The figure of the zombie does not stay still. It instead morphs around core persisting elements: ‘vacant’, ‘robotic’, ‘neither alive nor dead’ and an ‘underclass demography’.[1] Born as a ‘thing of mythology’, the zombie was a Haitian tradition long before it became a modern cultural spectacle.[2]2 Its form has changed over time, first it was a ‘little understood voodoo practice’, before morphing into a pulpy cinema monster of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, then in the works of J.A. Romeo turned it to a modern diseased pandemical creature.[3] These eras, in which the zombie has been ‘remade’, contextualises their usage in support of neo-colonialism as well as critique it.[4]

Several theories of neo-colonialism will be useful in providing a lens for understanding the usage of zombies as a support for neo-colonialism as well as its critic. Satre’s theories found in ‘Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism’ apply Marxist concepts to analyse neo-colonialism in a francophone context.[5] Satre also provides a background for another important theorist, Fanon, and his theory of ‘psychoanalytic deconstruction’ of colonialism.[6]

     The cultural colonialism of the zombie is no doubt an example of Fanon’s comment that ‘the black soul is a white man’s artefact.’[7] The culture of the zombie has been utilised to support neo-colonialism, specifically of the bodies and souls of the oppressed. As neo-colonialism ‘denotes a continuing economy hegemony’ and forced ex-colonies to be ‘subject to the effect control of the major world powers’, this essay will examine the control supported by the figure of the zombie in a post-colonial world.[8] It will also shine a light on the instances where the zombie is reframed to critique neo-colonialism.

     The figure of the zombie served as a covert support for colonialism and later neo- colonialism because of its links with slavery and dehumanisation of Black bodies. As Fanon says: ‘The disaster and inhumanity of the white man lie in the fact that somewhere he has killed man. And even today they subsist, to organize this dehumanization rationally.’[9] One of the tools of dehumanization is the figure of the zombie.

     Evidence for the use of the figure of the zombie to serve as a support for neo-colonialism can largely be found in popular culture. With Anglo-phone zombie films arguably beginning in the 1930s with works like White Zombie it is clear to see the support for neo-colonialism within the script. Throughout the film there are several thematic links to slavery, the zombies’ function as servants at the beck-and-call of a master, who utilises them for their unending labour.[10] But despite these overt links to slavery, the harsh treatment of black individuals throughout the film does not suggest that they are worthy of humanisation, instead suggesting that they are almost more desirable when they are lobotomised. This is shown when one of the male characters states that he would rather his lover be dead than in the hands of the natives.[11] It seems that throughout the film, the presence of Black individuals is what makes the environment of Haiti unsettling rather than the zombies themselves. The film tries to portray enslaved Haitians as more comfortable than free Haitians, as clear support for neo-colonialism.

     Other examples of the origin of this dynamic are found in all of voodoo, as it has been viewed with suspicion outside of Haiti, despite being called “the supreme factor of Haitian unity" by Francois Duvalier.[12] The zombie is perhaps the aspect of Haitian culture that is most utilised to support neo-colonialism. In the book that inspired the film White Zombie, The Magic Island by

W. B. Seabrook, there is an entire chapter titled ‘dead men working in the cane fields.’[13] This it seems is a close fantasy to reviving the transatlantic slave trade under the United States occupation of Haiti. Whilst the work by Seabrook could be seen as a cautionary tale showing ‘the proletarianization of Haitian peasants by multinational corporations’, those seem to have all but vanished in White Zombie follow up.[14] Throughout the film, White Zombie abandons that possible criticism for a belief that the presence of Haitian inspires the white western men to begin ‘protecting white women’.[15]

     As Nkrumah writes in his book Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, ‘the state which is subject… has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus political policy is directed from outside.’[16] This direction from outside directly mirrors the portrayal of the zombie’s control in White Zombie. This could be seen as a critique of neo-colonialism but instead is only seen as a true horror when ‘the white protagonists might become zombies themselves.’[17] This seems to be suggesting that the mechanics of neo- colonialism are only immoral when turned against the western world.

     The figure of the zombie has also been used as a criticism of neo-colonialism. Whilst it has reliably used as a support for neo-colonialism, attempts to coopt the figure for a critical work of media has had some prominence. These examples of retelling of the figure of the zombie fit within what Fanon says that ‘the white man … he has killed man. And even today they subsist, to organize this dehumanization rationally.’[18] This dehumanization is highlighted by portraying the zombie figure as sympathetic.

     In Francophone media, the 2012-2015 series Les Revenants and the 2004 film of the same name that inspired it are both examples of criticism of the dehumanisation of refugees. The zombies in the 2004 film by Robin Campillo, are ‘narrative devices to denounce the anti- humanism with which migrants were victimized in Calais in the early 2000s.’[19] The film of 2004, distinctly counters the ‘events that took place at the Sangatte refugee camp in 2002’.[20] Later parallels throughout the film are noted by Claire Mouflard to be a reminder of the ‘camps that were opened at the end of the Algerian War’ and the fear of an ‘under-class’.[21] The camps were part of an independence movement against French colonialism.[22]

     In Mouflard’s analysis of the Les Revenants series and film, she notes that the camps are used primarily as a tool for associating the media to the real world of French history. It shows throughout the ‘demonizing – or zombifying – by the group’s general consciousness’ and how those who are victims to colonialisation are continually dehumanized under neo-colonialism.[23] This analysis of neo-colonial treatment of refugees provides a useful criticism of neo-colonialism through the figure of the zombie.

     In modern media the zombie has taken to new heights.[24] They are selected for enemies in games because they are “a group of (literally) voiceless, mentally and physically sub-human Others, [so] it is hard not to read them as a stand-in or euphemism for threatening but too human Others, whether unwanted class or ethnic group or merely political unsavories.”[25] Despite the

overt racial element being left in the past, the ‘sub-human’ element of the zombie keeps being racialised throughout other iterations. Whilst it is possible for the zombies to be used as a critique of neo-colonialism, all too often it seems to function as a tool for its support. A trend within zombie media is its reflections of ‘cultural anxieties about global capitalism, displaced people the threat they pose to our ‘lives,’ in addition to how we form our cultural and human identities and human identities.’[26] An article on the documentary Stop Filming Us by Yasmina Price ‘Western Films about Africa Are Neocolonial Even When They Try Not to Be,’ also discusses the attempt to document a colonialized world from an outside perspective never truly does it justice.[27] This is similar in the portrayal of Haitian culture and the zombie.

     A prime example of racial othering found in modern zombie media is in Resident Evil 5. It has been noted by André Brock that “Cultural differences and Western stereotypes of Black degeneracy combine in RE5’s African zombies, and the game justifies these depictions by creative manipulation of its backstory and rationale.”[28] It shows a depiction of people as subhuman, which feeds into narratives of white superiority and neo-colonialism.

     Many of these problematic original depiction of the zombie can be found in the display of power over the Black body in Caribbean plantations. Specifically, this can be seen in the ‘staging of the tortured black body as a sign of plantation power.’[29] The zombie throughout the various forms of modern media is still represented as the ‘the lowest being on the social scale: a thingified no-person reduced to its productive capacity.’[30]

     However, there is room to argue that the zombie is also an anti-colonial figure, one that is ‘a victim.’[31] Whilst a villain, it can be interpreted as a manipulated and ‘an expression of Haitianness.’[32] It seems to be an expression of the experience of slavery and the control enforced upon Haitian slaves making them feel ‘depersonalized and reduced… to a state of absolute impotence.’[33] Ultimately, it is nature of neo-colonialism to take the possession of the colonised and repurpose and repose them for the purpose of the coloniser. It seems the zombie is one of them.

 

[1] The Year’s Work at The Zombie Research Centre, ed. by E. Comentale and A. Jaffe, (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2014), p. 8.

[2] K. Bishop, American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture, (Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 2010), p. 37.

[3] Ibid.

[4] S. J. Lauro, The Transatlantic Zombie: Slavery, Rebellion, and Living Death, (London: Rutgers University Press, 2015), p. 148.

[5] J. Satre, Colonialism and Neocolonialism, trans. by A. Haddour, S. Brewer, T. McWilliams (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. vii-xi.

[6] F. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. by C. L. Markmann (London: Pluto Press, 1986), p. x.

[7] Ibid, p. 6.

[8] R. J. C. Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), pp. 44-45.

[9] Fanon, Black Skin, p. 180.

[10] White Zombie, dir. by V. Halperin (Halperin Production, 1932).

[11] Ibid.

[12] A. Apter, ‘On African Origins: Creolization and Connaissance in Haitian Vodou’, American Ethnologist, Vol. 29, No. 2 (2002) p. 245.

[13] W. B. Seabrook, The Magic Island, (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929), p. 94.

[14] R. Dalleo, American Imperialism’s Undead: The Occupation of Haiti and the Rise of Caribbean

Anticolonialism (London: University of Virginia Press, 2016), p. 183.

[15] Ibid.

[16] K. Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1965), p. ix.

[17] K. Bishop, ‘The Sub-Altern Monster: Imperialist Hegemony and the Cinematic Voodoo Zombie’, The Journal of American Culture, Vol. 31, No. 2, (2008), p. 141.

[18] Fanon, Black Skin, p. 180.

[19] C. Mouflard, ‘Zombies and Refugees: Variations on the “Post-Human” and the “Non-human” in Robin Campillo’s Les Revenants (2004) and Fabrice Gobert’s Les Revenants (2012-2015)’, Humanities, Vol. 5, No. 48, (2016), p. 2.

[20] Ibid, p. 3.

[21] Mouflard, ‘Zombies and Refugees’, p. 3 & The Year’s Work at The Zombie Research Centre, ed. by E. Comentale and A. Jaffe, (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2014), p. 8.

[22] Mouflard, ‘Zombies and Refugees’, p. 3

[23] Ibid, p. 4.

[24] E. Aarseth and H. Backe, Ludic Zombies: An Examination of Zombieism in Games (Denmark: DiGRA, 2013), p. 1.

[25] Ibid.

[26] McKenzie Yuasa, ‘Reanimating Identities: The Zombie Manifestation of a Darker America’, Occam’s Razor, Vol. 3, No. 2, (2013), p. 2.

[27] Y. Price, ‘Western Films About Africa Are Neocolonial Even When They Try Not to Be’, Hyperallergic, 30 May, 2021 <https://hyperallergic.com/648474/stop-filming-us-congo-documentary-colonialism/>

[accessed 15 December 2023].

[28] A. Brock, ‘”When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong”: Resident Evil 5, Racial Representation, and Gamers’,

Games and Culture, Vol. 6, No. 5, p. 442.

[29] E. M. Dillon, ‘Zombie Biopolitics’, American Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 3, (2019), p. 625.

[30] K. L. Glover, Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Post-Colonial Canon, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010), p.59.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid.