Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies

Dawn of the Shopping Dead

195 Dawn of the Shopping Dead Matt Bailey In 1978, George A. Romero released the second of his cult classic zombie films, Dawn of the Dead. Set in an out-of-town mall, the movie critiqued a shopping culture that had become central to American life. Romero parodied those who were magnetically drawn to the mall, lured by trinkets and bright lights into a wonderland of consumption. But he also appreciated the mall’s social importance. A thread of memory calls his zombies back even though they are dead to material pleasure. They roam the movie mall’s carpark and stumble through its darkened, unpowered interior. Malls were suburban America’s great social site and here, in a post-zombie-attack landscape, they continue their key role of drawing the surrounding population to a central location. This chapter uses Dawn of the Dead as an avenue to explore the recent past. Such usage of popular culture is a relatively new addition to historical studies. Historians made forays into folk culture in the 1920s and 1930s, while the 1960s saw examinations of popular culture by historians interested in reclaiming a voice for the working class. In the 1970s and 1980s, social Dawn of the Shopping Dead 196 historians further emphasized the importance of popular culture for ordinary people. Cultural historians have since focused even more specifically on cultural productions—from sports to music to movies—using them to discuss and analyze broad social and cultural changes. Following in this tradition, I use Dawn of the Dead here to explore the development of the shopping mall and its place in postwar consumer society. The movie opens with America in crisis. Zombies have risen violently to overtake and disrupt all facets of everyday life. Nowhere is safe. It is against the law to remain in a private residence , however secure. The media continue to operate, but broadcasts are inconsistent and chaotic. Anarchy rules. For the movie’s key characters, the situation is becoming unbearable. Francine and her fiancé, Stephen, work in a television station. As it descends into chaos, Stephen persuades her to flee with him in the station’s helicopter. Their friend Roger is a member of a SWAT team. During a particularly bloody and traumatic zombie cleanout of an apartment block, he meets Peter, another SWAT officer. Recognizing a shared inner pain at the carnage they daily witness and deliver, Roger offers Peter a seat in the helicopter on which he, too, plans to escape the city. The four meet on the roof of the station and fly into the night. The next day they pass over “redneck” hunting parties shooting zombies for sport before landing at a small abandoned airport. They procure fuel, but also attract roaming zombies that must be fought off. There is no safe ground; they must keep running. Returning to the air in search of a secure refuge, the four argue, unable to agree on a direction or plan. Another night passes, but daylight brings a change of fortune. Below, a sprawling carpark surrounds a windowless, box-like structure. “What the hell is it?” asks Peter. “Looks like a … shopping center ,” Stephen replies. “One of those big indoor malls.” Peter might have spent too much time in the city because, by the late 1970s, malls covered the American suburban landscape. Every civilization has its great monuments: the pyramids, the Agora, the Great Wall, castles, canals, temples, churches and so on. America, and now much of the rest of the world, has malls. After fifty years of North American dominance, the world’s largest malls are now in Asia, reflecting both the spread Matt Bailey 197 of consumerism and a changing world order. Malls cater to Asia’s rising middle class and its explosion in car use. On a smaller scale, malls served the same function in 1950s America , where widespread car use saw the population move out from the city into what we now call suburban sprawl. Like Fran, Stephen, Peter and Roger, the motivations for flight were the poor conditions and decay of the urban core, and the hope for a better life beyond it. Many postwar American cities faced problems with traffic congestion, inadequate parking, aging buildings and declining property values. The Great Depression and World War II had seen little maintenance or upgrade of building stock. A high demand for accommodation brought cheap subdivisions of existing apartments, while much new construction...