{"id":323,"date":"2019-02-10T22:40:59","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T03:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/?p=323"},"modified":"2019-02-10T22:45:12","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T03:45:12","slug":"surrealism-of-death-through-a-digital-medium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/2019\/02\/10\/surrealism-of-death-through-a-digital-medium\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrealism of Death through a Digital Medium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dead Set\u00a0<\/em>presents reality shown through different mediums (reality tv show\/news\/reality of the tv room) by exemplifying postmodern horror with the zombies disrupting everyday life. There’s irony\/self awareness in Dead Set <\/em>from the fact that there is a reality tv show within a tv show, using different mediums to mock digital culture and the blurred lines of what is perceived to be “truth” and what is curated to look like the truth. The first appearance of the zombie in the show seemed almost ironic from a 2019 perspective because of the abundance of zombies in our digital culture (from\u00a0The Walking Dead\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0Pride and Prejudice and Zombies –\u00a0<\/em>which is a clash of modern lit with postmodern horror) that in my perspective, the sudden appearance of zombies coupled with its self-awareness that the viewers are watching a tv show of a tv network producing a reality tv show made it quite unbelievable due to its overloaded with its digital mediums and elements of postmodern horror.
\nWhat I found the most fascinating was how rules are created and changed depending on the different simulations of reality the characters are in. In the tv network building, the horror of that space is the uncomfortable gaze of the male tv network producer and the significance of eviction night that ensues chaos from people. In the reality tv show, “getting a red card” is the worst case scenario, and being evicted is the horror. In the news, the horror is the uncertainty of the reason behind the riots and the fact that people are getting killed. All three of these simulations are then encompassed by the “true” reality of zombies roaming about and attacking people, and this truth literally clashes into the space of the tv network and the reality tv show, illustrating how different simulations create different realities. When Kelly bursts into the house where\u00a0Big Brother\u00a0<\/em>happens, the people in the tv show clap thinking she is a new guest. Even the attack of the zombies is ridiculed and seen as a Big Brother\u00a0<\/em>challenge\u00a0due to the fact that these people are trapped in the “reality” of this tv show and this is their world. There is a surrealistic element when death is presented through a digital medium as it distances people from recognizing the truth of circumstances or to be in touch with their reality, removing empathy and violating the boundaries of rationality and irrationality.
\nMy favorite quote that stuck out to me from the first two episodes was when one of the characters, with disappointment that there are actual zombies and they’re not being filmed anymore, states, \u00a0“Does this mean we’re not on telly anymore?”
\nDead Set downright mocks pop culture with that quote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dead Set\u00a0presents reality shown through different mediums (reality tv show\/news\/reality of the tv room) by exemplifying postmodern horror with the zombies disrupting everyday life. There’s irony\/self awareness in Dead Set from the fact that there is a reality tv show within a tv show, using different mediums to mock digital culture and the blurred lines …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-b"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paB9Ga-5d","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/240"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}