There’s a lot that can be said about how modern audiences view movies. We have access to almost every film ever made at the touch of a button, able to watch and rewatch, pause and analyse, contemplate and converse, to our hearts content. Over time things can be overworked, ideas overblown, our connection with characters, story, or plot, stripped away. We become desensitized to the intent of the visionaries, adopt criticisms of so-called experts and apply it like gospel.
The Night of the Living Dead Trilogy, written and directed by the infamous George Romero, falls under this umbrella of popular media that comes under scrutiny with two of its films: Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978), hailed as two of the best zombie films ever made. Although they are well loved by fans and movie makers alike, many find issues with their portrayals of women.
Night of the Living Dead (1968) takes place on the first night of a zombie apocalypse. There is no information. There is no warning. There is no understanding of what is happening. Even the audience is being introduced to this idea of reanimated flesh eating dead for the first time. Here we meet Barbara, a quiet and respectable woman, along with her mischievous brother Johnny who teases her relentlessly about her fear of the cemetery. In the background, we see our first glimpse of the adversary shambling towards the pair that are completely unaware of the danger to befall them.
Now, this sets up a problem that a lot of modern audiences make for themselves. They are more expectant of characters to be able to perform under pressure. There are six ways people can react to extreme stress: Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, fine, and flop. Barbara goes through at least three through the film: flight, flop and eventually fight. Many fail to realize that they could react in the same manner as Barbara if faced with something just as, if not more, traumatic.
Modern audiences have strong opinions of how she should be reacting instead of how she does react. The intense disapproval wipes away any trace of humanity for this character. Barbara isn’t a well seasoned veteran or someone who has information and knowledge of what is happening. She’s being exposed to this horror in real time without a chance to process or get herself together.
Her situation is empathetic, she just watched her brother die protecting her. The man, or ghoul, that killed him then pursues her, chasing her through an unknown town. When she finds a place to hide, she arms herself and tries to call for help, all the while the thing is still stumbling around outside. With all of these things happening she then finds a half eaten corpse in a pile of blood. All of these things happen within maybe a half an hour. Let’s be honest with ourselves, to the average person, man or woman, that’s a whole lot to try and mentally process all at once. She never endangered anyone and stayed out of the way, even saving a fellow survivor at the end.
It is well known that Romero had political inclinations when writing these films. Night of the Living Dead (1968) is generally regarded to speak on the racial climate of the time rather than current beliefs of where women belonged in society. The second film: Dawn of the Dead (1978), elaborates a little more on feminine issues. Francine is the only named female character in the film and is fleshed out a bit more than Barbara.
Now unlike Barbara, Francine hasn’t had much first hand experience with the zombies. There’s a general consensus that Dawn is set a few weeks after Night, so Francine has access to information about what is happening. She has some sort of picture of what these things are and how to handle them. Her and her boyfriend are at a radio station, a central hub of knowledge. The world is beginning to succumb to the pressure of an impending apocalypse and the ever growing need to save oneself is becoming ever present.
When they escape the city and find themselves outside of civilization she experiences moments of freeze, flight, and eventually fight. When they first arrive at the pristine, untouched shopping center she claims that the mall is a prison but as long as the power was on and they had clean water, it was the best chance they could’ve had. However, unlike Barbara, we learn much more about this woman as she is given a nightmare scenario to handle: handling a pregnancy during the end of civilization.
Pregnancy and childbirth are no walk in the park. Movies and TV shows don’t accurately reflect just how difficult and strenuous labor can be. Not to mention just how difficult raising a child is in general. However the reality of her situation gives her motivation to step up into a more active role while living in their consumeristic purgatory. We see Francine looking for books on childcare, and maternity clothes while learning how to handle the dead and becoming the backup pilot.
Francine has a strong support system in her boyfriend, the father of her child, and Pete, their fellow survivor as they adjust to their lives within the walls of the mall. They have power, clean water, sanitation, and food. A safe enough place to begin to call home to try and weather the storm. Her growth as a character is noticeable and distinct from how she started out.
Day of the Dead (1985) is the final film and Dr. Sarah Bowman is the solitary female character in this film, which takes place five years after the events of Dawn. Dr. Bowman is what modern audiences have come to expect from all women in this genre. An accomplished and competent woman, performing research and looking for a solution to the zombie issue. She knows her way around a gun and can keep up with the men around her despite their attitudes towards her.
She’s caught in the middle of a group of survivors, a mix of scientists, soldiers and a couple civilians, struggling to communicate and find common ground as their stability wavers. The film explores the unpredictability of humanity and the fragility of peace that we all take for granted as she juggles keeping everyone happy. Surrounded by men who openly mock and degrade her and her romantic relationship with a man on the verge of insanity. Sarah watches as her only means for survival in this world slips through her fingers.
All three of these characters make sense in the section of the apocalypse they exist in. Barbara is in the thralls of the first hours of an apocalypse, facing monsters, chaos, and the overwhelming unknown in real time. Francine is doing her best to hold herself together and trying to prepare against the end of the world while new life is growing within her. Sarah is at the end of societal collapse facing humanity at its worst and trying to survive with the skills that have kept her alive all this time. Romero understood people and wrote these women in a way that still reverberates through audiences decades later.