Dawn of the Dead (1979) Image Analysis

This scene from Dawn of the Dead (1979) (DOTD) shows that Flyboy, the traditional all American hero, is actually not the stereotypical male hero of this film. Although tall and good looking he cannot use a gun and is largely useless in the fight against the undead. Roger on the other hand, doesn’t look like the usual male hero, being short and not very muscular, but he is very effective with a gun. The guns the men are using connote phallic symbols and the better you are with your gun the more of a man you seem to be.

George Romero was an “auteur” (a theory highlighted in Andrew Sarris’ ‘Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962’) as he often portrays his own feelings through his films. One of his signature methods is to go against the conventional features of film and add his own twists. Having the traditional male hero as a largely useless, blundering idiot and having the short scrawny Roger dominate him is Romero’s way to mix things up. This was a radical thing to do in the 70’s and caught the audience’s attention. He does this in many films, for instance the male protagonist in Night of the Living Dead (1968) is a black guy, which was shocking to have in the 60’s.

 

The gore in this scene from DOTD (1979) is very shocking to the audience at the time as was one of the reasons the film was banned and cut in so many countries. Romero got away with so much body horror as the Hays Code had been abolished by this time and films were becoming more blood thirsty and violent. This was mainly to do with audience becoming desensitized to gore and violence and needing more to make them shudder. Body horror is a very important generic feature in horror films as mentioned by Thomas Schatz (the author of Hollywood genres from 1982).

The bikers start killing the zombies in very inhumane ways which shows that although zombies kill, they do so for food, but only humans can be sadistic. The bikers also mock the zombies in a variety of ways which changes our outlook on zombies and make us feel sympathy for the undead menace. This again is a Romero twist, making the real antagonists humans and seeing zombies in a slightly more protagonist way.

This scene from DOTD (1979) shows the institutional context of the time. America was a very miserable place in the 70’s, after the Vietnam War and other blunders including the Watergate Scandal meant the public were not in much support of the government. Giant shopping malls started being built and consumerism was on the rise, Romero was opposed to consumerism and shows this in his film. The zombies are drawn to the mall. Peter talks earlier in the film about why the zombies return to the mall, saying it’s because of “Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.” Romero mocks this and shows the zombies are just like normal Americans walking around a shopping mall buying things they do not need. The high angle of the shot also makes the zombies seem more pathetic rather than evil killing machines. Once again, Romero flips around our assumptions of how characters – and monsters – are stereotypically portrayed.