Rise of the Global Zombie Apocalypse: Global Order, American Fear, and Call for the Realist Subject

One of the most notable developments in US popular culture in recent years has been the widespread popularity of zombie narratives. Often disregarded in the past as a crude and excessively grotesque category of horror, the zombie narrative has now become one of the most popular genres in mainstream entertainment. In the middle of the popularity of the zombie narratives, this article seeks to find out some essential characteristics of the current form of the zombies in the context of fear and anxiety that Americans feel in the changing atmosphere of global order. The most conspicuous aspect of the current zombies might be their intensified speed and power, which surely corresponds to the quickening speed of financial capitalism. Such an intensification of speed and power serves to introduce another quintessential element of contemporary zombies: the ceaseless migration of human survivors. Interaction between the quick zombies and the migrating humans renders the question of subjectivity during the catastrophic social crisis. By analyzing two recent narratives (Danny Boyle's film 28 Days Later and Robert Kirkman's graphic novel The Walking Dead) that indicate these elements, this article argues that under the recent zombie apocalypse narratives lies the urgent call for a new subjectivity that fits the harsh and cruel reality the narratives commonly describe. The name of this new subjectivity is 'the realist' as opposed to the currently dominant liberal humanist subject. This article asserts that the realist subject, whose primary motif is not to live happily together with others but to survive regardless of others, is the ultimate model for the futuristic subject that the global zombie apocalypse imagines. This doomed prospect for the human future explains another major phenomenon in our global culture: the post-apocalyptic narratives.