Blog 4 (Theory)

Robin Woods’s Freudian Theory in 28 Days Later:

Repressed Sexuality forming a Figurative Family in the Post-apocalyptic Society

Yukari Higuchi

     Robin Wood claims that surplus repression in a particular culture reemerge “as an object of horror, a matter for terror, and the happy ending (when it exists) typically signifying the restoration of repression” (28). Although his article “The American Nightmare” focuses on the surplus repression in American “monogamous heterosexual bourgeois patriarchal capitalists” (25) culture, it also says “all known existing societies are to some degree surplus-repressive” (25). When we think about diegetic societies, or societies depicted in films, we can find something repressed in the societies. That helps us to understand the significance of monsters and defeat of them in the films. At the same time, by recognizing which “existing societies” the diegetic societies represent, we can note the films’ commentaries on “our” or “their” actual societies. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) is a British film, but still Robin Wood’s the-American-Nightmare theory applies to the film, precisely because the repressed in the society returns as “monsters” and the protagonist’s defeat of them brings the survivors back to the status quo.

     28 Days Later differs from conventional horror films because of the society depicted in the film: the post-apocalyptic society. For, when the protagonist Jim wakes up, his world with few survivors has already gone through the apocalypse, which most zombie films center on. Under the critical circumstance, the survivors are forced to unite and cooperate like a “family.” These four various aged characters: Jim, Selena, Hannah, and Frank form a figurative family, as the scene of four horses represent. In order to retain the family status, the post-apocalyptic society requires a patriarchal power, which is Frank’s role. Thus the post-apocalyptic world represents an actual patriarchal society. In the family-like relationship, although Jim and Selena kiss each other, they cannot develop their relationship to a sexual one. Sexuality is repressed in the family-based post-apocalyptic society, as the Freudian theses in the Wood’s article demonstrate: “that in a society built on monogamy and family there will be an enormous surplus of repressed sexual energy, and that what is repressed must always strive to return” (Wood 32). The way the sexual energy returns, however, is not through “zombies” but through the real “monsters” in the film: the military, who tries to sexually assault female characters in the compound.

     As for the “zombies” in this film, their figure represents not repressed sexual energy but repressed “rage” in the “pre-apocalyptic” society. There is the dual structure of Wood’s theory in the film with "repressed rage returning as zombies" and "repressed sexual desire returning as the military." Since human “rage” was repressed by law, political authorities, and patriarchal power before the apocalypse, the “rage” returned as the infected with “rage” virus. However, this repression is rather oppression “by something out there” (Wood 26) than “fully internalized oppression” (Wood 26). Therefore, sexual energy represented in the soldiers is a more focal point in terms of “repression.”

     After defeat of the military and the escape from the compound, Jim, Selena, and Hannah reunite a figurative family, living in the same house. Thus they restore the status quo. Their cloth banner for the flying jet says “Hello,” which does not sound like a rescue signal but an ordinary greeting. They do not have to be rescued, because they have already returned to the status quo. In the final scene, the three characters are standing on the letter “O,” which signifies a connected unity as a circle. This ending can be called “a happy ending,” because it signifies “the restoration of repression” (Wood 28).

Works Cited

Robin Wood and Richard Lippe. “The American Nightmare.” Essays on the Horror Film. Ed. Andrew Britton. Toronto, 1979. 25-32.