World War Z

Source: CDC

My local paper ran a feature McClatchy-Tribune News story about the new zombie film, World War Z. I read the book during the Christmas-New Year's break and enjoyed it, though I know that fans are a bit worried about the movie. Of course, readers are often worried that film directors will butcher their favorite book when it is translated to the big screen.

As everyone in IR knows, Dan Drezner's related book has made zombies a hot topic in the discipline. Zombies represent threats and provide a conveniently abstract way of thinking about how different IR theories explain and address threats. Zombies make for an interesting pop culture teaching tool.

Along these lines, Roger Moore's feature story included some on-point quotes from World War Z director Marc Forster:

“Zombies have always been a great metaphor for other things — trends in society, outcasts. And when they show up, the rest of us have to put aside our differences, don’t we?” ...

“We’re living in a time where there is a lot of fear out there — failing economies, job uncertainties, terrorists, an environmental future that seems very uncertain. The movies are reflecting that. We’re fictionalizing everybody’s anxieties with zombies, and these other catastrophes on film." 

As any viewer of The Walking Dead knows, not every zombie story leads the main characters to put aside their differences.

Disclosure: I've proposed a conference paper based on this 2011 blog post: "Understanding Zombie Comedy." Thus, you might see more zombie blogging in coming months as I watch ParaNorman and Warm Bodies.


Visit this blog's homepage.

For 140 character IR and foreign policy talk, follow me on twitter.

Or for basketball, baseball, movies or other stuff, follow this personal twitter account.