Shaun of the Dead: Nostalgic Male domianted Society

Through out the movie Shaun is continuously trying to exert himself as an assertive male who is innovative in solving problems, when in fact his success is a fluke, which some how re- institutes  male dominance by the end of the movie.   In the beginning he has been dumped by his girl friend who is portrayed as an overpowering female that diminishes his masculinity.  And by the standards of what a working male is at his age he would be considered a slacker who is apathetic to responsibility.

THEN COME THE INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES:

In fact most of these characters could be considered zombies going about their daily lives not asserting themselves to make any sort of difference.  They each conform to the hegemonic state and even the only male who assimilates to a more respectable role of hegemony is still apart of the whole social design.  But then when real zombies actually appear then each person much reconstruct the way in which they see themselves and negate any questioning of their zombification by hegemony.

If we look at the transformation of Shaun’s girlfriend, who at first did not see Shaun as the successful male and thus could not fulfill her role as the complacent girlfriend, instead she must assume the male role of leadership.  But when the zombies attack it forces Shaun to assume his role as the male in the relationship thus and Liz can assume the position of the female, even though she knows that this new assertion on Shaun’s part is a farce.  In fact at one point when Shaun gives his speech about working together to fight off the zombies and he quotes someone that no one thinks to question, except for Liz who knows that he got it off a beer bottle.

Then by the end of the movie the zombies have been assimilated and commodified to accept their roles with in the capitalist structure as laborers, that will not try to usurp  the social hegemony.  The social order of the male and the female power structure is now also put in place, and Shaun and Liz become zombies once again to their gender roles.