Graduation Year
2010
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Granting Department
Humanities and Cultural Studies
Major Professor
Dan Belgrad, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Andrew Berish, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Phillip Sipiora, Ph.D.
Keywords
Horror, Film, Zombie, Psychosocial, Cultural Hegemony
Abstract
Analyzing George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) in relation to the early works of Marshal McLuhan, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse reveals an ideological parallel that can be explicated using Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony. While McLuhan, Marcuse, and Fromm observe, in order to critique, social manifestations of power in a consumerist system, Romero presents a model of hegemony in his films that he exposes to extreme stress thereby allowing viewers to observe such manifestations of power for themselves. These analyses are significant because although Marcuse, McLuhan, Fromm, and Romero present congruous ideologies, scholars of Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead have failed to recognize cultural hegemony as the source of the psychosocial criticism within each film.
Scholar Commons Citation
Wagenheim, Christopher Paul, "From Night to Dawn: The Cultural Criticism of George A. Romero" (2010). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/3823
