The Agony of Creativity Representations of the Apocalyptic In Day of the Dead by George A. Romero

Abstract

By means of this work I aim at recovering some peculiar notes of the cinema of George Romero dealing with his representation of the falling of the social system. This task will allow us to explore his critical potential, that reveals the excess and the inconsistencies of consumerism and capitalist imaginaries. In other words, I
aim at observing the means by which different aspects presented in a sciencefiction environment can be compared to some proposals offered by social human sciences, particularly by philosophy, on the cultural crisis in Western societies because of the gradual weakening of their main institutions.

I will consider Romero's approach to certain exhaustion of the world, expressed by means of the metaphor of the zombie apocalypse, particularly in the contrast between two images of the first scenes of the film Day of the Dead (1985). On the basis of the recovery of the concept of zombie that has been appearing in recent critical essays, I aim at also recovering the relevance that mimesis, as social behavior, makes manifest in the characterization of Romero's zombie and the importance of this aspect in relation to some social phenomena connected to his cinema. The trends in critical philosophy that will be reconsidered here are identified mainly with the early evaluation of philosophy developed by Friedrich Nietzsche in his observations about history and Western societies difficulty for creating culture. On the basis of this interpretation, the theoretical contributions made by Cornelius Castoriadis and Byung-Chul Han will be also reconsidered.