The dead are rising: Gender and technology in the landscape of crisis

This chapter investigates the gender-technology divide through the Zombie Apocalypse. Zombies ‘provide indexes of how we collectively [grapple] with past (and present) social issues’ (Platts, Social Compass 7(7): 547–560, 2013), indicating that they are a social barometer of both our past and present situation. They may be “read” in a variety of ways, suggesting that the zombie is both metaphor and symbol, and that the zombie apocalypse narrative is largely allegorical. George A Romero’s Living Dead series begins in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead and has had numerous sequels. For the purposes of this chapter, Diary of the Dead (2007) has been selected for exploration. While DOTD did not have a major cinematic release in the US, it has been selected for three very important reasons: it fits into the wider Night of the Living Dead (1968) franchise; it privileges an unorthodox, amateur filming and editing style that has become increasingly employed in the contemporary horror film (Was popularised by the Blair Witch Project (1999) and utilised sporadically until Paranormal Activity (2009) repopularised it with such a profound impact on contemporary horror films); and, finally, it represents American university students engaging with filmmaking education and simultaneously applying this amateur style to their own project before the Zombie Apocalypse pans out.