The Walking Dead is back. For a show based on the undead returning from the grave the cancellation of the main series wasn’t enough to take it off the air. So far it has spawned 3 spin off shows, of which Daryl Dixon in Paris is the most satisfying
From it’s first season in 2010 the show changed subtly, but radically, over the first few seasons,. At first the threat came from hordes of rotten zombies craving human flesh. But from the 3rd season onwards survivors had retreated into fortified compounds, and the big threat was other human fighting for resources. Each enclave had it’s own different form of Government – democracies, republics, Kingdoms, totalitarian regimes. Medieval war lords fought small town sheriffs over who was the boss.
The viewing audience changed too. The first few seasons were massively popular among right wing white men. The storyline played to their fantasies – in a world gone wrong plucky men with big guns were the heroes, no matter what their college scores. The characters included small town Georgia Sheriffs, a white farmer, and a pair of brothers Daryl and Meryl. The latter was overtly racist, and the former, while more guarded in his views regularly wore the colours of right wing motorcycle gangs. Together they fought and sacrificed to protect the last remnants on humanity.
One of the biggest motivating principles among right wingers is loyalty to the group, and right wing men place a high value on their willingness to defend that group (especially women ) against threats and outsiders. Often these fantasies of protecting women are really fantasies of controlling women.
The huge problem this group have in modern society is that no-one needs their protection and no-one wants their control.
I hear a lot of people talking about how right wingers who are anti-abortion are also pro-guns; they think there is a massive conflict in these positions. In reality they are both completely consistent. They are anti-abortion because they want to control women. They are pro-gun because they want to control women, and because they want to assert their power and status over others.
It is easy to see why the Walking Dead was so important to them. Most TV and movies are aimed towards people with high disposable income, either to spend on cinemas tickets and streaming subscriptions, or belonging to target groups that advertisers wanted to reach. This meant well off and young, which in the US mostly means liberal. US cinema and TV has become dominated by the interests of younger, wealthy, well educated liberals, which is why the US right hates them. DeSantis’ war on Disney is no accident.
Walking Dead was the antidote to all this. A show where might was right, and guns ruled. I don’t think the writers and show runners targeted right wingers, but that was a big chunk of their audience. Their favourite baddie was Negan, a character who made the link between protection and subservience explicit.
While some of these viewers stuck with the show lots of them turned off in disgust after the first few seasons. The exploration of different kinds of government bored them, but they were appalled at the emergence of strong female roles – Maggie, Michone and Carol. The opening on Series 5 in which the group are saved from cannibals, not by one of the heroic men, but by Carol, the battered wife of season one now transformed into ninja commando bad ass.
The really scary baddie wasn’t Negan but the Governor, played by David Morrisesey. He was a frustrated middle manager who on the other side of the apocalypse became a totalitarian dictator. Morrisseys performance personified the banality of evil, the kind of little man who is the heart of every act of genocide.
Despite all of this the latest spin off in which Daryl ends up in post apocalyptic Paris is the best for a long time. The show reminds us how far is has travelled when Clemence Poesy reminds Darkly that she I doesn’t need a hero. She is grateful for his help, but not dependent on him. I suspect that the kind of angry right wingers who would get annoyed with this tuned out a long time ago, which is a shame, it is still on it’s day, a great TV show.