‘Creatures in our bed’: Pandemics, posthumanism and predatory nature in World War Z (2013)

Abstract

There is a structure of feeling and a repetition of content wound through the cultural production of certain periods that is fundamentally apocalyptic: a deep-seated conviction that things are teetering on the precipice, that disaster is not just around the corner but the corner has already been turned. Now is one of those times. The anxiety and urgency are palpable, and not just because movies about the dead returning to life and waging war on us all are making a killing at the box office. We stand on the nervous razor edge of bad years bound to go worse, if we don't intervene, and we can't help but feel this.- Williams (2011:11) 1.The historical references to 'zombis or zombie-like entities' can be found 'in Equatorial and Central Africa and the Caribbean' (Ackerman & Gauthier 1991:466). The figure of the zombie has its origins in folklore, where it was 'raised by Voodoo priests to labor in the fields'This article provided a literary analysis of the film text World War Z (2013, dir. Marc Forster) with a specific focus on the pandemic depicted in the film and its relationship to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This discussion foregrounded the figure of the 'zombie' and the cultural anxieties that this literary figure represents. The pandemic in the film is brought about through an environmental crisis that mimics our own. Mother Earth and nature, personified as female, feature significantly in the film and evoke a discussion on survival, human nature versus animal nature and the figure of the posthuman. This article also employed a cultural studies approach to analyse how the pandemic depicted in the film evokes a Christian religious dimension through a particular scene that takes place in the Holy Land, Jerusalem. The film's depiction of pandemics, religion and the environmental crisis makes it worthy of discussion, especially in light of the current pandemic that the world is facing, with particular focus on humanity's response to it. The dystopian warnings that the film projects have echoes of the current social and ecological challenges that we are grappling with. The conclusion of the film deviates from the 'happy endings' indicative of Hollywood; rather, it engages with a situation where a temporary, substandard solution is found to an ongoing world-wide catastrophe. The ending of the film draws intriguing parallels to our own experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic and the absence of a cure.Contribution: This article provided a literary analysis of a film text. The discussion drew on cultural studies, popular culture and religion through the lens of Christianity, with a particular focus on the social and cultural anxieties that the figure of the 'zombie' holds as well as cultural interpretations of Mother Earth and nature as female.