The Monstrous Element of

Popular Culture:
Theory and Practice (with
Zombies)
Spanish 2340
Dr. Sara Potter
sapotter@utep.edu
 Definitions:
Culture
Popular
Popular culture
 Popular Culture:
Our Working Definition
Social practices
Materiality
Meaning
The social production and reproduction
of meanings realized in materiality and
social practice (John Storey, What Is
Popular Culture?)
Culture and popular culture as action,
something we do (not have).
 Monster: etymology
1. Portent, warning (from Latin monstrum)
2. To show, demonstrate, reveal (Latin
mostrare) (Spanish mostrar, demostrar)
3. To grant meaning? Suggestion from scholar
Donna Haraway in her essay The Promises
of Monsters: A Regenerated Politics for the
Inappropriate/d Others:
4. Remember that monsters have the same
root as to demonstrate; monsters signify
(333).
 Origins:
Roots in West Central
Africa
Kongo or Kikongo
word nzambi (soul).
Deity: Nzambi, high
creator god
Legacy of slavery in
Haiti
Voudou (religion)
1791-1804: Haitian
Revolution
Zonbi, Wilson Bigaud, Haiti, 1939
 Types of zombies:
Haiti, late 18th-early 19th c.
U.S. American horror films and representations
White Zombie, 1932
Dawn of the Dead, 1968
Changes in creation, meaning, production,
agency whos looking? Who is giving names?
Latin America: El Santo (Mexico, 1973), Plaga
zombie (Argentina, 1997 (+ trilogy)), Porto dos
muertos (Brazil, 2010), Juan de los muertos
(Cuba, 2011)
Horror to drama to zomcom (inspiration: Shaun
of the Dead, UK, 2004)
White Zombie, 1932
Setting: Haiti (actually
Universal Studios)
Sinister plantation owner
falls in love with a young
engaged woman
Bela Lugosi as bokor hired
by plantation owner
Zombie: woman controlled
by the bokor at the
Mind control through magic,
ultimately reversible.
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=kn3-Ptqr2ig
 Night of the Living Dead,
USA, 1968
George Romero
Cause: unknown
Multiplication,
contamination, hunger
Reactions of survivors
Cure: kill them all (police,
army)
End: the African-American
male protagonist emerges,
hands up, to the police and
is shot. It is fairly clear he is
not a zombie.
1968 social protests
(anxiety)
Santo contra la magia
negra, 1973
Set and filmed in Haiti
El Santo is called in by
the Haitians to help find
two missing scientists
Cause: bokor, who
manipulates and is
aided by white
witches (brujas
blancas)
https://
www.youtube.com/
watch?v=hLqJTeeDXHo
 Juan de los muertos, Cuba
2011
Cause: unknown, but
blamed on dissidents
from the U.S.
(Anti-)hero: military
veteran who has fought
in several other conflicts
to defend his country.
Zombies: hungry,
contagious, irreversible
https://
www.youtube.com/
watch?v=dOquktXvkT4
 The De/colonized Zombi/e
Constant tension: history of rebellion/oppression
ilm (White Zombie, Dawn of the Dead)
Protests (Occupy Wall Street)
Literature: Don Quijote Z (Hazael Gonzlez, Spain),
Ciudad de zombies (Homero Aridjis, Mexico), Wicked
Weeds (Pedro Cabiya, Dominican Republic)
Cultural theory, political theory, business
Fundraising (zombie walks)
Other uses / manifestations /appearances?
Zombie fatigue? What do we need to consider in
reading these zombies in Latin America?
Thank you!
 References and
Recommendations
The Transatlantic Zombie, Sarah Juliet Lauro
The god Nzambi:
http://www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-zen/002.html
Haiti and the Truth about Zombies,
http://www.umich.edu/~uncanny/zombies.html
White Zombie, dir. Victor Halperin, USA, 1932,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ0hL4EBC58
Santo contra la magia negra, dir. Alfredo B. Crevenna, Mexico, 1972 (In
Spanish, no subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLqJTeeDXHo
Plaga zombie, dirs. Pablo Pars & Hermn Sez, Argentina, 1997 (in
UTEP library)
Juan de los muertos, dir. Alejandro Brugus, Cuba, 2011 (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lotJC-SJafY without subtitles or on
Amazon Video with English subtitles)
Halley, dir. Sebastian Hofmann, Mexico, 2012.
That Zombie Belongs to Fidel! by Erick J. Mota, Cuba in Splinters
(anthology, OR Books, 2014)