Nineteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

As early as 1955, Philip K. Dick wrote that « all responsible writers, to some degree, have become involuntary criers of doom because doom is in the wind.» (Dick & Sutin, 1995). In an age where polarization within society seems to be inescapable, an age of violent discourses against immigration, where alarmist discourses regarding the future of our planet are legion yet blatantly ignored by politics, the zombie has become a significant part of pop culture. As apocalyptic and dystopian scenarios dominate the Science Fiction cinema landscape nowadays, the zombies are the convenient Other, haunting our once glorious cities in an uncontrolled mass, revealing one of our contemporary anxieties: civil war. Once slow, the now fast and hungry zombie figure seems to catch up with our time’s frenetic pace. Through analysis of World War Z, 28 Days Later, and Train to Busan, this paper aims to prove that recent zombie films best represent modern civil war and offer insights into the dangers of extreme global polarization. First, we examine the recent changes in the figure of the zombie. Then, we move on to the outbreaks and their similarity to any civil war modus operandi. We go on with the significance of the urban environment and the loss of individual identity in favor of group identity.