UCLA

With massive global releases, South Korean zombie dramas Kingdom and All of Us Are Dead provide exciting new insight into the existing zombie canon. Zombiism as a study relies heavily on Western (primarily white) examples of the genre, however the dominance of South Korean popular culture in recent decades forces a canonical shift, decentering Western issues in favor of global ones. Streaming services available all over the world offer new partnership opportunities for media exports. The recent Netflix dramas contain representations of female characters reacting to the existing societal patriarchy. Utilizing Young-Hee Shim’s interpretations of Michel Foucault’s concept of subjectivity and Ulrich Beck’s theory of emancipatory catastrophism, zombie dramas present an opportunity for female characters to assert their independence from the paternalistic, Confucian society around them. Contextualizing the Korean female battle for equality with a Korean traumatic history of sexual slavery through comfort women, the female characters relate to their gender and femininity uniquely. Despite the different subject matter within the dramas, both address women’s subjugation and their battle for equality. Utilizing the zombie apocalypse as a framework for massive social upheaval, women reject the stereotypes and gender roles they are forced into under the Confucian patriarchy. This contributes to the broader zombie genre, revealing that resistance to violent masculinity’s oppression exists across the globe.