Freirean Reading of Zombie

I am found guilty of watching tons of zombie movies, boththe crappy ones and the magnificent ones. It’s true, the repetition they portrayed is often cheesy and as uncreative as it can be. Furthermore, the zombieque culture becomes so huge and widespread that these undeads lost their charms. But why do I still watch (andhunt) those movies? Frankly speaking, these brain-eating brainless creatures brought about a sense of reminisce and nostalgic feeling for me.

It was started with the routine geek pajama parties I often held in my house with fellow geeks. Well, these chaps would certainly refuse the ‘geek’ label I used in this writing. Yet, what would you call four chaps having sleepovers for days only to play some video games? The year was 2001,back when the first Sony Play Station was still ruling and winning the third console war.
Some franchises stood out among the others, some titles flunked dramatically. One of the standing out franchises was Bio Hazard / Resident Evil. It became our challenge night by night, how to finish this thrilling silent game with sound effects amplified through gigantic room speaker in the darkness where the only light we had came from the TV screen and the green PSX LED. Ah, what a moment.

What is so special from the hordes of undead corpse flocking the world in search of fresh brains? They are less cool than their blood-sucking vampiric cousins, the perpetually seductive witches or the ever-furry werewolf neighbours. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. The market was also saturated already with constant exposure to these rotting bodies.

Yet the key to understand zombies are the concept of bodies through body culture studies perspective. Body is defined by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1968) as Flesh, the being, and the appearance of oneself. This conceptual flesh puts body as an integral part of the mind, consequently in unity with main drive of any action. The integration with a force of will thus placed body in the position of a subject, as meaning, and as embodied existence.

Butler (in Bodies ThatMatter, 1993) argued that body acts or performs its own subjectivity,devoid of any influence from constructed reality and expectation from surrounding society. The seclusion of subjectivity from any expectation thus signified ‘body’ as the core identity; initial identity. Furthermore, body is theorised as “matter”, so that the cultural norms that constitute its identity can be exposed, examined, and critique. This is the state of nakedness, a complete strip off where self identity is broken down into Democritus’ concept of atom,the state where further division is no longer possible.

Thus, the common concept of basic identity is the result of negotiation / dialogue between the materiality of body and the materiality of knowledge and language. Within this framework, each aspect is materialised;manifested into solid matter. The solidification of two parties creates real spatial context of dialogue between them. Taking the nature of knowledge and language as being able to be controlled by any person, the dialogal practice taking place here follows an ideal Bakhtinian dialogism. A horizontal power structure wherein no party dominates the other operates here, creating an ideal negotiation and neutral adjustment.

Different situation may happen when culture is included here, as the nature of culture sometimes forces any person to bestow before it,the conquering nature over any individual living within its authority. An inclusion of culture in the dialogal practice would turn the natural dialogue into cyborgization. Following Donna Haraway’s (1997) concept of post-humanism,culture and social norms posses the machinization ability; operates as a gigantic mother brain penetrating the skin of the fleshed out body and replacing the natural parts with mechanical prosthetic. However, in doing so,not all of the flesh parts are taken out, creating power struggle between the nature and the machine. 

If we are taking an analogy of natural connection between flesh and knowledge and language into a man taking material and sew them into clothes, we can see that the skin still acts as a border between these two parties. Even though the unity between body and clothing can be seen, body will perform its own subjectivity to counter willful construction, in turn creates a clear distinction of constructional aspects. The difference here is the skin as a liminal field, the meeting point of body and construction. However, in the cyborgization, the skin is violated and instead being replaced by mechanical layers. The loss of liminal quality in the skin renders the construction aspects indistinguishable from the flesh.

The term power struggle consequently brings about the shift from horizontal dialogue into vertical dialogue; where one side reclaimed dominance over the others; Foucauldian scheme of war and oppression. Thestruggle between personal “body” and machinization

What about zombie? Using body cultural studies, we can scrutinise the implicit meaning behind dead ‘body’; dead ‘flesh’. What does it mean then? If (living) body can perform its own subjectivity, then zombie cannot perform their own subjectivity. Even though they are living, their freewill is taken from them. Without subjectivity, their main driving force, their main existence, and their very core are robbed. Interestingly, these zombies are still wearing their clothes; which leads into a reading that their knowledge and language are still there. Yet, without their subjectivities, knowledge and languages cannot be used (which is manifested in their lack of intelligence and lack of speech). In other words, this is the manifestation of closed society, a mutism in flesh (pun intended).

Another question sprung up, what are the main causes of this zombie plague? Some initial movies resorted to the explanation of Haitian black magic, yet the newest movies vaguely referred to viral infection. Whether we take side on the black magic (mythical) or biochemical weapon (mechanical cyborgization?), the zombies are all acting the same; following what the source‘programmed’/ ‘dictated’ them to do. Interestingly, this source successfully killed the body and reanimated them as some kind of slaves.

Similarity in this ‘society’/’hordes’ indicates soulless society, brainwashed into throwing away their very essence of identity and uniqueness and rendering their ability to think (critically) useless. According to Freirean perspective, this is one of the characteristic of a closed society led by a dictator / tyrant. In Education for Critical Consciousness, Paulo Freire (1973) described massification as a characteristic of a closed society imposed by the leader to avoid any coup d’etat. Within this massification process, any citizen should not be given any opportunity to develop critical thinking –similar to zombies inability to thinkand speak – and is expected to behave uniformly. This massification will create‘obedient’ domesticated civilians, separated from total project and consequently being dehumanised.

Before the perspective of this closed society, social norms are changed. Freirean concept of sui generis democracy explains that popular silence (mutism) and inaction is synonymous with healthy society. Thus, people who try to bring about critical thinking will be seen as ‘subversive’ and ‘public enemy’. This branding as a public enemy is what caused them to be crushed under people power; manifested as the attack of zombie hordes towards the protagonists.

Further similarity between zombie apocalypse and mutism also lies in the trigger to the zombie attack. In most movies, the zombies are attracted by any sound and sudden movement. Any voice breaking the silence of the zombieland will be treated as a threat to be taken care of; triggering flock attack. What would happen then after the attack? The victim will either be dead or turned into zombie; both results in mutism and submersion.