The New Children of War. Considerations about the iconography of the zombie archetype in the context of the Vietnam War: The modern zombie emerged in 1967/68 under the influence of popular culture and the visual presence of the Vietnam... more
The New Children of War. Considerations about the iconography of the zombie archetype in the context of the Vietnam War: The modern zombie emerged in 1967/68 under the influence of popular culture and the visual presence of the Vietnam War. As a complement to the recent state of research the text elaborates on zombie iconography as an anti-war allegory. Based on George A. Romero's archetypal NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (USA 1968), it is pointed out in which way the everyday images of war shaped the history and imagery of the film and influenced both the depiction and characteristics of the zombie. Using scene investigations of burning people, crisis reporting in the media, the Search and Destroy missions and the memorable image of the headshot, the impact of war is demonstrated and proven with a large number of parallels found in press photographs and war reports. On the one hand, this allows to classify the subtext of the film within the tradition of the anti-war film. On the other hand, the allegory of wars and crises can be seen as an inherent and iconographic part of that movie monster, which, in the genre, has been proven more often since Danny Boyle's 28 DAYS LATER (UK 2002).
