Description of Zombies in White Zombie: In the Context of Magic Island and Classic Horror Movies

FUKUDA, Asako

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

<論文>『ホワイト・ゾンビ』におけるゾンビの描写 --シーブルック『魔法の島』と古典ホラー映画との関連から

Description

White Zombie (1932) is considered the first feature-length zombie film. Prior literature argues that the concept of a zombie emerged from encounters with voodoo magic in Haiti, and the zombie acted as a metaphor for slaves. However, this film contains zombies returning to human form and zombies that are given names and distinctive personality traits. The paper asks why the zombies were presented in this way. This paper first, inquires into the notion of a slave-like zombie responding to the curiosity of Americans from this particular period of the 1930s. It then discusses the representation of a white female zombie, reflecting the complexity of problems such as race and hierarchy inside Haiti, and the position of America in Western society at that time. Finally, it explores the relationship between the magician and the heroine in the context of horror movies from the 1930s. Thus, by analyzing how zombies were depicted in White Zombie, this paper explores how the film acts as not only a documentation of experiences in Haiti, but also how it describes many problems pertaining to social and culture existing in Western society in the 1930s.

Journal

Contact zone

Contact zone 11 (2019), 122-142, 2019-08-31

京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科文化人類学分野

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

CRID: 1050282813457354880

NII Article ID: 120006719360

NII Book ID: AA12260795

ISSN: 21885974

HANDLE: 2433/243976

Text Lang: ja

Article Type: departmental bulletin paper

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