Argument: In Dawn of the Dead, George Romero depicts the enslaving capabilities of America’s obsession with hyper consumerism through the dehumanization of the American consumer.

Topic Sentence: Within the metaphor of the film, the mall represents the problematic nature of the capitalistic infrastructure that acts as both shelter and prison for the living survivors.

Lead-In to Quote: The four people sequestered inside the shopping mall come to the realization that not only are the zombies in search of food – which the survivors amount to in this scenario – but that the zombies are also searching for places of familiarity and comfort even in their undead state:

Quote/Evidence:

Fran: “They're still here.”

Stephen: “They're after us. They know we're still in here.”

Peter: “They're after the place. They don't know why. They just remember - remember that they want to be in here.”

Fran: “What the hell are they?”

Peter: “They're us. That's all.” (Dawn of the Dead)

Analysis: Peter’s pronouncement that the zombies are “after the place” because some part of their lingering consciousness recognizes the mall and maintains some type of internal imperative to seek it out, some internal “want” that drives them to the building, clearly encapsulates Romero’s social critique of consumerism culture. Even in death, the zombies desire a return to – what Elizabeth McAlister calls – the “banality of consumption” (Abdelfatah). The mall is a place to congregate; it is the one-stop shop. The mall invites consumers to spend hours walking slowly from store to store, purchasing anything and everything that one could want. The vague language Peter, Fran, and Stephen employ when talking about the zombies evokes the same type of language that can be connected to the everyday consumer; after all, “[t]hey’re us.” The biological imperative for survival sends the zombies to the one place that in life contains all of their prior “want[s]”. The mall is an inescapable reminder of capitalistic enterprise even during a time of economic collapse and pandemonium.

Explanation: The thing you need to keep in mind when writing any paragraph is order of operations. Some disciplines and essay types allow variation, but by and large, you are always going to have a topic sentence, a sentence that leads into a piece of evidence, the piece of evidence, the analysis of the evidence, and the thesis tie-in. The analysis section is meant to focus on (1) why the included evidence is relevant and (2) how it supports your argument.

In the above example, the language of the quote was used to highlight the comparison of "they" that the film was attempting to make. People have been relegated to passive consumers in a capitalist structure. The living people are obsessed with “stuff”/ Veblen’s concept of Conspicuous Consumption while the dead are obsessed with satisfying an even more basic need: the need to “consume” flesh. Another interpretation for the comparison between the living and the dead is one that is not explored above but would be explored in the larger argument: Romero’s refusal to name the zombies as anything other than “they”. By not naming the zombies, Romero refuses to separate the entities from us: “They’re us.” The zombies therefore serve as a cautionary tale to not be mindless, to not simply consume, to not get wrapped up in material “wants” and desires.

Argument: George Romero exemplifies his social criticism in the establishing mall scene for the audience through the evocation of a haunting nightmare that is startlingly familiar. Romero spends an entire minute cutting back and forth between lifeless mannequins and lifeless faces (figs. 2/3 and 5/6), stumbling forms aimlessly roaming around locked store fronts (fig. 1), and passive figures waiting for the slow crawl of an escalator to reach the top of its destination (figs. 7-10). Outside of the one sitting in the fountain clutching at the loose change of lost wishes (fig. 4), the zombies loitering the walkways remind the film’s viewer of shoppers awaiting the full opening of the mall’s shops. Romero even includes the chiming of a clock that has all of the zombie in the shot momentarily pause as if they were waiting for the metallic clang of store fronts lifting their gates to let them in to wander around.

Analysis: In a single minute of run-time, Romero demonstrates the upsetting reality of consumer culture through the parallel of the zombies and the audience. The full impact of Romero’s message would have been felt by the viewer watching his film in a mall theater in 1978, but it is a message that has not been lost over the past four decades: we as consumers are slaves to capitalism and even death does not offer an escape. The first look at the inside of the mall is a wide shot of the first floor in low lighting (fig. 1). The zombies wandering aimlessly around are obscured in the shadows. If not for the stiff shuffling, the 1978 audience would have been hard-pressed to distinguish between the zombies on the screen from the people loitering outside the theater in which they were sitting.

Explanation: The mall’s establishing scene initiates the obfuscation of the zombie as other. The refrain of “[t]hey’re us” starts in the silent comparison Romero offers his audience in this single, minute-long glimpse of the zombie apocalypse. Even if the rest of the movie took place elsewhere, one could still argue that Romero presents a social critique of consumerism in this one scene as he exemplified through the different criticisms demonstrated elsewhere in the film’s first act: the ineffective press unable to maintain a balanced and unbiased presentation of information, the excessive force and brutality inherent in police raids as well as racism within the ranks of the SWAT unit, and the similarities between the armed services and the country “rednecks”/militia. Romero’s criticisms resonate with a modern audience, because the viewer can still draw these parallels. “They’re us,” and we are unfortunately them.