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Branding the bad man: Rape as the ultimate violence in
The Walking Dead
Shannon Sindorf PhD candidate, Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Colorado
@shannonsindorf
Presentation for The Rocky Mountain Conference on
Comics and Graphic Novels 2013
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Life after the zombie apocalypse
Community is precious
The greatest threat to life and community is not the zombies, but
other people
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Life after the zombie apocalypse
We ARE the Walking Dead (but are we really?)
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Violence in the Walking Dead
All can be justified in the service of
community protection, even
violence for amusement
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Invisible Danger
How do you determine which individuals are evil when brutal and
violent actions are often
necessary for survival?
The act of rape marks one as a BAD man
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Functions of rape in fiction
domination and helplessness
the Other
dividing the civilized from the savage
moral instruction
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Rape in the Walking Dead
Victims are always
women and children
The rape of Michonne
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Rape in the Walking Dead
One way to distinguish good men from bad men
is that some men rape and
others protect
The rape of Michonne
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The Governor
Safety is valued above all else
It’s not violence alone that makes the
Governor BAD
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Other acts that make a person BAD
cannibalism
domestic violence
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To sum up…
In the Walking Dead, rape acts as the
boundary between
good and evil, between civilized and
savage