56 - June Pulliam Abstract In George Romero's Land of the Dead, zombies are not the mindless dregs of humanity who are incapable of production, but instead, a group ripe for hegemony because they have developed the class consciousness necessary for effective collective action. Because the zombie apocalypse has stripped distinctions of class and reduced most humans to a common miserable condition, they too should be ripe for hege- mony and easily able to overthrow their oppressors. However, the effects of discipline make the surviving humans incapable of developing class consciousness, preventing them from effectively collaborating for the good of all. Instead, humans waste their energies in intra-class power struggles that are the result of the individualizing and totalizing discipline that has formed their subjectivities. Zombies, who have been freed of the effects of discipline through death, do form class consciousness. As a result, they can reorganize society in their own interests. JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTSOur Zombies, Ourselves Exiting the Foucauldian Universe in George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead June Pulliam I. GEORGE A. ROMERO'S NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD SERIES, HUMANS STRUG- gle in a post-apocalyptic world to set up a functioning social network in an environment where they are no longer at the top of the food chain. In each subsequent film in this series, it seems likely that humans will be driven to extinction by zombies in spite of their supposed superior intelligence and access to technology. Michel Foucault's ideas about discipline, a technology of power that regulates the behavior of individuals, permit us to understand why in Romero’s Dead series the odds are against human survival. The indi- vidualizing and totalizing effects of discipline have rendered humans inca- pable of developing class consciousness. As a result, members of the proletariat are doomed to waste their energies in intra-class power struggles. Zombies, however, are free of the effects of discipline. As a result, in Land of the Dead zombies have formed class consciousness, an accomplishment which might eventually give them hegemony over humans. Land of the Dead (2005) is the fourth film in Romero's Night of the Liv- ing Dead oeuvre, which includes Night of the Living Dead (1968); Dawn of the Dead (1978); Day of the Dead (1985); Diary of the Dead (2007), a prequel to Night of the Living Dead; and a yet-to-be-named sixth installment in the series which is due to be released at the end of 2009. Land of the Dead has a positive reputation among film critics as an entertaining work that engages in what some view as broad political satire.! In Land of the Dead, we see that zombies can learn and work cooperatively much better than humans ever could, per- haps because through death they have been reborn free of the effects of disci- pline. The zombies’ ability to learn and work cooperatively is momentous, with implications for both the living characters in the film and viewers famil- iar with the genre, since the creature is more typically represented as a heing whose mindlessness makes it vastly inferior to humans.? These abilities give Vol, 20, No. 1, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts Copyright © 2009, International Association for the Fantastic in the At,Our Zombies, Ourselves - 43 zombies a distinct advantage in that they are ultimately able to develop the class consciousness that is a precondition for socialist revolution. My analysis, however, should begin not with a discussion of why zombies can form class consciousness, but instead, with an exploration of why humans can't. This analysis must ask not “how, why and by what right [subjects] can agree to be subjugated, but [...] how actual relations of subjugation manufac- ture subjects” (Foucault, Society 45). In Land of the Dead, enough time has passed since the initial zombie apocalypse in Night of the Living Dead to make the constant threat of attack commonplace for the dwindling number of survivors. As a result, humans have begun reforming communities with complex infrastructures and social networks. One such group inhabits a compound in Pittsburg that is barri- caded by electrified fences and a river (which zombies supposedly cannot cross) and protected by a militia. The compounds operations are controlled by Kaufman, a wealthy capitalist who uses his fortune to finance the estab- lishment of this new city-state where he has reproduced the same savage inequalities of the old world. Here the wealthy few live in Fiddler’s Green, a climate-controlled steel-and-glass condominium tower with fully stocked stores and restaurants, while the rest squat in the slums outside. Early in the film, it is clear that for privileged inhabitants of the Green, little has changed. Advertisements for condominiums in the Green describe it as a place where “life goes on.” This slogan aptly describes the wealthy tower inhabitants—for them, life does go on, much as it did before. Their insular post-apocalypse existences keep them as ignorant of zombies as their pre-apocalypse lives did of the poor. Inside the Green are floor-to-ceiling glass windows that permit the wealthy occupants to view the city below without having to come into contact with any of the slum dwellers. These windows with their unobstructed views accentuate how privilege for residents of the Green is more than access to expensive material possessions—it is freedom from imminent zombie attack. In the other films in Romero's Dead series, ground floor windows are always boarded up as a visual reminder to the viewer of how survivors must be ever mindful of the threat posed by zombies. Mean- while, outside of the Green, life does nor go on in the same way for everyone else. Members of the middle and working classes from the old world have become one equally disenfranchised mass who survive by making themselves useful to the rich or selling shop-worn goods to one another. Nevertheless, establishing a world where “life goes on” for the wealthy has been more complicated than hiting people to perform essential services and turning on the electricity. The extended absence of the old social struc- tures has caused members of the subordinate classes to fall out of the habit of performing as docile bodies, subjects who have inscribed in themselves “the JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS