Paul A. Cantor
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813177304
- eISBN:
- 9780813177311
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813177304.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter seeks to explain the popularity of grim shows like the zombie narrative The Walking Dead, which seem to delight in portraying the destruction of the world as we know it. The Walking Dead ...
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This chapter seeks to explain the popularity of grim shows like the zombie narrative The Walking Dead, which seem to delight in portraying the destruction of the world as we know it. The Walking Dead offers a variant of the American dream, because it celebrates the independence of the ordinary people who are forced to fend for themselves in the absence of the authorities and institutions that traditionally had protected and taken care of them. Several of the characters reinvent themselves, going from the meek roles they played in pre-apocalyptic times to strong people. The show reflects widespread anxieties about social and political developments after the 2008 economic downturn. Many Americans felt betrayed by the elites who had claimed to have the expertise to run the country smoothly, and the show generally casts elites in a bad light. The Walking Dead recaptures the pioneer spirit that built America in the first place—a sense of self-reliance that harks back to the American West and frontier existence.Less
This chapter seeks to explain the popularity of grim shows like the zombie narrative The Walking Dead, which seem to delight in portraying the destruction of the world as we know it. The Walking Dead offers a variant of the American dream, because it celebrates the independence of the ordinary people who are forced to fend for themselves in the absence of the authorities and institutions that traditionally had protected and taken care of them. Several of the characters reinvent themselves, going from the meek roles they played in pre-apocalyptic times to strong people. The show reflects widespread anxieties about social and political developments after the 2008 economic downturn. Many Americans felt betrayed by the elites who had claimed to have the expertise to run the country smoothly, and the show generally casts elites in a bad light. The Walking Dead recaptures the pioneer spirit that built America in the first place—a sense of self-reliance that harks back to the American West and frontier existence.
Tim Lanzendörfer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496819062
- eISBN:
- 9781496819109
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496819062.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter reads The Walking Dead through its creator Robert Kirkman’s contention that it is the “zombie movie that never ends.” Drawing on Eran Dorfman’s notion of the everyday in modern life and ...
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This chapter reads The Walking Dead through its creator Robert Kirkman’s contention that it is the “zombie movie that never ends.” Drawing on Eran Dorfman’s notion of the everyday in modern life and Frank Kermode’s parsing of the need for literary endings, it argues that The Walking Dead’s narrative endlessness and questing for the restitution of the everyday is best understood as symptomatic of a contemporary moment in which there is room for doubt what the everyday actually is. The chapter suggests that The Walking Dead reflects the way life is lived in the absence of a sense of narrative endings.Less
This chapter reads The Walking Dead through its creator Robert Kirkman’s contention that it is the “zombie movie that never ends.” Drawing on Eran Dorfman’s notion of the everyday in modern life and Frank Kermode’s parsing of the need for literary endings, it argues that The Walking Dead’s narrative endlessness and questing for the restitution of the everyday is best understood as symptomatic of a contemporary moment in which there is room for doubt what the everyday actually is. The chapter suggests that The Walking Dead reflects the way life is lived in the absence of a sense of narrative endings.
Laura Gawlinski
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474440844
- eISBN:
- 9781474460279
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474440844.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
In the third of three chapters examining Athens’ golden-age legacy, Gawlinski discusses how the “flu episodes” of The Walking Dead’s fourth season re-animate a highly influential classical plague ...
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In the third of three chapters examining Athens’ golden-age legacy, Gawlinski discusses how the “flu episodes” of The Walking Dead’s fourth season re-animate a highly influential classical plague narrative: when the civic ideals of “golden age” Athens, lauded by Pericles in the famous Funeral Oration featured in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, fall to the lawlessness (anomia) spurred by an outbreak of plague as the walled city is besieged by the Spartans. The series’ dramatization of the community’s failure to live up to its ideals interlaces with the struggle of its protagonist, former sheriff Rick Grimes, to follow an example from the Roman Republican strand of the classical tradition. Cincinnatus, the Roman leader who temporarily left his farm to save the state by taking up emergency powers in wartime, then returned to pastoral life voluntarily, has been invoked as a model for American leaders since George Washington. Grimes tries but fails to follow this Roman model, further undermining the community’s attempt at Athenian-style civic life and abandoning the communal farm. Thus two classical models promoting a turn away from strife are shown as unsustainable, like the golden age itself.Less
In the third of three chapters examining Athens’ golden-age legacy, Gawlinski discusses how the “flu episodes” of The Walking Dead’s fourth season re-animate a highly influential classical plague narrative: when the civic ideals of “golden age” Athens, lauded by Pericles in the famous Funeral Oration featured in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, fall to the lawlessness (anomia) spurred by an outbreak of plague as the walled city is besieged by the Spartans. The series’ dramatization of the community’s failure to live up to its ideals interlaces with the struggle of its protagonist, former sheriff Rick Grimes, to follow an example from the Roman Republican strand of the classical tradition. Cincinnatus, the Roman leader who temporarily left his farm to save the state by taking up emergency powers in wartime, then returned to pastoral life voluntarily, has been invoked as a model for American leaders since George Washington. Grimes tries but fails to follow this Roman model, further undermining the community’s attempt at Athenian-style civic life and abandoning the communal farm. Thus two classical models promoting a turn away from strife are shown as unsustainable, like the golden age itself.
Paul A. Cantor
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813177304
- eISBN:
- 9780813177311
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813177304.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
What is the American dream, and why has it proven so elusive for many people? By examining popular culture’s portrayal of the dark side of the American dream, this book seeks to answer these ...
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What is the American dream, and why has it proven so elusive for many people? By examining popular culture’s portrayal of the dark side of the American dream, this book seeks to answer these questions. Only when we see people fail in their pursuit of the American dream do we begin to understand its limitations and its inner contradictions.
This book explores five representative examples of the American dream gone awry: (1) Huckleberry Finn; (2) the films of W. C. Fields; (3) the Godfather films;(4) Breaking Bad; and (5) The Walking Dead (and other “end-of-the-world” narratives). As these cases suggest, America, as the fresh-start nation, always threatens to become the land of the false start. America gives its people the freedom to reinvent themselves, but that easily turns into a license to imposture. The American ideal of the self-made man is shadowed by the specter of the con man, and the line between legitimate business and criminal activity sometimes becomes hard to draw clearly.
Although the American dream is to achieve success in both family and business, the Godfather films and Breaking Bad show these goals tragically at odds. With its Hollywood endings, American popular culture is often thought to be naively optimistic; this book demonstrates that film and television creators have been capable of raising thoughtful questions about the validity and viability of the American dream, thus deepening our understanding of America itself.Less
What is the American dream, and why has it proven so elusive for many people? By examining popular culture’s portrayal of the dark side of the American dream, this book seeks to answer these questions. Only when we see people fail in their pursuit of the American dream do we begin to understand its limitations and its inner contradictions.
This book explores five representative examples of the American dream gone awry: (1) Huckleberry Finn; (2) the films of W. C. Fields; (3) the Godfather films;(4) Breaking Bad; and (5) The Walking Dead (and other “end-of-the-world” narratives). As these cases suggest, America, as the fresh-start nation, always threatens to become the land of the false start. America gives its people the freedom to reinvent themselves, but that easily turns into a license to imposture. The American ideal of the self-made man is shadowed by the specter of the con man, and the line between legitimate business and criminal activity sometimes becomes hard to draw clearly.
Although the American dream is to achieve success in both family and business, the Godfather films and Breaking Bad show these goals tragically at odds. With its Hollywood endings, American popular culture is often thought to be naively optimistic; this book demonstrates that film and television creators have been capable of raising thoughtful questions about the validity and viability of the American dream, thus deepening our understanding of America itself.
Alan K. Rode
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813173917
- eISBN:
- 9780813174808
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813173917.003.0018
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Curtiz was assigned a horror programmer, The Walking Dead, that he turned into a highly credible film.This picture beganhis association with Irving Rapper as a dialogue director. Rapper became a ...
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Curtiz was assigned a horror programmer, The Walking Dead, that he turned into a highly credible film.This picture beganhis association with Irving Rapper as a dialogue director. Rapper became a respected director who considered Curtiz his professional mentor. Wallis and Curtiz finally had it out during the production of The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936).Curtiz continued to defy Wallis by eschewing close-ups while using an excess amount of camera movement and foreground composition in his setups. Wallis eventually threatened to fire Curtiz, who acquiesced to filming more to the producer’s desired style. The chapter includes a detailed account of the alleged mistreatment of horses during the charge sequences,whichErrol Flynn and David Niven blamed on Curtiz.Author’s research revealed that these stories were grossly exaggerated; Curtiz was not even present when some horses were injured and put down. Despite a wave of bad publicity, the picture was another hit. Curtiz endured a separation from Bess and divorce proceedings that ended abruptly when the couple reconciled. He also achieved his long-sought-after American citizenship, even though he lied about the existence of his European children.Less
Curtiz was assigned a horror programmer, The Walking Dead, that he turned into a highly credible film.This picture beganhis association with Irving Rapper as a dialogue director. Rapper became a respected director who considered Curtiz his professional mentor. Wallis and Curtiz finally had it out during the production of The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936).Curtiz continued to defy Wallis by eschewing close-ups while using an excess amount of camera movement and foreground composition in his setups. Wallis eventually threatened to fire Curtiz, who acquiesced to filming more to the producer’s desired style. The chapter includes a detailed account of the alleged mistreatment of horses during the charge sequences,whichErrol Flynn and David Niven blamed on Curtiz.Author’s research revealed that these stories were grossly exaggerated; Curtiz was not even present when some horses were injured and put down. Despite a wave of bad publicity, the picture was another hit. Curtiz endured a separation from Bess and divorce proceedings that ended abruptly when the couple reconciled. He also achieved his long-sought-after American citizenship, even though he lied about the existence of his European children.
