Gender Bashing: Father Figures in 28 DAYS LATER
Jim: “Hey, don’t do that. Look, Hannah is what Frank says she is, okay? She’s tough, and she’s strong, and she’ll cope, just like I’ll cope, and just like you’ll cope.”
Selena: “I don’t want her to have to fuckin’ cope! I want her to be okay! When Hannah had her dad, it was okay. It was okay for them, and it was okay for us. Now, it’s all just fucked.”
Since its niche cinematic inception distilling the horrors of WWI in silent films, all the way up to the present-day mainstream crossover value of The Walking Dead, the zombie genre has long been employed to frighten, to thrill, and to confront. Over several decades, zombie movies have ambled along hand-in-hand with the apocalypse film, reflecting cultural fears about race, gender, politics, war, science, and even the environment. Danny Boyle’s 2002 horror film is a shining example of the genre’s ability to comment on the human condition and all that’s contained within. Along with the 2004 one-two punch of Shaun of the Dead and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead reboot, 28 Days Later is commonly credited with re-animating (I’m not sorry) the zombie genre. What it’s not given credit for is bringing paternal themes into a post-apocalyptic narrative that often dedicates more screen time toward motherhood as the key to man’s survival.
After a trio of animal rights activists inadvertently unleash a rage virus from a Cambridge medical research lab, the decimated surviving populace attempts to stay alive and find refuge. The film focuses on one such survivor, Jim (Cillian Murphy), 28 days after the initial outbreak.
Jim awakens from a coma, in a hospital and utterly alone. In a devastating sequence, he walks through the hospital and later the city of London in a daze, his calls going unanswered. Signs of havoc lay everywhere. Jim cuts a lonely figure in the world, even more so when he enters a church and finds only an infected clergyman there. Following a harrowing chase throughout the streets and subsequent rescue by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley), Jim is bewildered and exhausted. He has encountered nothing but abandon and aggression since awakening and is in need of comfort and guidance. Selena brings him up to speed on what happened, and in the act of doing so brings a sense of order and healing to Jim’s post-outbreak existence. But Jim still needs his parents, so the group makes the trek up to their home.
He finds his parents lying in bed, having committed suicide by overdose. In his mother’s hands, a note reads: “With endless love, we left you sleeping. Now we’re sleeping with you. Don’t wake up. X”
The note underlines Jim’s vulnerable position in a rage-filled world. His parents have gone to join him, and yet here he is, awake and without their presence in a new world unfamiliar to him. Jim wanders in a sort of purgatory like a babe in the woods, alive but living out a Hell on Earth. Figuratively, he’s now an orphan. Selena’s companionship is an alleviating feminine infusion for him, but his desire for human connection is soaked with an underlying need for the solace and direction that a parent would provide. As the film rolls along, Jim is presented with the leadership and example of two father figures: the benevolent and open Frank, and the aggressive, hawkish Major Henry West.
More the protector than the aggressor, Frank uses violence only as a last resort. Before Frank appears onscreen, he is a beacon to Jim and Selena. His warm, inviting Christmas lights blink from his high-rise balcony, and the pair answers the call with minimal but determined hope. When we first meet Frank, he is in full defensive riot gear, opting to shield his daughter and domicile from the external threat rather than actively slaughtering zombies in the vicinity. This extends to his demeanor; Frank’s first words are a kind introduction. “So, I’m Frank, anyway.” With a genuine smile reaching up to the crow’s feet under his eyes, Frank invites Jim and Selena to sit down and celebrates their meeting with a drink. When the group goes on a supply run in a grocery shop, Frank takes a moment to impart classic Dad wisdom, imploring Jim to not grab “just any crap.” He then gives a crash course in choosing quality whiskey, a moment of normalcy in an abnormal world. If that wasn’t on-the-nose enough, Jim has a nightmare one night, of being abandoned and left alone in the same manner that he found himself at film’s beginning. Frank rustles him awake and reassures him that he was simply having a bad dream, to which Jim sleepily mumbles, “Thanks, Dad,” before falling back asleep. Frank is a familiar presence, and a needed one in Jim’s life that emphasizes more than just survival. Frank is a man who, even in the darkest of times, holds onto love, compassion, and thoughtfulness. When Frank becomes infected by a single drop of blood (after his only onscreen moment of anger, no less) and subsequently killed by Major West’s contingent of soldiers, the emptiness left in the wake of his loss is a massive one. Again, Jim is orphaned– until Major West enters.
Again, as with Frank, the Major is a beacon of hope before his face is even shown. He purports himself as the answer to all of Jim’s problems as his radio broadcast repeatedly touts, “Salvation is here”. Upon arrival, Jim finds not salvation but survival in the bleakest terms. The compound where the leftover soldiers reside is its own domestic space, complete with a male soldier donning a frilly pink apron and attempting to fill the traditional women’s role of household cook. He is a poor substitute, as demonstrated by the rotten eggs he tries to salt and serve to the men. Major West uses the opportunity to hint that the compound is in dire need of a feminine touch, a statement that bristles Jim and Selena immediately. It becomes clear to Jim that, to paraphrase a previous line from the film, the men needed Jim, Selena, and Hannah more than they needed the men.
Upon further discussion, it becomes clear that all the Major knows is violence; he talks of “people killing people” as far back as he could remember, making this recent outbreak more of a “return to normality.” When confronted, the officer is unashamed; he inquires, “Since it began, who have you killed? You wouldn’t be alive now if you hadn’t killed somebody.” It’s a tough-love effort to segue into the theme of survival as a justification for what he’s about to say next: that Maj. West “promised (his men) women”. Maj. West wants women for his men as objects, for pleasure and, on a superficial level, for procreation. Naturally, Jim resists. The soldiers are surviving, but they aren’t living in Frank’s sense of the word; they are primal parts of a barbaric unit. Major West’s men are boys with guns, almost giddy that a zombie apocalypse has freed them from the Geneva Convention, rules of engagement, or common decency. They are more drawn to the power that a protector wields than to the selfless principles behind the role. Frank would have none of it, and ultimately, neither does Jim.
It’s an easy concession to make that Jim (in the third act) assumes the hyper-masculine role as an agent of violence in order to dispatch his (and Selena and Hannah’s) captors, mirroring the rage of the infected that surround the compound. At that point, as he’s gouging out the eyes of his opponent, Jim is so indistinguishable from the infected that only a moment’s hesitation prevents Selena from taking a blade to his throat. But it’s a means to an end, a bloody reclamation of his masculinity. The debate still rages on today over whether 28 Days Later subverts the normalcy of hyper-masculinity or reinforces it. But once the frenetic climax is over, the film’s denouement sees a “return to normality” for Jim, one where he is calm, open, and even hopeful as he, Selena, and Hannah try to flag down a jet passing overhead. It’s a brief scene, but the implication is that Jim’s moment of rage was temporary, a tool to give him the gumption to rescue Selena and Hannah and to remove the direct threat that the soldiers posed. That rage is now a memory. Of the two paternal figures Jim is presented with, it’s clear which man he wants to exemplify, moving forward.
The zombie genre’s shining versatility and allegorical power give it an ever-shapeshifting immortality. Among other things, 28 Days Later injects fatherhood into the mix, with fascinating results. Coupled with an exploration of masculinity and the power of the domestic space, it makes for a strong supportive embroidery within the larger tapestry of the film’s social commentary.
Categorized:Gender Bashing
