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Resource type: Journal Article Language: en: English Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1386/host.7.1.125_1 BibTeX citation key: Gencarella2016 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: General Keywords: "The Walking Dead", Adaptation, Adlard. Charlie, Aesthetics, Critique of ideology, Fascism, Gender, Horror, Kirkman. Robert, Theweleit. Klaus, TV, USA Creators: Gencarella Collection: Horror Studies |
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Abstract |
In this article, I offer a critique of the five seasons of the television series The Walking Dead (TWD) broadcast to date (2010–2015). As the popularity of this show continues to rise, many viewers have demonstrated a willingness to praise TWD without carefully examining its narrative commitments to violence or to attack media critics who point out negative elements at work. My critique contends that the series is decidedly fascistic in nature, and celebratory of fascist masculinity as the key to surviving an apocalyptic situation. I analyse the show through a comparison with the literature of the Freikorps as detailed by Klaus Theweleit’s study of fascism, Male Fantasies ([1977] 1987, [1978] 1989). I examine in detail the prevalence of the ‘soldier male’ in TWD, the limited roles for women, and the representation of the ghoulish undead, drawing upon Theweleit and related scholarship on fascist aesthetics.
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