Abstract
The AMC television series, The Walking Dead (henceforth, “TWD”), centers on a group of people and their experiences as they seek safety and long-term stability following a global health pandemic that leads to a postapocalyptic world filled with cannibalistic, reanimated dead, or “Walkers” (often referred to as “zombies” or “the living dead” in contemporary U.S. pop culture). TWD is based on a comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard and was developed into a television show by executive producers Frank Darabount and Gale Anne Hurd (Otto 2010). Premiering in 2010 and heading toward its seventh season, TWD continues to grow in popularity, ranking as one of the top shows for viewership and social media exposure in 2015 (Kissel 2015).
The story follows Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln), a police officer from Atlanta, Georgia, as he traverses a world of threats posed by Walkers as well as other human survivors, or “The Living.” In the series premier, “Days Gone By,” Rick is shot in the line of duty prior to the pandemic, falls into a coma, and awakens to find himself alone in an abandoned hospital and a world filled with Walkers. The viewer comes to learn the Walker virus is highly communicable and that being bitten leads to death and eventual reanimation into a Walker. This serves as the premise for the story, which follows Rick as he seeks to locate his family and safety in light of the dangers posed in a postapocalyptic United States.
A number of sociological themes can be mined out of the series. The fallout of a cataclysmic health pandemic and the social consequences for society conjures two interesting questions for sociologists. First, what type(s) of societies would emerge after such a pandemic? Second, how would social hierarchies shift? In the aftermath, we see the demise of state-based formal mechanisms of social control (polity) and capitalist mass production (economy). This breeds social instability as The Living compete over limited resources, while seeking food, shelter, and safety. Harkening back to Durkheim ([1893] 1960), we could theorize that the disintegration of social institutions and lack of formal regulation would result in mass-scale societal disorganization. Yet, in TWD, survivors eventually band together to form new types of social organizations, gravitating between hunter-gatherer and agrarian societies. Given these changes, we are left to ask: How would people be stratified in a postapocalyptic society? Would hierarchies of gender, race, and class endure? If so, how and to what extent? Despite a few incidences of hostile racial interactions early in the first season, the presence of racial minorities, gay, and lesbian characters as well as interracial and same-sex relationships (at least in Rick’s group) would lead us to think no. What we do see change is the status of white working-class women and men, who become instrumental to Rick’s group well-being. For instance, Carol (played by Melissa McBride), a homemaker and mother, is initially portrayed as being submissive to an abusive husband but eventually emerges to be an independent and cunning character willing to kill people (including group members) who pose a threat to the group’s general safety. With regard to white working-class men, Daryl (played by Norman Reedus) is initially portrayed as an individualistic, antisocial, outdoorsman, but becomes a valuable group member with important skills such as hunting and tracking. This suggests that ability (such as wit and skills) rather than ascribed statuses of gender or class would play a greater role in determining the social status of individuals in a postapocalyptic world.
A second theme revolves around the social construction of deviance, as it relates to competition and conflict between The Living. This is evident throughout the series, as Rick, who emerges as a de facto group authority figure, grapples with prioritizing in-group survival while trying to maintain some semblance of humanity. On the one hand, Rick’s experiences eventually lead him to be weary of all nonmembers and out-groups’ intentions and motivations. By default, and as the story evolves, all out-group members are seen as resource competitors and pose an immediate threat to group safety. Still, Rick understands that incorporating new members into the group is necessary for group vitality and, perhaps, a return to human civility. This is apparent as Rick eventually surmises all outsiders his group encounters must have committed acts deemed unthinkable (ranging from theft and betrayal to murder and cannibalism, among others) in the society they once knew in order to survive. In turn, Rick develops and poses three questions to out-group members he encounters: (1) “How many walkers have you killed?,” (2) “How many people (The Living) have you killed?,” and (3) “Why?” Whereas the first question alludes to their potential to protect the group from Walkers, the last two aim to uncover whether they pose a threat to the group’s survival. That is, those who kill people for reasons beyond personal safety are not worthy of group membership. Hence, deviance (in this case, killing) is a social construct and dependent on the situation (Becker 1963). In posing these questions, Rick seeks to maintain the survival of his group and at the same time, a code of humanity in a hostile world.
In the end, the show presents scenarios that speak to questions sociologists have asked. On this note, the series can serve as a springboard for interesting discussion in the classroom by not only presenting hypothetical scenarios (beyond those presented above) but for also analyzing other areas of social inquiry and particularly those revolving around masculinity (Mulvey 2015; Sugg 2015). Moreover, the growing interest in zombie fiction has coincided with published works that use statistical modeling to demonstrate the rate of a “zombie virus” infection (Duda et al. 2012; Munz et al. 2009). In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2011) has used the zombie virus scenario as a teaching tool for how to react to disasters, and particularly, the outbreak of highly infectious diseases. Essentially, TWD provides a number of practical scenarios which can be explored through a critical sociological lens to help us revisit and understand the relationships between individuals, groups, and society.