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2018 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

4. What Happens in the Barn Stays in the Barn: The Family and the Zombie as Sinthomosexual

verfasst von : John R. Ziegler

Erschienen in: Queering the Family in The Walking Dead

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter interprets The Walking Dead’s zombies as sinthomosexuals, or queer antagonists to reproductive futurism. They act as queer Others through asexual reproduction, focus on immediate drives, and the presence of the infection in every living person. These zombies figure as alternatives to reproductive futurism, and their mere existence troubles heteronormative hegemony, as do the recurring transgressions by living characters, particularly Hershel and Lizzie’s questioning of the line between the living and the living dead and their willingness to view zombies not just as people but as family. Zombie-Sophia in the TV series represents a disturbing amalgam of child, symbolic Child, and sinthomosexual, and control must be sought by destroying the zombies that encroach on the categories of human and family and suppressing viewpoints that enable such encroachment.

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Fußnoten
1
Leverette (2008), using the lens of Derridian undecidability, discusses the zombie as undergoing queering, but he focuses on “queering as a [terrifying] liminal Otherness” rather than on sexuality (187).
 
2
Kee (2014) similarly writes that zombie reproduction represents a loss of white, heterosexual, patriarchal control over procreation (180) and Paffenroth (2011) that zombies have been used to “examine sexual ‘others’,” including in the 2008 film Otto (loc. 405).
 
3
Extending such paradoxes, Bernini claims that queer zombies such as those in the films of Bruce LaBruce can embody the conflicts in LGBTQIA movements between “assimilation” and desire for recognition by society on the one hand and “contestation” and refusal of sociality on the other (106–107).
 
4
One can trace variations of this anxiety back to the earliest zombie movies, which link the loss of autonomy with “themes of transformation, transgression and personal bodily violation, fear of the Other, and fear of becoming the Other” (Booth 2015, 20).
 
5
If we read zombies as queer, we can also read this practice as analogous to conversion therapy, especially given Hershel’s Christianity.
 
6
Hershel takes up much of the panel in which he cries “My son is in there, God dammit,” while Rick appears as tiny (his “Your son?” too is much smaller) in the adjacent panel, but this visually suggested power imbalance does not extend beyond this moment.
 
7
He also says that they may “wake up tomorrow, heal up, and be completely normal again” (c1:ch2:n11). His desired outcome is always a full return to the normative.
 
8
When Woodbury citizen Doctor Stevens is bitten in the comics, he troubles exactly this divide between human/living and dead/zombie, gasping, “I’m not dying … think of it … scientifically … I’m just … evolving … into a different—worse life form. I’ll still exist in some way” (c1:ch6:n32). In his discussion of the complex status of zombie personhood, Brendan Riley (2011) raises both this moment and Jim’s hope earlier in the series that when he comes back as a zombie, he may be able to reunite with his family if they too have reanimated. Riley argues that, more often than they acknowledge, “the survivors continued to see the zombies, at least partly, as the people they used to be” (85).
 
9
In the same episode, Glenn justifies his having told the group against Maggie’s wishes by saying that even if the zombies are merely sick people, they are dangerous, and he never wants Maggie to be in danger. In other words, he prioritizes his heterosexual partner over any larger group or collectivity, and viewers see him rewarded as the camera zooms in on their intimate kissing, initiated by Maggie.
 
10
Lizzie’s language here to and about Henry sounds very similar to how one would talk to and about a dog, which blurs the boundaries between human and animal in the same way that she blurs the boundaries between human and zombie.
 
11
The request to be tucked in occurs in “Isolation.”
 
12
There is even some insinuation that both sisters are too “weak” (a favorite word of Carol in this season) to live—Mika would rather eat peaches than shoot a deer and says that killing people is wrong.
 
13
Compare the presentation of Carol’s murder of Lizzie to Lori’s consideration of an abortion (see Chap. 2) in an earlier season, or, in the same season, even to the normally stoic Michonne’s reduction to tears from merely holding baby Judith.
 
14
It is worth noting here that the survivors are on Hershel’s farm in the first place because of danger to another child, Carl, who survives his gunshot wound and remains the future citizen and patriarch.
 
15
Heckman (2014) further links this loss to a loss of stable place through The Walking Dead’s use of “specific vehicles, roads, and Native American histories”: “When the Cherokees were ordered off their land, however, they lost ties to their future, both as a result of lands lost and children lost. Similarly, the forced exodus endured by the survivors of The Walking Dead costs them their own futurity, symbolized by the loss and subsequent death of Sophia” (loc. 1954, 2047).
 
16
I would extend “gay and lesbian culture” to “queer culture” more broadly, while acknowledging that other permutations of queerness have not yet acted as public flashpoints in the same way.
 
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Zurück zum Zitat “30 Days Without an Accident” (season 4, episode 1, 2013) “30 Days Without an Accident” (season 4, episode 1, 2013)
Zurück zum Zitat “Indifference” (season 4, episode 4, 2013) “Indifference” (season 4, episode 4, 2013)
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Zurück zum Zitat “Inmates” (season 4, episode 10, 2014) “Inmates” (season 4, episode 10, 2014)
Zurück zum Zitat “Internment” (season 4, episode 5, 2013) “Internment” (season 4, episode 5, 2013)
Zurück zum Zitat “Pretty Much Dead Already” (season 2, episode 7, 2011) “Pretty Much Dead Already” (season 2, episode 7, 2011)
Zurück zum Zitat “Secrets” (season 2, episode 6, 2011) “Secrets” (season 2, episode 6, 2011)
Zurück zum Zitat “The Grove” (season 4, episode 14, 2014) “The Grove” (season 4, episode 14, 2014)
Metadaten
Titel
What Happens in the Barn Stays in the Barn: The Family and the Zombie as Sinthomosexual
verfasst von
John R. Ziegler
Copyright-Jahr
2018
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99798-8_4