{"id":515,"date":"2017-02-14T13:59:51","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T13:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=515"},"modified":"2017-02-14T14:51:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T14:51:22","slug":"self-awareness-in-the-zombie-apocalypse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/02\/14\/self-awareness-in-the-zombie-apocalypse\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Awareness in the Zombie Apocalypse"},"content":{"rendered":"
Dead Set<\/em>: Season 1 Episode 1 (2008). 13 Feb. 2017 via Wonder Alliance<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s just me, but I find myself stuck in postmodern-analysis mode, so I couldn\u2019t help but focus that lens on the first two episodes of <\/span>Dead Set<\/span><\/i>. As part-time of zombie-aficionado, \u00a0I found myself wondering: have any of the characters on <\/span>Dead Set<\/span><\/i> ever seen a zombie movie? It seems as if zombie-media doesn\u2019t exist in the universe of the show (although <\/span>Big Brother <\/span><\/i>certainly does, and <\/span>Big Brother <\/span><\/i>\u201cstars\u201d have cameos throughout these two episodes). Many other zombie narratives take a similar approach, separating their characters from the cultural zeitgeist of zombies–even in parodies of the genre like <\/span>Shaun of the Dead <\/span><\/i>(2004) and <\/span>Zombieland <\/span><\/i>(2009) that revel in the fact that they are zombie movies. Maybe this is my inner armchair-zombologist speaking or maybe it\u2019s the requisite irrationality of the horror genre or maybe it\u2019s even the stupidity of some of the characters but, quite frankly, the characters on <\/span>Dead Set<\/span><\/i> make some pretty dumb decisions during the zombie apocalypse. <\/span><\/p>\n

Such lack of knowledge would indicate an unfamiliarity with the zombie subgenre. Yet the characters seem intimately familiar (if not obsessed) with TV and the medium as whole. The fictional show takes place partially on the set of a real-life TV show, and the characters playing the crew reference past seasons and characters from the same TV show. Plus <\/span>Dead Set<\/span><\/i> plays on <\/span>Big Brother<\/span><\/i>\u2019s audience and the nature of reality tv itself, depicting the audience\u2019s shallowness and distance from reality before slaughtering them in one big \u201cfuck you\u201d (in the show\u2019s parlance) to the devotees of the reality game show. And if that isn\u2019t enough, they bring up real-world TV shows repeatedly, ranging from a brief mention of <\/span>I\u2019m a Celebrity<\/span><\/i> to a distraction technique inspired by <\/span>One Man and His Dog<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The kicker however, comes in the beginning of the second episode. Here, they rattle off zombie-movie tropes, blaming bioterrorism (\u201cloony gas\u201d), unbridled scientific ambition from the government or military (\u201cGM foods\u201d), and finally the dreaded \u201cWi-Fi\u201d for the outbreak. With this moment, <\/span>Dead Set<\/span><\/i> cements styles itself with some of the self-awareness that characterized the horror-comedies mentioned above. Though the infection itself is played much straighter than those of <\/span>Shaun of the Dead<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Zombieland<\/span><\/i>, the show itself doesn\u2019t shy away from some of the darkly funny moments that accompany its death and destruction, using this balance to help viewers focus on other messages of the show (which we have yet to see completely) rather than just the horror or comedy that\u2019s used to communicate them.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps it\u2019s just me, but I find myself stuck in postmodern-analysis mode, so I couldn\u2019t help but focus that lens on the first two episodes of Dead Set. As part-time of zombie-aficionado, \u00a0I found myself wondering: have any of the characters on Dead Set ever seen a zombie movie? It seems as if zombie-media doesn\u2019t … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Self-Awareness in the Zombie Apocalypse”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":516,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions\/516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}