Annotated Bibliography and Scholarly Summary
Ruizhong Li
Topic
Heroine Images in TV Series The Walking Dead
Terms
1.Heroine, portrayal
2.Feminist, female, woman, gender, sexual;
3.Race
4.Weapon
5.Disaster
6.Zombie
7.Popular culture/ modern culture
8.Adapt/ television/ comic
Citations
Gender/ Popular Culture
1.Brown, Jeffrey A. Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular
Culture. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011.
Weapon/ Female
2.Berglund, Anders. “Why Are Sexually Selected Weapons Almost Absent in Females?”
Current Zoology 59, no. 4 (August 2013): 564–68.
Disaster/ Women/ Gender
3.Dhar Chakrabarti, P. G., and Elaine Pitt Enarson. Women, Gender and Disaster: Global
Issues and Initiatives. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications India Pvt., Ltd, 2009: 1-51.
Disaster/ Feminist/ Women
4.Enarson, Elaine. “Toward a Feminist Perspective on Women and Disaster.” Women’s Rights
Law Reporter 28 (2007): 3.
Zombie
5.Yuen, Wayne, ed. The Walking Dead and Philosophy: Zombie Apocalypse Now. Chicago:
Open Court, 2012: 97-106.
Zombie/ Modern Culture
6.Boluk, Stephanie, and Wylie Lenz. Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in
Modern Culture. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2011.
Popular Culture/ Heroine/ Portrayals/ Television
7.Jones, Norma, Maja Bajac-Carter, and Bob Batchelor, eds. Heroines of Film and Television:
Portrayals in Popular Culture. Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield, 2014.
Popular Culture/Heroine/ Portrayal
8. Bajac-Carter, Maja, Norma Jones, and Bob Batchelor, eds. Heroines of Comic Books and
Literature: Portrayals in Popular Culture. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield,
2014.
Adapting Comic/ Television
9.Thompson, Ethan, and Jason Mittell, eds. How To Watch Television. New York: NYU Press,
2013: 373-380.
Race/ Gender/ Zombie
10.Brooks, Kinitra D. “The Importance of Neglected Intersections: Race and Gender in
Contemporary Zombie Texts and Theories.” African American Review 47, no. 4 (2014):
461–75.
Entries
Berglund, Anders. “Why Are Sexually Selected Weapons Almost Absent in Females?”
Current Zoology 59, no. 4 (August 2013): 564–68.
From an Ecology perspective, this article explains how female weapons are used and why
sexually selected weapons are almost absent in females. By contrasting the natural
selection explanations and sexual selection ones, the author introduces several
assumptions on the function and evolvement of female weapons. Citing examples in
different species, as well as estimating the costs and benefits of both selections, the
author tends to support the natural selection explanation. It indicates that female weapons
mainly serve as ornamental function rather than real weapons.
Dhar Chakrabarti, P. G., and Elaine Pitt Enarson. Women, Gender and Disaster: Global Issues
and Initiatives. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications India Pvt., Ltd, 2009: 1-51.
The part one of this book consists of four chapters on the topic of concepts of gender and
role of both men and women in risk reduction. Authors in cluding Madhavi Malalgoda
Ariyabandu, Helena Molin Valdés, Prafulla Mishra, and Cheryl L. Anderson are
concerned about gender issues in disasters, respectively based on research, study,
individual experience and international workshop. The authors admit the existence of
gender inequity, pointing out the origin of the phenomenon, and figure out the way to
balancing the inequality between men and women.
Yuen, Wayne, ed. The Walking Dead and Philosophy: Zombie Apocalypse Now. Chicago:
Open Court, 2012: 97-106.
The article Women in a Zombie Apocalypse in the book, directly describe several heroine
images in The Walking Dead. Men and women are both physically and spiritually
different in nature. Comparing the main heroines with each other, author classifies the
women into different categories. With the examples listed in compare, the author appeals
for reversing the stereotype, weakness of women and emphasizing women’s importance
in a community, especially in zombie apocalypse.
Thompson, Ethan, and Jason Mittell, eds. How To Watch Television. New York: NYU Press,
2013: 373-380.
The article introduces elementary way for television to connecting with other media –
adapting. Citing The Walking Dead as typical and exceptional, the author points out that
maintaining veteran audience and attracting new readers is a safe way to guarantee the
ratings of TV series. On one hand, in order to maintain veteran audience, the TV series is
faithful to the comic, adapting within an acceptable range for veteran audience. On the
other hand, the author chooses several typical plot adapting to indicate that deviation
from the comic represents the insightful arrangement of TV version, though risky.
Brooks, Kinitra D. “The Importance of Neglected Intersections: Race and Gender in
Contemporary Zombie Texts and Theories.” African American Review 47, no. 4 (2014):
461–75.
The essay discusses the phenomenon of an increase in the number of contemporary
zombie texts including multifaceted black women, in a world being in charged in white
men. The author emphasizes on the survivors of the zombie apocalypse, observing the
process of rebuilding the post-apocalypse civilization and pointing out the black woman’s
contribution. Employing black feminist theory, the author thoroughly delineates the
central black female character, Michonne, in The Walking Dead, and figure out the
advantage of weaving black women, multiple intersections of identity, into main
narrative. Showing respect to all the lived realities and focusing on gender and race
spectrum is a possible direction for writers and producers.
Summary
Diverse perspectives on one topic make it complete. All five articles relate to the topic
in five different aspects: ecology, gender issue in disaster, zombie apocalypse, popular
culture, and race-gender intersection. Interact with each other, combine with each other.
The common ground among these articles is as follow:
1. Put forward gender-inequity phenomenon, and analyze the reasons.
2. Put gender issues into specific context, display diversity of female issues.
3. Admit natural weakness and emphasize on recognition equity.
And five articles serve as different functions in relating and elaborating the common
topic. Why Are Sexually Selected Weapons Almost Absent in Females serves as a
metaphor role. From ecological aspect, the article indicates that the natural selection
between male and female is unequal. Follow with 4 articles in Women, Gender and
Disaster: Global Issues and Initiatives, it directly displays the real scene when disaster, a
wide range of zombie apocalypse, happened, what the females face. Underestimation,
prejudice, and vulnerability. It shapes the ordinary female images in real life, simulating
the scene in zombie disaster. Next, the real zombie apocalypse turns up. It puts the
heroines in zombie rampaging time. Within that context, the article analyzes all the
factors accordingly, and depict several heroine images to compare. Comparing with the
character of hero, bridging the gap between male and female. Comparing one heroine
image with other heroine images, the difference among women shows the interesting
growing space of females. Back to the reality, the adapting from comic to TV series also
exhibits a feminism tendency. In popular culture, emotion depicting matters, which is the
strength of females. In the plot rearrangement, the prolong of stories between Andrea and
Amy, two sisters, is an evidence. In the progress adapting to popular taste, the female
portion will keep occupying an important place. The last article is considered as, of
course, a future expectation of feminism. Combining with race, another heated topic, the
author uses a considerable portion of article to delineate the plot and details in a black
woman heroine, which exhibits the significance of the gender-race intersecting images. It
shows infinite possibilities to explore the feminism with all of these topics and terms
above. Combination of any two of these terms shall be a controversial but exciting topic.