Lessons In Manhood From The Walking Dead
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People have attributed a lot of metaphorical significance to zombies sinceGeorge Romero released his second undead movie, Dawn of the Dead, in 1978. Inthat movie, the zombies hung around the places they used to lumber through in life,specifically an awesome mall with a fully stocked gun store outside of Pittsburgh. Thesuggestion there was that these people were already “zombies” before they weredead, but, presumably, with a little more interest in the food court Sbarro (then again,maybe not). Where zombie metaphors aren’t obvious, people tend touse the undead horde as stand-ins for whatever group they currently don’t like. Hatethe Tea Party? Zombies. Christian conservatives? Zombies. War protesters? Zombies. Thosebe-dreadlocked mouthbreathers in a drum circle inside Zuccotti Park? Zombies. Zombies, though, at their best are a natural disaster: a Hurricane Katrina,Haitian earthquake or Japanese tsunami. They are a worldwide extinction-level threat thatforces the living characters to be stripped down to what they really are. Watchingthese plots unfold, you have to ask yourself how you’d handle a similar situation.Are you a leader or afollower? Are you strong or are you weak? Are you a man or are you a member of theindie-folk rock band Modest Mouse? There’s not much call for banjo and ukuleleplayers in the zombie apocalypse is what I’m saying. Pick up a few survival skills,Isaac Brock, if you know what’s good for you. Zombies, Metaphors And Masculinity
That’s when metaphor gets turned on its head. Where zombies might be used torepresent aspects of our culture, the actual survivors represent us as individuals. OnAMC’s The Walking Dead, we are presented with two alpha malecharacters who are vying for group leadership: Rick Grimes and Shane Walsh. One of thoseguys is the perfect leader: not only can he keep his people alive in a world filled withzombies, but he can actually find a way to make that world a safer, more livable place.The other one is Rick Grimes. I think this speaks to a larger issue withmen in the real world. Specifically, how society expects the modern man to be a sweaty,weak-kneed manchild who is overly concerned with ruffling the feathers of people who haveno business being covered in feathers in the first place. A mangina who knows in hissensitive, bleeding heart that violence doesn’t solve anything and killing the badguy, be it serial killer, murdering terrorist or genocidal evil dictator, makes you justas bad as he is. War, man, what is it good for? It would be awesome ifthat stuff were true, but it’s make believe. Sometimes the bad guys don’t stopbeing bad until they’re dead. Violence can and has solved lots of problems, and war,I’m sad to say, can serve a purpose -- like freeing an entire society, endingslavery or stopping a holocaust. And if you haven’t ruffled somebody’sfeathers with something you’ve said, then you’ve never really said anythingworthwhile in your life. Rick Grimes, played by English actor AndrewLincoln, is supposed to be the hero of The Walking Dead, but why? Becausehe’s a decent, sensitive man? Every decision Rick makes ends up with another memberof their group injured or dead. Here come some spoilers: Merle, Carl, Otis, Sophia, Amy,Jim, Ed, and Jacqui have all died or nearly died as a direct result of actions Rick hastaken in the show. Meanwhile, Shane, played by Jon Bernthal, is the guythe show wants you to think is too unstable and violent. But he’s the reason everysingle character alive on the show is still alive. That includes Rick’s harpy wife,his slackjawed kid and even Rick himself. Shane actually kills Otis so that he can getaway from a group of zombies to save Rick’s kid, who got shot in the chest in thefirst place (by Otis, no less) because Rick was an idiot. The thing, ofcourse, is that it’s a zombie show. People are going to be eaten once in a while, oryou don’t have much of a show. Without hordes of cannibalistic zombies, gruesomekills and constant paranoid danger at every turn, you just have a show about a bunch ofwhiny, insipid white people sitting around on a farm, killing time between pharmacy tripsby complaining about one other and shooting cans/logs as target practice. And, I mean,nobody wants that. The problem, I think, is the writers’ societalconditioning. The way they were raised in this man-hating era is causing problems withinthe story. There’s no question that if there were really a zombie apocalypse (likethe one I’ve been planning and preparing for my entire adult life), a Shane willkeep you alive and a Rick will have a zombie picking pieces of you out of its teeth. Whyshould it take an apocalyptic scenario for a man with actual balls to have value? Whyshould cowardice and conformity be accepted as virtues? Why would a guywho wants to calmly discuss the barn full of hungry zombies as if it’s some sort ofzoning problem be a better leader than the guy who wants to kill them all immediately? Iguess we’ll have to keep watching The Walking Dead to find out, but rightnow I’m not convinced. Continue Reading
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