One of the most common aspects of mainstream Science Fiction in the modern era is zombieism. The popularity of the revival of a corpse – or the undead – and its hunger for human brains has demonstrated the ability of the human race to question their existence in the near future and how they might need to adapt to a new world. For this paper, I am focusing on The Walking Dead TV series to compare its spin-off series Fear The Walking Dead. The purpose is to demonstrate the ideological nature in which humanity is ill-prepared against the apocalyptic future that came about their universe from a disease that left corpses to revive and conquer the world through a new biological evolution. The scientific explanation of the deadly pathogen that spreads among the undead illustrates the different ways in which the two types of shows face challenges, survive and interact with one another. However, the original The Walking Dead portrays strengthening character developments in Atlanta, Georgia, and preparedness for the apocalypse. To juxtapose, the Los Angeles residents approach the apocalypse with a lack of survival skills with a different understanding of the science between the outbreak.
The Walking Dead television series is developed by Frank Darabont, based on The Walking Dead Comic Series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. This franchise begins with the new apocalyptic world ruled by a deadly pathogen that turns humans into walking corpses. The Walking Dead series uses different scientific knowledge, from doctors to the CDC and the main characters learning to survive to portray the ill-preparedness of humans. In the first six episodes of Season 1 of The Walking Dead, characters learned to fend for themselves and seek refuge after an outbreak of deadly plague massacres the world and leave those bitten, scratched, or murdered arising from the dead. The main characters strive for explanation and head to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. When arriving, the characters discover the science behind the pathogen that has massacred most of the human population. Dr. Jenner, the remaining scientist at the Centers for Disease Control, states: “It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage. The brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs, then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be, gone” (“TS-19”, The Walking Dead, The Complete First Season, written by Adam Fierro and Frank Darabont, directed by Guy Ferland, AMC, 2010) as the first stage of the pathogen. Dr. Jenner continues to Stage 2, describing, “The resurrection times vary wildly. We have reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we’ve heard was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds” (“TS-19”, The Walking Dead, The Complete First Season, written by Adam Fierro and Frank Darabont, directed by Guy Ferland, AMC, 2010). The third stage is “Dark, lifeless, dead, the frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part, that doesn’t come back. Your part. Just the shell is driven by mindless instinct.” (“TS-19”, The Walking Dead, The Complete First Season, written by Adam Fierro and Frank Darabont, directed by Guy Ferland, AMC, 2010). The effects of this pathogen on the human brain leave a lifeless vessel that only moves to feed. This concept demonstrates the ill-preparedness of the characters in The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead because both plotlines start with the assumption that the undead is just ‘different. Whereas Dr. Jenner, the unique person within themselves dies.
The biological changes of the undead in The Walking Dead also demonstrate their evolution in the storyline as the characters continue to learn more about them. The characters thought of the undead as ‘different people’ until they’ve learned through Dr. Jenner’s simulation of the infection process. For instance, in Season 1, Episode 1, the undead are slow when chasing after living people and can climb fences. In Season 10, Episode 22, the walkers are significantly faster but cannot climb fences nor ladders and only float in the water. One similarly that is a common factor the characters have learned on their own is that the undead repels from the scent of one another.
The dead always seem to follow the same biological need for fresh living flesh rather than dead ones as they revive from their deaths. Many different stories follow the development and evolution of the concept of zombieism in Science Fiction, simply following the format of reviving a body from the dead or taking out the life force from a living being. For instance, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus” (1818) portrayed an unhuman-like creature created by the protagonist and a scientist Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein later discovers that the creation of that creature is the doom of the human race and to his destruction. C.L.Moore’s “Shambleau” (1933) shows the state of the human race in the hands of a seductive-like creature called a Shambleau that takes an anthropomorphic form. The Shambleau sucks the life force out of men. The Flash Gordon SF film series (1933) portrayed an apocalyptic world with main characters Flash Gorden and his fiance Dale being taken to another planet for sanctuary while encountering vicious reptile-like monsters. These stories all illustrate the notion of the human race and the anticipation of the world facing a drastic demise, leaving them to survive or die.
Dr. Jenner’s research on this pathogen’s effect on the human brain correlates to the different issues present in the spin-off series Fear The Walking Dead, which primarily shifts focus on addiction and racism in the post-apocalyptic world. Fear The Walking Dead, created by Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson, places the attention of three families in the city of Los Angeles who find themselves ambushed by the outbreak spreading westward and putting the city in panic. Nicholas Clark, the first character shown in the pilot, suffers from heroin addiction and is separated from his family by the United States military. Confused and distressed, the three families end up together to seek sanctuary but end up in the cruelty of the United States military, who practice experimentation of turning people into the undead for entertainment. Distressed and agitated, members of the group fend off for their own, only to end up in a ranch at the U.S.-Mexico border that is implicitly discriminatory against Mexicans seeking refuge in the apocalypse, as well as the Native American land the ranch owner has taken control with force before the apocalypse.
Nonetheless, the U.s. The military conducted their ‘experiments’ by capturing civilians who would try to seek refuge with the protections of the military. The rogue soldiers would murder the civilians to observe the time for the transition process after death. Then, they would examine the comparisons of data of times to transition and the ability to feed. This cruelty and immoral treatment of human beings led to the strong character development of the storyline. However, what stood out to me most about Fear The Walking Dead is the tribal challenges against one another based on ethnicities and gender. Similar to what we are facing now, an ideal world would have human beings uniting as one to survive the apocalypse. Instead, there are conflicts of territorial rights, murder, and harsh racism of who to accept into communities based on their skin color.
Using these factors, I want to reflect on our current state of surviving cautiously in the COVID-19 pandemic. According to New York Times, “a new report shows that a significant number of young people with the syndrome also develop neurological symptoms, including hallucinations, confusion, speech impairments and problems with balance and coordination. The study of 46 children treated at one hospital in London found that just over half — 24 — experienced such neurological symptoms, which they had never had before.” (Belluck, Pam. “Some Children With Covid-Related Syndrome Develop Neurological Symptoms.” The New York Times. 13 April 2021.). This factor demonstrates how ill-prepared that Americans have come to a world close to an apocalypse with the coronavirus outbreak raging drastically over millions of lives. The neurological effects that children have when they are exposed to COVID-19 demonstrate that this virus affects everyone, just as the pathogen from The Walking Dead franchise affects everyone. Yet, no one is prepared and they see it as a non-threat until events escalate. There is severe racism against one group simply because of their ethnicity, and there are multiple groups that are highly discriminated against during this pandemic. From direct hate crimes against Asian-Americans to the discrimination of low-income black and brown communities who are severely vulnerable to contracting COVID-19, to the immigrants from Latin America crossing the United States border seeking refuge and being denied human rights. All of these events happening during a global apocalyptic pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the epiphany of the long-ranging popularity of ‘zombiesm’ because SF demonstrates the significant consequences of our actions and that we do not take consequences seriously until we are affected by the rate of massive deaths. The Walking Dead franchise simply puts the terrifying realization that human beings are afraid to come up with their own – the fact that our modernized technological advanced society has led to millions of people lacking in basic survival skills, and they refuse to believe that there can be a future in which they will be left to fend for themselves without the help of technology or the ones fit to survive.
Works Cited
“TS-19”, The Walking Dead. Directed by Guy Ferland. Performance by Andrew Lincoln, Noah Emmerich, Melissa McBride, Norman Reedus, Sarah Wayne Callies, Madison Mintz, Steven Yuen, Jeryl Prescott Sales, IronE Singleton, Chandler Riggs. AMC, 2010.
“Eye of the Beholder”, Fear The Walking Dead. Directed by Andrew Bernstein. Performance by Daniel Sherman, Noel Fisher, Alicia Debnam Carey, Frank Dilane, Kim Dickens, Cliff Curtis. AMC, 2017.
Belleck, Pam. “Some Children with Covid-Related Syndrome develop Neurological Symptoms” The New York Times. 2021.
