Shaun of the Dead, earning just one star on Netflix, was a long, tedious end-of-the-semester letdown. (I can hear those of you cheering, “Finally, Kim suffers!”)
I’m sure we’ll discuss in class just how cleverly postmodern the film is, yet I’m painfully aware that without an affinity for zombie flicks I’m missing the lifeblood and guts of the joke. I couldn’t wait for the nightmare of boredom to end. At the same time, I look forward to reading Ryan’s reaction as zombies are far more his thing.
Since I have no emotional investment in this film, meet Nick from “The Theory of Chaos Blog” who wrote a far more insightful and enjoyable Shaun of the Dead review. His comments helped me understand what I was watching more so than watching alone. In the mix, Nick provides this gem of a summation:
This almost appallingly-amusing movie’s central joke is that there’s no thing too weird, say, for example, an apocalypse of the walking dead, that we as people couldn’t eventually filter into a background irritant. The inertia of the average low-watt slacker, we see, will always bring him back to his couch, television and beer.
Yeah, I get – and even admire – the message. The thing is, this format is designed for a very specific audience. I’m not it.
I will say that when Shaun was zombified long before the Zombies arrived it made me think of Stuart Hall and the ways in which we define ourselves by adapting in relation to?”otherness.” Once the zombies hit the scene en mass, Shaun is no longer the zombie he had once been and it isn’t until they are killed or contained that?he returns to that state of being. The problem is, I don’t much care.
I’ve mentioned that already, haven’t I?
Sorry.
Kim, dearest, why would we want you to suffer? Really, we love you. How would we understand theory without you? I think we both ran into the same problem with this film; it’s not so groundbreaking. Perhaps if we hadn’t already filled ourselves up with big ol’ theory thoughts this would seem like a much more timely or introspective film. I am, however, entertained again and again with your venomous response to the film. It’s that time of the semester!
That was hilarious. Isn’t it a rule that if you can see postmodern elements it must be good? I agree with you that the film is mindless, but it does highlight much of what we?ve talked about this semester. It’s nice to see the fire behind the author and I can tell that the keys on your laptop suffered much during the aggressive hammering. Isn’t it weird that when have breakthroughs in pm thought in quality texts it’s like some sort of epiphany? But, when the text falls short of the bar we hold so high those epiphanies cease to feel satisfactory? I say this is regards to your opening thoughts about how we will come to see how “cleverly postmodern the film is.” Anyway, we did a good job on the Hutcheon and that’s all that matters.