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Motives of Security in The Walking Dead. Social Security Discourses in One of the Most Successful Series of Recent Times
Philipp Reichenbach
Keywords: The Walking Dead, Security, Zombie, Horror, Post-Apocalyptic, Drama, Television, Series, Quality-TV, Comic, Migration, Fear, AMC, Frank Darabont, Robert Kirkman, Andrew Lincoln, Rick Grimes
Categories: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
DOI: 10.17160/josha.5.6.446
Languages: German
Researchers are discussing whether the revival of zombie genre was inevitable, or whether the new wave of success after the genres' death in the 1990's could be linked to the first shock of Western Civilization in the 21st century, September 11, 2001. In this paper, I take a closer look at the television series The Walking Dead and the theme ‘security’ as one of the potential factors for its success. The five security motives (1) insecure home, (2) human security risk, (3) search for stability, (4) endangered democracy, and (5) critical infrastructures and work on prevention, emphasize that 'security' and the constant search for it is a crucial, early characteristic of The Walking Dead. The characters in the series face a permanent threat and must try to transform this insecurity into (temporary) security, i.e. survival. On the basis of an analysis of the first two episodes of the first season, a statement is made whether security factors have an influence on the success of the series or not.