potential “revelations of God’s grace.” (277) A full understanding of Catholicism includes the experience of a world alive with spirit and holiness. As happens with the character of Grace, blind adherence to rules for their own sake can cut one off from that world, that sacramental experience.
TheoFantastique: I would love to have seen someone grapple with the place of Roman Catholicism in the films of Guillermo del Toro. Are there any plans for a follow up volume that might include explorations like this?
Regina Hansen: Del Toro’s work is fascinating in this regard. He very much rejects organized religion and some of his nastiest characters are Catholic clerics. At the same time, he often portrays people of simple faith, who happen to be Catholics, in a very appealing way, and his work seems to find some kind of real power/value in Catholic objects and images. I’m working on a single author volume right now that will continue some of the work started in Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film, and I do plan to include Del Toro.
TheoFantastique: Regina, thank you again for a great book, and for your time in discussing aspects of this volume.
The documentary Trek Nation debuted on the Science Channel on November 30, presenting an interesting personal quest to understand the life and legacy of Gene Roddenberry. While many books and television programs have been done exploring Roddenberry and the Star Trek phenomenon he created, the unique aspect of Trek Nation comes in the form of its producer and perspective. This program is done from the perspective of Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of Gene Roddenberry, who died when Rod was only 17. By his own admission, Rod was not close to his father and experienced teenage rebellion, and although Star Trek impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people around the world, Rod was not a fan of the show while his father was alive. This documentary details the struggles of a son to understand a father through the eyes of those who knew and worked with him, and the fans who continue to venerate him.
Given the high esteem in which Gene Roddenberry is held by his fans, and the place he holds in pop culture history, one might expect that Trek Nation would present a glossy picture of its subject matter, but this is not the case. He is presented with all of his faults as well as his successes, even if at times members of the Roddenberry family and his former working colleagues are reticent to discuss the challenges of living and working with the television visionary and writer.
Two of the interviews in the film were especially noteworthy. In one instance Rod sat down with George Lucas to ask about the possible influences of Star Trek on his Star Wars phenomenon. Portions of this segment seemed a little awkward as Lucas acknowledged commonalities but emphasized vast differences between the two franchises, with one a science fiction television program emphasizing thoughtful storylines, and the other a space opera emphasizing action. At the conclusion of this interview Rod asked Lucas about his thoughts on the Star Trek vs. Star Wars battles that fans wage on the Internet (perhaps taken to new extremes with the web video battles between William Shatner and Carrie Fisher). Lucas downplayed such conflicts, said that he did not follow fan websites, and that the outcomes of such disputes are purely subjective. Another interesting segment came with the concluding interview with J.J. Abrams on his Star Trek film franchise reboot. Like Rod, Abrams was not a fan of the original series or the franchise which it birthed, and it was only after taking on the project that he discovered the significance of what it represents. Here both Abrams and Rod Roddenberry came to an appreciation of Roddenberry and his creative legacy decades after many in popular culture had found something significant in the work.
An interesting tension is described in the documentary that arose as a result of the death of Roddenberry in 1991. During this time Star Trek: The Next Generation was in production, and it fell upon Rick Berman to assume the creative mantle for the program. During his work on ST:TNG, Roddenberry’s optimistic humanism demanded that the future portray characters who had evolved beyond the conflict that had plagued much of human history. This presented a great challenge to writers since stories often revolve around the conflict among its characters. After Roddenberry’s death the writers for ST:TNG hoped that this restriction would be lifted, but Berman felt compelled to maintain Roddenberry’s initial vision. Yet even with Berman’s creative control giving deference to Roddenberry’s vision, eventually the writers were given room to explore conflict between characters and new subject matter that made for a very different, and some would say better, ST:TNG post-Roddenberry.
One of the elements that Roddenberry wanted to develop in the ST:TNG series was his distaste for various “superstitions” or religions which have so often been the source for conflict and war in human history. This is perhaps best exemplified in the ST:TNG episode “Who Watches the Watchers” where Captain Picard says, “Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? NO!” Yet despite Roddenberry’s strong disapproval of religion, ST:TNG was often ambiguous about its portrayal of religion and culture, demonstrating a shift from Star Trek‘s original cultural context of modernity and the shift to postmodernity in ST:TNG. With each succeeding series in the Star Trek franchise spirituality would continue to play a part, perhaps best exemplified in the religion of the Bajorans in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. (See Douglas Cowan’s discussion of this in the chapter “Heeding the Prophets’ Call: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” in Sacred Space: The Quest for Transcendence in Science Fiction Film and Television [Baylor University Press, 2010]).
Unfortunately, Trek Nation only briefly touches on elements that could have been explored in more depth in an effort to understand why Star Trek‘s philosophy has struck so deep a chord with many fans. At one point mention is made of the optimistic vision of the franchise as crystallized in the IDIC ethic, which stands for Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination. Scholars like Jennifer Porter have argued that this is the “root paradigm” of Star Trek wherein a cosmos of diverse beings with differing practices, beliefs, and perspectives are valued and co-exist in harmony (though this ethic frequently fails to play out practically in any number of episodes of Star Trek in its various manifestations). Trek Nation could have explored the significance of the IDIC ethic in more depth, and how some have argued that this functions as a secular form of spirituality or religion (as argued by Michael Jindra) with many fans undergoing the ritual of pilgrimage through convention attendance experienced as transformational festivals. Had this aspect of Roddenberry’s legacy been explored in more depth it would have made for a fascinating piece of television as viewers wrestle with how a noted secular humanist has left a pop culture phenomenon that functions as a piece of sacred mythology for thousands of people.
Trek Nation is a documentary that adds to our exploration of a piece of pop culture that wile seemingly out of energy a few years ago with the cancellation of Enterprise, now has new life and a new generation of fans with Abrams’ Star Trek film. In 2011, Having celebrated 45 years of adventure and exploration of the universe, Trek Nation helps reinforce the significance of Star Trek as a major television and pop culture influence of the 1960s, rightfully enshrined with The Twilight Zone as some of the best television writing of the period that holds up decades later.
After Frank Darabont’s unexpected and sudden departure from The Walking Dead at the beginning of production for Season 2 many fans wondered and worried whether the quality of the writing for the program would be compromised. Although some have expressed concerns about the allegedly slow pacing of this season in contrast with the first (a curious criticism in light of the nature of episodic television and the ability to explore characters, relationships, and other aspects of story in a protracted fashion unavailable in film) the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead should have removed any doubts about whether the series could continue in a quality fashion without Darabont’s creative input.
I would argue further that the program has continued to wrestle with a major concern of Darabont, one that he has dealt with in a previous horror film of his own, and which other horror directors have explored as well. That is that the real threat is posed not by the monsters on the outside wanting in, but rather by the fellow human beings one is locked up with in any number of apocalyptic scenarios in an attempt to survive. This is exemplified in what I think is the key scene in Darabont’s The Mist where several of the characters meet in the back of a store and strategize about the need to escape their temporary sanctuary and risk death from the various monsters inhabiting the mist. This is viewed as a more tolerable option than waiting for an increasingly popular religious fanatic in their midst to exercise her judgment in human sacrifice to appease her god. In the dialogue that ensues among the characters in this scene a decided lack of trust in human nature is evident:
DUNFREY: You don’t have much faith in humanity, do you?
MILLER: None whatsoever.
DUNFREY: I can’t accept that. People are basically good, decent. My God, David, we’re a civilized society.
DRAYTON: Sure, as long as the machines are workin’ and you can dial 9-1-1, but you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the shit out of them, no more rules, and we’ll see how primitive they get.
MILLER: You scare people badly enough and you can get ‘em to do anything. They’ll turn to whoever promises a solution, or whatever.
DUNFREY: Ollie, please, back me up here.
WEEKS: I wish I could. As a species we’re fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us into a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?
According to several participants in this dialogue it is only social order, and with it the conventions of law, politics, and religion, that keep human beings from reacting in their most base manner and turning on one another, all in an effort to survive the challenges that come with the arrival of the “monster(s)” and the breakdown of that social order. This same major theme is prevalent in The Walking Dead, perhaps more so in Season 2 than in the first, and embodied in the battle between Shane and Rick Grimes. The zombies have overrun society and in the new social order questions have arisen as to who is best suited to lead the group of survivors. In addition, each member of Grimes’ group must ask themselves about what kind of ethical choices and actions are best in this new “survival of the fittest” reality.
So while some may lament the current season of The Walking Dead, I am enjoying its slower pace up to this point in that it provides more opportunities to reflect on the human condition in greater depth. In my view, fast pacing, extreme gore, and the zombie kill of the week is only so entertaining, and many viewers want more “meat” from the monsters they love in this groundbreaking zombie television program.
