This sounds like something that was made up post-hoc because it sounds good. I have yet to run into a zombie story where they talk about how great traditional gender roles are, or a vampire story where they talk about taking control of the means of production. They are just stories. There is no reason that they need to be inherently political - much less to run along the particular political lines we have in society today.
We could even make the case that the opposite is true - the most common trope I know of in vampire stories is feeling sympathy for the vampire when they have their monologue about how hard vampiring is. And the most common trope in Zombie movies is that the people need to work together, be honest, and sacrifice for each other in order to overcome the hoard.
I watched Night of the Living Dead (1968) on Halloween and was surprised that the black guy was the only one portrayed as competent. I suppose part of the surprise was due to me assuming the movie was even older than that (1950s) because it wasn’t in color. (Then again, maybe they could do that because it was a horror movie and it just made it extra-scary for racists, LOL)
The “traditional gender roles” trope was definitely fully in play, though: the men fortified the house against the zombies while the women mostly sat around being useless, if not counterproductive.
Horror has always been a genre ripe for pushing social boundaries, and there’s been a lot of critical analysis about Night of the Living Dead as a critique on the Cold War and racism. So you’re not picking up on nothing, that was a purposeful casting and writing decision.
This sounds like something that was made up post-hoc because it sounds good. I have yet to run into a zombie story where they talk about how great traditional gender roles are, or a vampire story where they talk about taking control of the means of production
This sounds like something that was made up post-hoc because it sounds good. I have yet to run into a zombie story where they talk about how great traditional gender roles are, or a vampire story where they talk about taking control of the means of production. They are just stories. There is no reason that they need to be inherently political - much less to run along the particular political lines we have in society today.
We could even make the case that the opposite is true - the most common trope I know of in vampire stories is feeling sympathy for the vampire when they have their monologue about how hard vampiring is. And the most common trope in Zombie movies is that the people need to work together, be honest, and sacrifice for each other in order to overcome the hoard.
Those are dragon movies. It’s dragons that hoard things.
Any dragon who would hoard zombies has got to have their self-esteem in the shitter.
At least they last longer than peasants as toys for the brood, and the peasants wind up smelling the same in the end anyway
I watched Night of the Living Dead (1968) on Halloween and was surprised that the black guy was the only one portrayed as competent. I suppose part of the surprise was due to me assuming the movie was even older than that (1950s) because it wasn’t in color. (Then again, maybe they could do that because it was a horror movie and it just made it extra-scary for racists, LOL)
The “traditional gender roles” trope was definitely fully in play, though: the men fortified the house against the zombies while the women mostly sat around being useless, if not counterproductive.
Horror has always been a genre ripe for pushing social boundaries, and there’s been a lot of critical analysis about Night of the Living Dead as a critique on the Cold War and racism. So you’re not picking up on nothing, that was a purposeful casting and writing decision.
What an incredible oversimplification. Im in awe