Down with the Sickness: Consumerism as the Ultimate Disease "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth". From this haunting line onward, the real adventure and suspense of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead begins. When a devastating epidemic that reanimates the bodies of the recently deceased begins to sweep the nation, four unlikely characters ban together and find refuge in a resident mall. There, amidst the carnage and terror that is plaguing the outside world these four embark on what is now known as Romero's unusually profound critique of the American consumerist culture and the material views of society. With the mall becoming both de-corporeal and hyper-corporeal, Friedberg's analysis of the gaze and its relation to the prehistory to the mall, acts as a panorama, as well as a panopticon. Along with Debord's critique of commodity fetishism and alienation due to consumer capitalism, one can see how Romero's Dawn of the Dead examines the essence of visuality, revealing how consumerism is enviable. As seen through the mall, the main characters, the biker gang and the zombies, Dawn of the Dead illustrates how consumerism can still exist in a world with no consumers. To begin, Friedberg describes the panopticon as a type of jail; an object created to limit the mobility of the viewer (17). The design, when broken down, is one that is quite simple but unimaginable complex. Rows upon rows of perfectly vertically and horizontally placed cells all surround the focal point of the prison: a tower (Friedberg 18). A panopticon essentially turns the gaze inward, both physically and mentally immobilizing a viewer (Friedberg 111). This design will later be incorporated in the design of modern shopping complexes (Friedberg 111). By turning the gaze of the shopper away from the parking lot, essentially freedom, to other stores in the mall, the viewer becomes willingly trapped in the panoptic mall (111). Dawn of the Dead brilliantly utilizes the panopticon in this fashion; presenting both the salvation and the damnation the shopping mall offers the main characters. Moreover, as Friedberg continues to describe in her analysis of visuality, the panorama provides "spatial and temporal mobility" (22). With a panorama, one is allowed to move through images while the gaze is enclosed (Friedberg 22). Yet, despite their obvious difference, a panopticon and a panorama both miraculously relate, and have strong roots in, the mall. Romero, as if noticing this blaring oxymoron, converts the mall, which people can willingly enter and exit on will, into a prison for Peter, Roger, Francine and Stephen. Even though the main characters are allowed to freely travel through the stores, they can never escape the confining walls lest they face their immediate death. In that sense, the mall itself becomes hyper-corporeal for it becomes the personification of life and salvation, all the while subtly reminding the characters they can never leave. This is seen when Roger exclaims, "One-stop shopping. Everything you need, right at your fingertips." The characters do in fact have the essentials needed to survive; yet the price for their lives becomes their freedom. In addition, the main characters engage in a fantasy, beginning their journey in a land of pollution and ending in a world of affluence. The mall is supposed to be a stronghold, utilized only for the shelter and food. Instead, the main characters run around the mall, try on ornate clothing, wear expensive accessories and pamper themselves as if on a relaxing vacation. When arriving at the mall, Peter and Roger engage in this conversation: Roger: Well, we're in, but how the hell are we gonna get back? Peter: Who the hell cares! Let's go shopping! This exchange between Peter and Roger is a perfect example of how, even in a world where destruction and death run rampant, consumerism's grip on people reigns supreme. Even when Roger seemingly snaps out of the consumerist daze exclaims, "Let's just get the stuff we need"� Peter replies with, "Oooh ooooh lighter fluid! And chocolate." Furthermore, as articulated by Debord, the mall is the center of commodity fetishism and alienation. A mall, by its very nature, is meant to attract people, thus making it an exceedingly socialized environment. Yet, what becomes ironic is how in a mall, people are completely remote from each other despite the close proximity (22). The mall becomes a pivotal area for self-alienation, since the shopper is reduced only to their corporeal qualities, which is in and of itself a form of separation (22). Although a mall boasts to be a social hotspot, shoppers create relationships with each other without ever having to communicate. The looting biker gang exemplifies Debord's argument. The alienation that accompanies the bikers is that of the spectacle which consumer capitalism is, in this case. The biker gang consists of glorified pillagers and looters. They are people that still assess wealth in a world where there is nothing left to buy. Even though outside the mall, money has no exchange value, the bikers grab jewels, television and perfumes, all items that are completely useless for their future endurance. They are survivors, much like the main characters, yet they are clearly different in how they are unwilling to cooperate for the greater good, thus alienating themselves from the main characters. Their savagery is seen with their pseudo-scorched earth policy, during the scene where one biker reprimands another biker for trying to take a large television with them. The biker tosses the television away and proceeds to smash it, along with the one next to it with a sledgehammer. If he cannot have it, then no one can. The value the biker gang places in the commodities is staggering. As they blow down the mall's sealed doors, allowing the zombies to enter the previously secured halls, the bikers, at peril to their own lives, care more about the items they can grab than their own kind. As fellow bikers are being attacked by zombies, they ride past, reach out and clutch onto more material objects, completely ignoring the friend who is being ripped to shreds by a swarm of the undead. In the end, the biker gang dies literally and psychologically by consumption. Yet, of all the symbolism in Dawn of the Dead, none can hold a candle to that of the zombies. Whereas the living characters are trying to adjust to a world in which social structures have dissolved, the zombies are simply trying to continue on in a world that has reduced man to his animalistic tendencies. In a sense, the zombies consume flesh as a human would consume material products. The only difference is, the zombies exist in a time where there is no status given to a person wearing the latest fashions and accessories. The sole purpose of the zombie is its own survival, a survival that is achieved with the death and intake of living flesh. As Dr. Millard Rausch states, "There have been reports of these creatures using tools"� even animals have been known to adopt the use of tools. These creatures are nothing but pure, motorized instinct." The zombies are humans, except they are humans who are reduced back to pure, caveman mentality. Much like crazed shoppers at a sale, the zombies will use any means necessary to attain their product. In this case, it is human flesh instead of Manolo Blahnik shoes. However, Romero's most notorious critique of consumer culture is present in this conversation the main characters engage in when first arriving at the mall: Peter: They're after the place. They don't know why, they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here. Francine: Why do they come here? Stephen: Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives. Allegorically, the zombies represent shoppers in a mall. They are solitary, never engage with other shoppers and they mindlessly carry out their only purpose: to consume. They all flock to the mall without really knowing why and remain there, waiting for entrance. The zombies that were in the mall when the main characters arrived are perfect examples of how even the dead still desire material goods. They slowly make their way through the mall, they ride the escalators and they are engrossed with the Christmas displays much like a living human would. As a final point, Dawn of the Dead serves as a fable of the potential devastation consumerism poses. By way of the gaze and visulaity, Friedberg and Debord emphasize the destruction of a brittle capitalist society through a thriving economic landmark. Adding in the greed, corruption and gluttony of culture and the mall inevitably becomes the downfall of man. Unlike Romero suggests, the shopper does have the power to overcome the temptation of the mall and can survive in a society where there is no demand for material goods. That is, until he decides to make a sequel. Works Cited Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Donald Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books, 1995. Friedberg, Anne. Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern. Berkeley: University of California, 1993. Internet Movie Database. Dawn of the Dead Quotes. November 21, 2005. Online Available : < http://imdb.com/title/tt0077402/>, 1995-2005.