For the Zombie Fictions class that I am co-teaching as part of my Master's project, my project adviser Dr. Perez and I are requiring our students to post "Film Blogs" as their written responses to the movies that we are covering this semester. What differentiates the Film Blogs from the Journal Responses that they turn in for the books that we read each week, is that they are open for the rest of the class to read and comment on (indeed, each student is required to comment on at least three other blog posts). In order to position myself within that online class discussion (as well as to model the type of critical work we would like to see take place in their blogs), I have been posting my own blog response for each film.
Starting with Zombieland, which we have watched and blogged about most recently, I am going to begin posting some of my class blogs here in order to share some of the critical discourse that is taking place around the zombie figure within our classroom. For the Zombieland blog, the students did not have a specific assignment, but instead were asked to make a critical (critical as the literary analysis sense of the word, not fault-finding) argument about the film, and to support that argument with direct "textual" evidence from the film. I chose to engage the film in terms of its portrayal of women.
Please feel free to comment on my reading of this film (or my inclusion of it in a college level lit course!) in the comments section below.
From the moment Barbra sprawled helplessly across the cemetery grass, fleeing cinema’s first flesh-eating zombie in Night of the Living Dead, the role of women in zombie cinema has been troublesome, to say the least. Whether due to catatonia, irrationality, carping, or overall incompetence, until very recently the female survivors of filmic zombie outbreaks have been, at best, nuisances to their seemingly more capable male counterparts. At worst, they were outright hazardous to have around. Recently, though, movies such as 28 Days Later and Residential Evil, with their exceedingly adept heroines – Selena and Alice, respectively – have moved away from the chauvinistic tendencies of their predecessors. In Zombieland, however, many of those sexist inclinations come back to the forefront.
Because Zombieland so diligently avoids revealing the actual names of its characters throughout the film (with one notable exception, at the very end) every expression that is used to refer those characters takes on added significance. For the most part, place designations are used in lieu for male and female characters alike. There is, however, one slight difference. While the guys are named for their intended destinations, Tallahassee and Columbus, the ladies are apparently named for where they’re from. Neither Wichita nor Little Rock has a name that refers to their ultimate Californian destination, Pacific Playland outside Los Angeles. 406, it should be noted, is also named for a point of origin rather than a destination, though in her case that happens to be her apartment number as opposed to a city. Although Columbus is also very briefly referred to as an apartment number, this occurs only in the context of a scene that insistently highlights his “former” unmanliness. On the surface, such differentiation might seem insignificant. However, the implication, subtle but unmistakable, is that men act, women react; as was the case in the early zombie films that marginalized women so blatantly, the male is posited as the doer. And yet their place names aren’t nearly the most problematic designations for women in Zombieland.
By and large, when the female characters aren’t named by locations like everyone else, they are referred to as one of two words: “girls” or “bitches.” More often than not, each term is used derogatorily, as a diminutive that reflects clearly how women are regarded within the film. When Little Rock, allegedly stricken, decides she wants her life ended (permanently), Columbus is compelled to point out that “she’s just a little girl” (24:26). Somewhat similarly, when it becomes apparent that the women have duped the men with their ruse (deception being one of two actions consistently afforded female characters in the film), they are categorized a little (rereading this, it occurs to me that the two examples I chose are literally diminutive in their phrasing; women are little) differently, as “stupid little bitches!” (Tallahassee, 28:39).
Predictably, the other action performed by women – namely, eating flesh – sees women referred to in the same terms: “The first time I let a girl into my life and she tries to eat me” (Columbus, 17:45). Perhaps more troubling, though, is that these terms (usually combined with the ubiquitous “hot”) are also used interchangeably as compliments. When Columbus opines of Wichita, “she’s not your typical hot, stuck-up bitch,” he does so admiringly, to demonstrate how much he “kinda like[s] this girl” (34:09; 34:06). As sweet as I’m sure it was intended, I don’t know how complimentary I’m willing to consider the phrase “hot, stuck-up bitch” to be, “typical” or no. Whether they are spoken by men or women - "those bitches!" (Wichita, 01:00:53) - or intended to flatter or insult - "smart girls" (Columbus, 01:21:31) - the two terms,“girl” and “bitch,” are used interchangeably and pervade the film.
In fact, only once in the whole movie, is a female character (I don't really consider the human happy meal "lady" or Sister Cynthia Knickerbocker characters, per se) referred to as anything other than a girl, a bitch, (a zombie), or her place name; in the grocery store, the first time he sets eyes on her, Columbus thinks of Wichita as a “woman” (gasp!). However, the context in which it is said (um, thought), “another marriageable woman to bring home to the folks,” rather than undermining, serves as a microcosm of the unfortunate depiction of women throughout the film (23:40). In Zombieland, the most ideal role for women is that of wife – and not just any wife, but a trophy, worthy of display to mom and dad. Woman as wife is just that, though: a trophy, an ideal, illusory and unlikely. The “reality” of the film paints a very different picture, one in which, when they’re not sitting still, either “hot” objects of desire or helplessly waiting to be rescued, women are marginalized and vilified to an almost Biblical extent (almost). Although certainly more capable than most of their female predecessors, Wichita and Little Rock are ultimately held in no higher regard - their deceit, manipulation, theft, distrust, and unaccountably irrational behavior (were they actively trying to attract zombies at Pacific Playland??) leaving them only marginally less dangerous and bothersome than the zombies themselves.
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