Blog Post 3 (Gender/Family)

Gender Roles and Representation of Families in 28 Days Later:

Genderless “Zombies” and The Figurative Non-Patriarchal “Family”

Yukari Higuchi

     In Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, the first human victim is a “female” animal liberation activist. When she is infected, an extreme close-up to her eyes clearly shows her inhuman traits, or contagion. At the same time, her femininity is disoriented and her sex becomes ambiguous in the shot. The transformation of human into a “zombie” is considered as processes of both dehumanization and deconstructing gender. In zombie films, the monsters invalidate a dichotomy between male and female, sharing "homogeneous" physical characteristics such as dark skin, mad eyes, and distinctive motions. Therefore, zombies as monsters jeopardize the status quo of gender, which categorizes masculinity and femininity. By considering this, it is important in the context of gender that the film 28 Days Later results in the protagonist’s fight against not “zombies” but soldiers, or humans.

     Female characters in this film, Selena and Hannah, are depicted as “intelligent, watchful, level-headed” (Clover 79) women who have the nature of “The Final Girl;” for Selena quickly kills her “male” company Mark as soon as she notices he is infected, and Hannah does not allow Jim and Selena to come in to her room until she confirms her father Frank’s safety. Their “inevitable sexual reluctance” (Clover 80) is, however, threatened by not “zombies” but the soldiers. The fortified mansion of the military represents human society, where woman are treated as objects of men’s sexual desire, surviving in the post-apocalyptic world. Thus the protection from “zombies” brings them back to the status quo, which embeds gender categorization. Selena and Hannah are forced to dress up like the typical feminine, making a contrast with their ordinary masculine clothes, and they are victimized as passive sexual slavery. At this point of the film, since “the monster” is transferred from “zombie” to human, the protagonist tries to rescue the two girls from the soldiers. Although Jim succeeds in saving Selena, he is eventually shot and his role is taken over by Hannah, who drives a car, kills the soldier, and escapes that danger. As Clover points “the fact that masculine males (boyfriends, fathers, would-be rescuers) are regularly dismissed” (86), Hannah, “The Final Girl,” loses her father and rescuer then returns to the genderless post-apocalyptic world.

     Her father Frank has generous "paternity." In the scene where Frank, Jim, Selena, and Hannah look at four horses, Frank says that they look “like a family.” This remark metaphorically refers to the four characters themselves. Frank is not only Hannah’s father but also takes a paternal role for the company. However, he loses his temper and yells at them when he finds that the military blockage is deserted. Once his "patriarchal" nature appears, he is infected and killed as Sobchack claims, “there is no narrative resolution for patriarchy in the horror film—except the denial or death of the father (159).” At the end of the film, Jim, Selena and Hannah, who all have lost their parents, are living in the same house and unite a figurative “family” without the patriarch.

Works Cited

Clover, Carol. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” Horror, the Film Reader. Ed. Mark Jancovich. Psychology Press, 2002. 77-86.

Sobchack, Vivian. “Bringing it All Back Home: Family Economy and Generic Exchange.” The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film. Barry Keith Grant, Ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. 143-163.