Fear the Fetish: Media, Monster Capitalism and the Meta-Myth of Zombies

In order to advance our argument, we first understand zombies as an archetype of the dialectical narrative of modernity. Similar to Frankenstein, zombies are man-made monsters produced by modernity that rebel against humanity: the zombie represents the dream for an absolutely exploitative labor theory of value. We then expound our dialectical reading of zombies as both triumphant colonization of capitalism’s fetishism and alienation, as well as a symptom of a critical transition of neoliberalism to a post-globalization and post-democratic rhetoric. We illustrate our reading by examining several media representations of zombies, such as The Walking Dead (2010 – Present). Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer, 2009) and World War Z (Marc Forster, 2013).