MONSTER CULTURE IN TH E 21ST CENTURY

!ratures. Multtnaturahsm, and Avatar: The Emergence of lnd·genous ;mopohtics; American Literary Htstory 24, no. 1 (2012}: 143-82; ~Avatar 1e Amazon; PubliC Rad•o International (February 2, 2010), http://www. xg/ans-entertatnment/mavteS/avatar-m-the-amazon 1863.html; Stephen ry, "'Avatar Is Real' Say Tnbal Peop:e; Surmaf (January 25, 20101. http:// w.suMValinternational.org/news/5466; James Clifford, ·Response )nn Starn: 'Here Come the Anthros (Again): The Strange Marriage of hropology and Nauve America'; Cultural Anthropology 26. no. 2 (2011 J: :....24; "Head of State Ftghts for Environmem: Evo Morales 'Identifies' 1 Avatar Film; Buenos Alres Herald (January 12, 2010), http://www. ·nosatresherald.com/arttcle/22287/evo-morales-identifies-withavatar-film; ·, "Avatar ActiVism·; Loshttzky, ·Popular Cinema as Popular Reststance· ; Tom Phdtps, "Hollywood and the Jungle: Otrector Joms Real-Life Avatar tie 1n the Amazon Forest." Observer, Apnl18, 2010.

httzky, "Popular Cinema as Popular Reststance; 162.

jer, "Race and Revenge FantaSies; 41.

I Spickard, Almost All Aliens: ImmigratiOn, Race. and Colonialism in erican HIStory and ldenttty (New York: Routledge, 2007), 24.

4

Battling monsters and becom ing monstrous:

Human devolution in The Walking Dead

Kyle W. Bishop

Dunng the twentieth century, most senous explorations of the zombte invaston narrative-that •s. tnose ta.es followmg the genenc formula

established by George A. Romero wrth Night of the Living Dead (1968)­

based their thematiC essence on one key premise: the monsters represent

humanity.· G w in a new century, one defmed by social insecunttes resulting from the September 11th terronst attacks and cultural anxtet1es aristng from

natural disasters and gfooat pandemrcs, the zombie is once agarn bemg

calfed uoon by filmmakers, nove tsts. comrc boo.c: 'llakers. and video garr.e

programmers aE.<e to exorc1se our coflecttve <ears and douots. In ooth cases.

zomb:e narratives address not only the expected monstrous behav10r of tne hordes of me wal~~:tng dead, but also tne monstrous acts committed~ the

few humans struggling to survrve tn a da.,gerous post-aoocalyptic wo~Yet whereas the zomb.e ta es of the prev ous cenwry or manly hm.ted rr.onst•ous human oenavior to cna•acters c;ea·'y coded as antagon sts-sucl) as the

biker gang of Dawn of the Dead (1978) or tne megalomaniac Capta n Rf'odes

(Joseph Pr.ato) from Day of the Dead(1985l-a number of narratives tnat -na~e up the modem-day ~zomb e renatssa.,ceH -such as Rorrero's Survtvaf of the

Dead (2009) and Robert Ktr'<man's so•awt.rg ard nrr.cately deve opeo com1c

book series The Walking Dead (2003-)-present the otherwtse syl1"pathetrc

}4 MONSTE R CULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

protagonists as monstrous creatures. In other words, some recent zombie narratjyes have flioped the original allegory: humans are truly monstrous.

Although hints of this rhetorical inversion appeared in the very first zombie films, only a handful of the most recent zombie narratives have so aggres­sively asked audiences to 'l!!_estion the defi~f monster.1 FollOWing fnthe hallowed footsteps of Frankenstein (1818), in which Mary Shelley reveals the real villain of her novel to be the va1n and single-minded Victor, some modem zombie tales demonstrate the otherwise heroic human characters to be the monstrous beings that should really be feared. Upon closer consideration, this change in a~· tude toward once delineated Manichean dichotomies comes as no surprise Thanks to a perceived shift in U.S. foreign policy and military practices fol owing 9/11, one that advocated invasions of autonomous nations and the unrestrained use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding to keep everyone "safe;· the most imp.ortant allegorical function of zombie narratives may now belong to the human protagonists instead of the metaphorically pregnant zombies. The most overt example of this kind of criticism, Kirkman's The Walking Dead comic series,3 sheds a harsh light upon the potential devolution of humanity-that we have become chaotic creatures ot selfishness, v1olence, and unchecked aggression who do more damage to ourselves and the world around us than any reanimated

corpse ever could. In Kirkm~s paradigm, zombies are less important than the stories told around the~and such tales do important cultural work by providing audiences w1th ethical guideposts and a sober warning against atavistic barbarism.

Of course, contemporary zombie invas1on narratives still feature hordes of reanimated corpses against which the humans must struggle to surviVe; the monsters are the primary draw of the subgenre, after all. However, as Friedrich Nietzsche memorably w rites in Beyond Good and Evil, "Whoever battles w ith monsters had better see that it does not tum him into a monster;'' and th1s axiom has become the new standard for a number of post-9/11 zombie narra­tives. The so-called heroes of surv1val fiction must make difficult choices to ensure their continued existence, decis1ons that often mean protecting themselves and the1r allies at all cost.Cib.e Walking Dead epitomizes this potential "monstrozation" of humanity by featuring protagonists who combat both zombies and other humans with equal degrees of brutaiQKirkman's popular series follows the (mls)adventures of a motley group of people who struggle against zombies, other humans, and even each other to survive an ongoing global apocalypse. At the beginning of the series, the former deputy. sheriff Rick Grimes heroically upheld the values of a civilized society. However, over the course of the senes, Rick, along w1th' his fellow protagonists, has been forced to make increasingly difficult decis1ons, and what is "right" has

BATTLING MONSTERS AND BECOMING MONSTRO US 75

become supplanted by what is "necessa!Y:" Whether the Untted States has truly expenenced a similar ideological shift 1s open to debate; however. the overt devolution demonstrated by The Walking Deads traumatized heroes can nonetheless be read as an~dictment of the arguably aggressive stance American politics and foreign oolicy have taken since 9/11-one tn which ~focts to make the world safe may in fact be replicattng the very atrocitieS committed by the perceived enemy-and. perhaos more Importantly, a condemnation of the populace that so complacently allowed such changes to occur in the first place.

Traditionally speaking, monster narratives in general, and zombie stories in particular, operate on clearly delineated parameters: monsters are monstrous and humans are humane. £>,ccording to Kevin Alexander Boon, what makes a monster dec1dedly monstrous is its d1fferen~e from the human, !~u­

~.5 Zombies in particular are monstrous, Boon explains. becaus~ jh~y get "in direct opposition to the living:'5 ~walking dead;' Romero-style zombies flagrantly defy the established boundaries of living and dead, confronting

diences with dangerous bodies that c~allenge the natural order of things. s Jeffrey Jerome Coh·en argues. such liminality is essential because onsters work as "disturbing hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies

resist attempts to include them in any systematic structuration."7 Monsters are thus "othered" due to their resistance of easy classifiCation, and as such they more easily function as manifestations of frightening difference. In the past, hybrid creations such as vampires, werewolves, or ahens were used to represent Jews, homosexuals, Communists, and virtually all forms of the non-Wh1te, non-heteronormative Oth.€}rhe value of the monster thus hes in 1ts role as a cultural monstrum, a metaphorical ftgure that "reveals" and #wams" ot something else. sometrung larger than nself.6 Ironically, by us1ng markedly coded differences from humans. monsters function as revealing and didactic critics of the very humanrty from whicr they ostens.bly appear to be distanced.

But what about monstrous humans?<Vhe human antagontsts 1n zombie fiction have almost always been sources 'or phys1cal threat and violence as well, starting with the voodoo "puppet masters'' 1n the earliest films, most notably Bela Lugosi's sinister "Murder" Legendre 1n V1ctor Halpenn's White Zombie (1932). In the Romero traditiOn, human villa10s continue to be a substantial threat to beleaguered protagonists-a threat in addition to the zombies. Dawn of the Dead, to offer one of the most celebrated examples, pits Romero's four human surv1vors agatnst not only an unstoppable horde of hungry zombies, but also ractst SWAT members, und1sc1phned country milit1a, and a marauding biker gang. In :he post-apocalyptiC wasteland ravaged by the walking dead. everyone who isn't an ally-be they zombie or

76 MONSTER CULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

oman-represents a very real threat. Because zombies are essenttally slow ovmg, uncoordtnated, and bram dead. they actually pose little danger for

e careful human survtvor. especially when encountered in small numbers;

uman antagonists. on the other hand. are far more msidiou;JScott Kenemore enumerates the matn drHerences between zombies and ~ir feckless prey: "Humans- unlike composed. unflappable, focused zombies-fight wrth one another. They are 1ealous They are manrpulauve. They care about things hke other people not havmg sex wrth thelf wNes:'9 Humans think, humans have

emottons, and humans can plot agarnst one another. In Romero's Day of the Dead, the most dangerous threat rsn't a zombie at all but rather the rnsane sadomasochtst Captatn Rhodes, who sees everyone other than his military

brothers as dectdedly expendable. Romero's Land of the Dead (2005) takes the antagontsttc shift even further, subordinating the role of the zombies to that of Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), the crazed captain of industry w ho has set himself up as a violently oppressive "ktng" in his palat ial Fiddler's Green apartment complex. Throughout the tradition. then. zombie narratives have

regularly shown villainous humans to be potentially monstrous. In recent years, however, the human protagonists have taken on increas­

ingly monstrous qualities as well, some of them horrifyingly so. What makes these "monstrous humans" 10 particularly disturbing and important are their decided lack of ltmtnal dtfference and thetr betng coded as those to whom the audience should relate. Romero's SuNival of the Dead, tor example, builds

its narrative almost exclustvely around unlikable, sociopathic matn characters.

The movte opens wtth a shot of Sarge Nicoune Crockett (Alan Van Sprang) tn close-up. as he explarns tn 1mpass1ve votceover how the zombie apocalypse came about. Thts estabhshtng presentation. along with Sprang's top brlhng 1n the cred1ts, tmphes hts ro1e as the lead figure of the film. the protagon1st wtth whom audtence members are supposed to identity. Unfortunately, Crockett

quickly proves to be a cnmrnal and AWOL vigilante, the leader of a gang of self-descnbed Hlousy people" who rouunely use their outward appearance

as soldiers to take advantage of others. They ktll humans and zombies wtth equal remorselessness, and they are mottvated more by money than survival. Tomboy (Athena Karkants). the gang's only female member and lone votce of

sympathetic reason. sees the truth: "All the w rong people are dying. Seems like all we got left are assholes:·n The fi lm's ostensible hero Crockett acts

w ith increasing vi llainy throughout the fi lm, and none of the other characters he (and, by extension, the audience) encounters are much better-pretty much all the humans tn SuNival of tile Dead act monstrously, regardless of

their status as antagonists or protagonists. :) Many zombie narrattves appearing in the wake of 9/11 use allegory to i(

address not only general fears of a post-apocalyptic future, but also the new

BATTLING MONSTERS AND BECOMING MONSTROUS 77

cultural fears and anxieties associated wtth the threat of terrorrsm. Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), for example, graphtcally deptcts the after­

effects of mass death and destruction, and Land of the Dead recreates !he

xenophobiC paranoia people fee• tn the face of potenual terronsts and rllegal 1mm1grants by ustng bo~h zommes ano dtsgruntled human surv,vors as tnetr proxtes. Narrattves suer. as Survival of the Dead and Krr~<man's The Walkmg

Dead, however, demonstrate a new symbohc mantfestat1on, one that reflects not cultural fears about what terrorists might do. but rather what the "good guys" can do against potential or susoected terronsts In other words. tnat which we should rrost fear is not the monstrous Other but our monstrous selves. I believe this new kind of zombte story should be read as a dtrect

reflection of the United States' dramattc acttons taken 10 the wake of the 9/ 11 terronst attacks. Instead of passively watting for AI-Oaeda operattves to attack a second time. the Bush Admtnistration chose to take the f tght to

them by invading both Afghanistan and Iraq (the latter on rather spec10us Intelligence). In addition. military policies were allegedly altered to hmtt the rights of the suspected terrorists being held at the controverstal Guantanamo Bay detention camp and to authorize the use of waterboarding and other problematic interrogation methods. Each of these changes to ex1sttng U.S. policy and practice-char.ges that could be percetved as a more offensive. aggressive position than in the past-were promoted as protecttng the

Amencan publtc from future terror plots. and they were readtly and unques­tlontngly embraced by a tnghtened and paranotd pubhc

Such a perceived shift in political al"d mt•itary tdeo1ogy, one rmphc.tly endorsed by politrctans and citrzers a tke. has s1nce been mantfested tn key post-9/11 zomb.e narratNes. The resultant attttude, one that casts the protag­ontsts o~ zombie stones tn the prob,emauc role of monstrous aggressors. ts

best tllustrated in K:rlcman·s ongoing com•c book senes about Atck Gnmes's efforts to l(eep htmself. his family, and tl'ose around hrm ahve through a zombie apocalypse--at all costs. In his tntroducuon to the flfst trade collecuon

of The Walking Dead, Kirkman argues that "good zombre movtes show us how messed up we are,"12 and it doesn't take long before readers of hts ep1c reahze

he is actually talktng about his "good guys" just as much as the zombtes or even the human antagonists. Furthermore, Ktrkman openly articulates the key purpose of his ongoing zombie comic: " I V~Jant to explore how people deal w tth extreme situations and how these events CHANGE them:· •·, From the onset, then, Kirkman promises readers that Rtck. his tragtc hero and central protagonist, is gotng to change, and likely not 1n a good way: " !Wihen you look back on this book you won't even recogntze [RtckJ:·•• All the characters

1n The Walking Dead change over the course of the narrative. but none as dramatically as the one-time noble deputy. Because Ktrkman's narrattve

78 MONSTER CULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

question is "What happens to our humanity when we do inhumane things?7'5

Rtck's slow. tragtc loss of humantty develops into the most Important su!!]b'ect of the story, one that m1rrors the moral and ethical decline of a fearful U.S. populatton desperately seektng an Other they may scapegoat and blame.

From the begtnmng of Kirkman's long·arc narrative, The Walking Dead

engages wtth the barbanc transformauons that befall 1ts protagomsts, especially those tn posttions of authonty. In the first volume, Days Gone

Bye, Rick and hts fellow pollee offtcer Shane almost immedtately develop an uncharactensucally antagontsttc stance toward one another. They argue heatedly about leavtng the percetved safety of Atlanta, and Shane ends up punching Rick tn the face. A traumatized Lori, Rtck's protecttve wtfe. astutely potnts out: "It's never going to be the same again. We're never going to be normal. .. . Just look at us:· '8 Shane's increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior towards Rick comes to a crisis when he actually points a rifle at hts former best fnend. but. before he can act, Rtck's son Carl shoots Shane through the neck, killing him instantly. After Shane's burial, Rick expresses his shock at what has happened and his fears concernmg what it might mean tor the rest of the surv1vors: "This shit we're •n is not to be taken lightly. If 1t can change a man hke Shane so drasttcally, we're in deeper shtt that we thought."'7 The unexplained zombie apocalypse has clearly rewritten all of society's rules: as Kenemore obseNes: "For humans to suNive ... they muSt) become killers." •~ To keep the beleaguered masses safe. then. even t~ "good guys" are forced to kill, both zomb1es and humans alike.

Other characters soon follow Cart's lead and become killers of liv ing people. Two of the more shocking examples take place after the suNtvors have taken refuge tn a largely abandoned prison. A misgu1dedly romantiC Chns botches the sutctde pact he has wtth Tyreese's daughter Juhe, and when Tyreese finds hts daughter dead, he loses all reason. In his rage, he chokes the life out of the penttent Chris, and then he watts for the boy to return as a zombte so he can ktll htm again.19 Days later, Tyreese confesses to

Rtck what really happened:

(Chns) was trymg to commit sutctde wtth (Juhel and as far as I'm concerned 1 just finished the jobl And I enjoyed 1t. After all these months and the hell we've been through-tt's almost the only thing I've enjoyed.

1 turned mto an animal on him-1 mutilated him over and over-1 npped him apart and watched h1m come back for morel ...

1 killed for the nght reasons. I murdered him, yes-but tt was JuSttfled.n

As tar as readers know, Tyreese has been a normal. law·abidmg cittzen. but hts fear for hts own safety and destre for revenge color his perspectives on

BATTLING MONSTERS AND BECOMING MONSTROUS 79

violence and murder. Desptte his aomrttedly mhuman actiOns. Tyreese tnes to rationalize his behavior by expla1n1ng tt 1n terms of JUSttce, and Rick's own devolut1on from deputy shentf to co!d·blooded k1ller begtns when he finds himself in a similar s1tuat1on. After the former inmate Thomas murders two young girls and attacks Anorea wtth a kntfe. R1ck, desperate to protect his flock, vtolently beats T"omas to a pulp with nts bare hands. As the suNtvors argue about what to do wtth Thomas, Tyreese potnts out the1r new soc1ety lacks the ru1es necessary to keep order. R1ck dictates hts old-world philosophy: "You kill? You d1e."2' Rtck wants to matntatn the legal system he had upheld tn his former life, yet he orders Thomas's "lawft.l" execution w1th little thought of a trial. a dectsion that presciently mtrrors acttons by the Obama Administration to execute dangerous U.S. nationals such as Arwar ai·Awlaki without due process}2

As Rtck faces increastngly difficult circumstances, hts tourney from rational human being to monstrous killer only accelera tes. Although Thomas has been safely " put down," Dexter leads an armed rebellion against Rick. Fortunately for the beleaguered survivors, Dexter leaves the doors to the a~mory-and the zombte·tnfested A·Bfock-w1de open, and a desperate and chaotic battle against the walk1ng dead mterrupts the humans' standoff. As the extermination comes to a close. Rtck coldly shoots Dexter tn the head and tr1es to pass 1t oH as an acctdent. Although Tyreese. who saw everything, thinks Rick ultimately drd tre rrgh t thtng for the safety of the group, he points out how R1ck's actiOns ''ktnda throws the whole 'you kill, you d1e' thtng out the wtndow."~3 Tyreese accuses Rick of havang developed a bloodlust, th1nkmg the former pollee offtcer now actually enjoys VIOlence. but Rick Insists, "Everything 1 dtd-every­thing-1 dtd tor the good of this group .... Tnat's what makes me nght."2-> Reluctantly, R1ck realizes tne old ways are gone. and the new soc1ety needs a new rule: "You ktll-you hve." 2! Rather than attempttng to reOUIId soctety, then, R1ck sees the need for the surv1vors to become somethmg far more savage. As could be satd of the post-9/11 Bush Admlntstratton's creatton of the Patriot Act and its increasmgly aggr9SStve m11itary actions overseas. Rick claims the old laws won't protect them, but self·defens1ve action and violence wt11.2s

Rick embraces h1s protective barbansm further when he realizes Martinez. the man who had helped R1ck and the others escape from Woodbury, 1s actually a spy working for the sinister Governor. After Martrnez disappears. RICk takes Glen's RV by himself and violently runs the trattor down. Blinded at the thought of the Governor and his men ftndmg· the prison sanctuary, Rick chokes Martmez to death. Later, when he confesses the slaytng to Lon. Rtck says:

80 MONSTER CULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Ktlhng htm made me realize somethmg-made me nouce how much I've

changed. I used to be a tramed police officer-my job was to uphold the law. Now I feel more like a lawless savage-an animal. I killed a man today

and I don't even care ... I'd ktll every stngle one of the people here tf I thought it'd keep you safe.

1 know these people-1 care for these people-but I know I'm caoable of

makmg that sacnhce .. Does that make me evtl ?27

Rick clearly recognizes his tnghtentng transformation, but, like Tyreese, he sees such drastic behavtor as rustified--he must protect his people by any

means necessary. The otherwtse peaceful and contrite Hershel IS more willing to face what Rtck must ratiOnalize: "The good Lord's put us m a world where we gotta stn to surv1ve."2a As supporters of post-9/11 practice and

policy might also say in defense of aggresstve government actton, terms such as evil and sin must be redefined in a world ruled by zombies (i.e. threatened by terrorists), and "survtval" takes precedence over such antiquated ideas as "law and order" and "due process:· Hershel, ltke many U.S. citizens, is a God-feanng man who none the less agrees to a monstrous course of act1on

if it means keeping h1mself and h1s family safe. Rtck's atav1st1c behav1or becomes most problematic when h1s act1ons

shockingly come to resemble those of the zomb1es themselves. When a tno of savage highwaymen threatens to rape Carl. one of the assailants restra1ns Rick in a tight bear hug. W1th no gun or knife at h1s command, Rick resorts to h1s most primal and natural weapons: h1s teeth. In a series of unexpectedly v1olent panels, readers see R1ck tear into h1s captor's neck, biting and rendmg

the flesh as he v1c1ously nps out the man's throat.2S The one-t1me agent of

law and JUStice then descends upon Carl's attacker with a kmfe, teanng the man apart like an an1mal. When it's all over. Rick wonders out loud 1f he's even human any more. but asserts he's still w 1lling to do anything to protect

his son.30 Kenemore sees this transformatton pnmarily as a good thing, a necessity for surv1val: "Kirkman's humans-however ineluctably-come to

the realizatiOn that to surv1ve a zomb1e apocalypse, they must become like zombies themselves"3' Kenemore is partially correct, for, in th1s example

parttcularly, Rick does become a zombie-a mindless animal that uses its teeth to bite and savage its prey. However, unlike a zombie, Rick does more than just follow h1s instincts for surv1val. Much like a battle-weary soldier for whom the concept of "murder" has grown hazy in a psychologically

exhausting war zone. Rick is starttng to tndulge in unnecessary barbarism, starting to enjoy the v1olence. JUSt as Tyreese feared. Rather than us1ng the zomb1e monster as a metaphor for human VIOlence, then. Kirkman IS baldly

BATTL ING MONSTERS AND BECOMING MONSTROUS 81

presentmg the numan as directly and unequivocally rro'lstrous, a devolution

that becomes more overt and snock1ng as The Walkmg Deacls narratiVe progresses.

After Dale is captured and partially eaten by a rovmg gang of human

cannibals. R1ck and hts inner ctrcle become the,r most monstroi.Js, gotng

beyond <he necessr.y of surviva and self-preservat•on and wallowmg m atavtsuc vtolence. R1ck co'l fidently confronts the S•X rogues and 1mpass1vely orders Andrea to snoot the ear from ore and tne tndex f1nger from another.

Desp1te the ringleader's prom1se that they'll go away and leave Rick's group alone, Dale's friends are clearly more interested in exacttng revenge than in s1mply keep1ng themselves " safe." In fact, the1r des1gns even transcend soctal

JUStice-they see execuuon as too good for the cannibals. Merc1fully, KJrkman spares reader most of the deta1ls of the resulting :orture, but such horrors are

indicated by an arresting two-page 1mage of Rick's 1mpass1onate and haggard

stare. as well as a series of eight vertical panels deptcting splattered blood. gory weapons, and a spitted campfire.32 Only later, as Rtck speaks aloud to

himself over Dale's fresh grave, does he allow himself to reflect on the gravity of what he has done: "What we've done to survive ... somet1mes I feel like we're no better than the dead ones. I can't stop th1nkmg about what we dtd

to tre hunters. I know 1t's jt.stiftable .. but I see them when I close my eyes. .. . Domg what w e did, to ltvmg people ... after taktng thetr weapons . ... It haunts me."33 Monsters sucn as zomb1es kill as oart of thelf natural dnve and instinct; Kirkman's monstrous humans, on the other hand, chose to perform

their brutal acts. Rick has crossed a line. and he realizes he w11l forever run the risk of contus1ng JUstified self-defense w1th unnecessary sad•sm.

Because most of Rick's v1olence ta~<es place outstde of the panels,

readers are allowed to mamtain a sympathetoc connection w th h•m. however tenac1ous, the erstwh1le lawyer Mtchonne's graphically depicted v1olence. on the other hand, alienates her from the aud1ence. After be1ng captured by the Governor. M ichonne ts repeatedly raped and abused. both phystcally

and psychologically. He breaks her tn every sense of the word. and after she IS rescued by Rick and Martmez. her thougnts are on revenge, not escape.

She confronts the Governor In h1s apartment, and over the course of nme v1v1dly ulustrated pages, she has her unrestrained way w1th h1m, dnlling noles

tn his shoulder w1th a power drill, pulling out hts fingernails, amputating hts right arm, plucking out hts left eye, and violating h1m 1n even worse ways>IA Her savage behavior, in a perceptible parallel to the Abu Ghraib prison

scandal of 2004, goes far beyond that feebly JUStified by Rtck-M•chonne's "just1ce" escalates to brutal cruelty and vengeful torture. R1cl<'s excuse for h1s monstrous behav1or. accordmg to Brendan Riley. IS that "eve'l savage acuons are acceptable in order to protect the group, but that savagery must be

82 MONSTER CULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

tempered by necesstty, and the hvmg must recognize it as 'bad':'J5 Michonne

has no necesstty behmd her hetnous cnmes; she had been rescued and could have quietly escaped. Instead, her revenge transcends jusufiable retaliatiOn

or lawful pumshment-she even enjoys herself. By allowing the audte'lce to see all the gruesome detatls of Mlchonne's vengeance, Ktr~<man vtscerally condemns vengeful behavtor. such as the waterboarding of accused terronsts

that was sanctioned by the Bush Admtmstration. Although Ktrkman may appear to approve taCitly of Rick's more JUStified

behav1or, he ultimately condemns rhat form of uncheckea vtolence and aggression as well. Rtck and hts companions devolve so much over the

course of thetr struggles that, by Volume 13: Too Far Gone. they can hardly reintegrate tnto a ctvtlized soctal structure {as the title indicates). Although Rick tS given the logtcal asstgnment of constable by Douglas, the former politictan who leads a fortified survtvalist camp just outside Washington D.C.,

Rick cannot quell his atavistic "fight or flight" impulses. One of his first acts as "keeper of the peace" is to violate the community's weapons ban, as he and Glen sneak Into the armory to outfit themselves w ith firearms. Later,

Rick loses all restraint when he breaks into the abusive Pete's home without anything resembling a warrant, assaulting the man without provocation, and throwing him through a plate glass window before threatening to kill h1m.

Rick's acttons are so violent and at odds with one-time "C1vihzed" social codes that even Mtchonne recogntzes he's out of control.36 Racked wtth gut It

and tormented by hts fears, the pnest Gabriel approaches Douglas secretly to warn htm about Rtck and hts group: ~These people who were with me are not good people. They've done thtngs ... horrible th1ngs ... unspeakable thmgs. They stmply don't belong here.~ 37 Gabnel articulates Kirkman's warning about

unchecked aggression and vtolence: R1ck has been driven too far to the edge ever to be a compatible member of ciVilized society again. Do the comphctt

c1t1zens of the Umted States face the same fate? Has the population's enthu­stastic approval of aggresstvely v1olent polictes toward suspected terronsts and their supporters turned honest. God-fearing, and law-abtdmg people tnto

monstrous protagontsts tn the1r own nght? As The Walking Dead rematns an tncomplete and ongotng narrative. 1t's

hard to speculate what Kirkman's ultimate resolution to these questions may be. Can one use monstrous means to accomplish noble outcomes? Is

preemptive violence justlfted? Is it a matter of need, or simply ot degree? Rick tries to explain the slaughter of the cannibals by telling Carl, "I do things ... a lot of bad things, to help you and all the other people in our group ... That's

the world we live in now ... but Carl, you need to never iorget ... when we do these thtngs and we're good people ... they're still bad things .... You can never lose stght of that. If these thmgs start becoming easy that's when 1t's all

BATTLING MONSTERS AND BECOMING MONSTROUS 83

over. That's when we become bad people."33 The problem w:th Rtck's impas­Sioned speech isn't that he's wrong-it's that tt has become easy for him.

After R;ck's brutal assault and murder of Carl's attacker, a stunned Abraham

soberly tells Rick, "You don't JUSt come back from somethtng h'<e tha: .... You don't rip a man apart- ho!d h·s 1ns:des 1n your hand-you can't go back. :o be.ng dear old dao after that. You're "lever ti-e same Not after wha: you did.~ ~ Abraham, the confessed murderer, s the only protagon1st 10 The Walking

Dead who sees things for what they really are As much as R·ck mtght tell htmself and those around him that his v1olence 1S JUStified, such acuons Irrevocably change him, pushing h1m ever further away from hts orrgms as an upholder of the peace. Perhaps Abraham speaks directly tor Ktri<man here,

ar:tculattng ~he thesis of the series-it's already too late; the Untted States and tts c1t1zenry cannot go back to the way thtngs were before they chose to become monstrous.

The Walking Dead demonstrates an Increased level or VIOlence and monstrosity on the part of the human protagonists, but should we really be surprised by this development in the subgenre? After all. a dangerous,

barbaric protagonist srood at the center of the very ftrst zombte mvasion narrative, Night of the Living Dead. In his desperate efforts to protect htmself from a countryside full of zombtes, Ben (Duane Jones) not only slaps the

hysterical Barbra (Judith O'Dea) tnto submisston, but he also beats and shoots Harry {Karl Hardman) when the man dtsagrees w tth Ben's plans. The potential for numan monstrosity, it appears, has always extsted-but somethlf'Q has changea. These new stones man1fest the wend's ncreased tolerarce for mterpersonal vioief'ce. potentially uneth1caf pohucal poJ,ctes. and a ~k1ll before they kill us" attitude. In a chtlling re'lectton of post-9/11 U S military and po11t•cal actions. such vie1ous protagon1sts are dtrect af'alogs not omy for contemporary natioral leaders, but also for a cornphctt and bloodthtrsty Cit zenry. As with Rick's ·ag-:ag group of calloused suNrvors, the monst(ous

act.ons of the U.S. have transformed .ts people as well-mto tne very th they were initially fighting against. Fo• K1rkman. the zombtes aren't metaphors for numan fa ilings; they are the catalyst that revea1s the monstrous potential

that has been exposed within us all. It's no longer the terror of what might happen to humanity under such incredible circumstances but rather the reali­zation of the horror our world has already tecome that real ly scares us.

Notes

Peter Dendle, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia (Jefferson. NC· McFarland, 2001). 12.

0

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84' MONSTE R CULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

2 In addiuon to the "serious" zomb1e narratives that present the human protagonists as monstrous-which 1s the focus of th1s essay-many zomb1e comedies, such as Andrew Currie's Fido (2006) and Matthew Kohnen's Wasting Away (2007). otter a similar Inversion. These "zombedies" ask audiences to consider the zombies in sympathetic terms, pitted against cruel and menacing human antagonists, but such texts are beyond the scope of this investigation.

3 Although the AMC television series The Walking Dead (2010-l is headed in the same dark direction as its antecedent source material, I have limited this essay to an investigation of Kirkman's comic series alone.

4 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Marianne Cowan (Chicago: Gateway, 1955), 85.

5 Kevin Alexander Boon, "Ontological Anxiety Made Flesh: The Zombie in Literature, Film and Culture:· tn Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring EvH, ed. Niall Scott (Amsterdam: Rodophi. 2007). 33-43.

6 Ibid., 34.

7 Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)," in Monster Theory: Reading Culture, ted.) Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 3-25.

8 Ibid., 4.

9 Scott Kenemore. "Rick Grimes: A Zombie Among Men," tn Triumph of The Walking Dead: Robert Kirkman's Zombie Epic on Page and Screen. (ed.l Jarnes Lowder (Dallas: Benbella Books, 2011), 185-99.

10 At the 33rd International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, China M ieville argued that humans, by definition, cannot be "monsters" but only described as "monstrous" ("Special Panel: The Monstrous;· moderator: F. Brett Cox, March 22. 2012). thus my attsmpts to delineate the difference between a liminal Other acting according to its violent nature and a human being making horrifying and destructive choices.

11 George A. Romero, d ir .. Survival of t11e Dead (Blank of the Dead Productions, 2009).

12 Robert Kirkman, Days Gone Bye, The Walking Dead 1 (Orange, CA: Image Comics. 2004).

13 lb1d.

14 Ibid.

15 Brendan Riley, "Zombie People," 1n Lowder. Triumph of The Walking Dead. 81-97.

16 Kirkman, Days Gone Bye.

17 Robert Kirkman. Miles Behind Us. The Walking Dead 2 (Orange, CA: Image Comics. 2004).

18 Kenemore, 193.

19 Robert Kirkman, Safety Behind Bars. The Walking Dead 3 (Berkeley: Image Comics, 20051.

BATTLING MONSTERS AND BECOMING MONSTROUS 85

20 Robert Kirkman, The Heart's Desire, The Walking Dead 4 (Berkeley· Image ComiCS, 2005).

21 Kirkman, Safety Behind Bars.

22 On September 30, 2011, U.S.-born Anwar ai-Awlaki was k1lled in a drone stnke in Yemen on t he direct orders of President Obama (" lslamist Cleric Anwar ai-Awlaki Killed in Yemen;· News: Middle East. BBC, September 30, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15121879). Critics of the military action claim that, since ai-Awlaki was still a U.S. citizen. he should have been tried in a court rather than being killed without due process and outside of an active war zone (see Jijo Jacob, "Anwar AI-Awlaki: Critics Say Killing Breaches Norms, Sets Wrong Precedent~ US, International Business Times, October 3, 2011 , http://www.lbumes.com/articles/223724/20111003/ anwar-al-awlakl-critics-say-killing-breaches-norms-sets-wrong-precedent-ai­Qaida-yemen-drone.htm).

23 Kirkman, The Heart's Desire.

24 lbtd.

25 Ibid.

26 This totalitarian approach to safety and order is made more explicit in the AMC television adaptation of The Walking Dead, when Rick's rule Is cynically designated a "Ricktatorship" (Ernest R. Dickerson, dir .. "Beside the Dy1ng Fire;· The Walking Dead. AMC. March 18, 20121.

27 Robert Kirkman. This Sorrowful Life, The Walking Dead 6 !Berkeley: Image Comics, 2007).

28 Kirkman, The Heart's Desire.

29 Robert Kirkman, What We Become, The Watking Dead 10 <Berkeley: Image Com1cs, 2009).

30 Ibid.

31 Kenemore, 187.

32 Robert Kirkman, Fear the Hunters, The Walking Dead 11 (Berkeley: Image Com1cs. 2009).

33 Ibid.

34 Kirkman, This Sorrowful Life.

35 R1ley, 96.

36 Robert Kirkman, Too Far Gone. The Walktng Dead 13 (Berkeley: Image Comics, 2010).

37 Ibid.

38 Robert Kirkman. Life Among Them, The Walking Dead 12 (Berkeley: Image Comics, 2010).

39 Kirkman, What We Become.

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