But this requires a rejection of the world as it is in favor of a world as it can (they believe) be. This leads to the conservative critique that liberals ignore reality and base their policies on feelings. But that is a natural consequence of an ideology concerned not with how man and the world are, but with what they might be transformed – “fundamentally transformed,” to quote a well-known liberal – into.
Now, let’s apply this to the first two seasons of "The Walking Dead." Most of the problems (both within the plot and with the show itself) were a result of characters denying the reality of their situation. Characters focused energy arguing over their petty emotional conflicts like they were back in the suburbs and not in an entirely changed world. Their denial of reality manifested in their rank stupidity – my favorite example was their deciding to gather around a campfire facing inward with no security, like they were going to toast up some s’mores...."
It has long been recognized that in “conservative horror”, “the threat is out there”. That is, monsters outside of us are trying to get to us.
“Liberal horror” is the opposite, that “the real monster is inside us.”
Importantly, both of these can be good horror shows, but they do not really overlap much. Usually one or the other predominates with just a smattering of the other.
But knowing this, the overall theme of horror is sometimes clearly oriented to one or the other. Zombies, for example, are “out there trying to get us.”
I have seen every episode and I didn’t see any of them as liberal when it started. Being afraid of a gun is not just a liberal view. What I saw was people stuck in “normal”, as in we don’t normally go around shooting people in the head and many loaded guns in the open is a dangerous situation since no one knows what the next guy will do with his gun. Mentally, they tried to stay in the world they knew that had a fair amount of security and was functioning.
It took experience in this new “nothing is there anymore” world for these people to slowly change and accept reality. I don’t see that as going from being liberal to being conservative.
In today’s world, those of us who have thought ahead, mentally play out what would happen if there was no more power for years. We would have to deal with “modern” zombies who have nothing and who are dying every day.
I don’t know how this series will resolve at the end and I don’t know how a world without power would resolve that problem.
I’d be OK with 42 minutes of Andrea every episode ;)
love that show and I think it captures how one in that sort of life has to be.
The tree hugging, anti gun view would be gone in a heartbeat if the world came to sort of an end.
Dog eats dog and you stay with those you trust.
Oh and I think the redneck, forget his name now is brilliant and by far my best charcater, if TSHTF then he is the kind of guy I want beside me not some pansy, tutu fairy girlie boy/man.