Social Parallels on In the Flesh: Miscellaneous

After discussing what are, to me, the biggest metaphors In the Flesh plays with – zombieism as both queerness and mental illness – I decided to do a catch-all post for my remaining thoughts on this subject.  These details echo various types of social prejudice and prove just how much gold there is to be mine here.  It’s the thought-provoking televisual gift that keeps on giving!

The way the treatment centers maintain a medical model of PDS resonates with all disabilities, not just mental illness.  People with PDS are told that there’s something wrong with them, that they’re incomplete because they’re not living.  While health care professionals approach treating PDS with the best of intentions, this attitude doesn’t do anyone any good.  Seeing themselves as fractured shouldn’t be a trade-off for getting the treatment they have a right to.  Some, like the ULA, find strength in rejecting the idea of themselves as broken.  Amy gets angry when Kieren jokingly calls her a zombie, but she tells him the politically-correct “Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferer,” the name the living give them, is even worse; instead she proudly self-identifies as undead.  This exploration of labels applies to many marginalized communities (such as “Native American” vs. “Indian” vs. “Ojibwe,”) but it feels particularly relevant to disability.  Many people with disabilities dislike well-meaning PC-isms like “handicapped,” “visually-challenged,” or “hearing-impaired.”  These terms soften the reference to the disability, but they ultimately treat it, not as a fact of someone’s life and a facet of their identity, but as something that lessens them.  “Sufferer” is especially associated with disability; how often do we hear that someone “suffers from” cerebral palsy or bipolar disorder or Down syndrome?

It’s interesting how stereotypes about people with PDS – that they’re mindless monsters forever on the cusp of a killing spree – influence the actions of those who have it.  Extremist groups feed into the perception, staging rabid attacks and fueling the bigotry of the fear-mongering masses, but for most people with PDS, every day is an exercise in sublimation.  The full range of human emotion is acceptable to the living, but if an undead person shows a hint of anger, the villagers ready their pitchforks.  Any time Kieren raises his voice against the litany of prejudice he faces, he’s viewed as another of those “dangerous rotters” who strikes fear into the hearts of all.  If he defends himself, he’s “out of control” and likely to find a gun in his face.  Here, I’m reminded of anyone fighting an uphill battle to keep from being viewed through stereotypical eyes.  The extremist angle resonates with anti-Muslim sentiment, and I think of the “angry black man” stereotypes that follow many black men.  While everyone gets angry at times, not everyone earns the identity of “angry” simply by losing their temper.  Much like Kieren, there are people who actively try not to stand up for themselves, for fear that they’ll feed into racist viewpoints.

Lastly, the “PDS Giveback Scheme,” which strips the undead of citizenship and forces them into menial unpaid labor, has shades of xenophobia to me.  Because they’re an unwanted population, no one cares if their rights are violated.  These “interlopers” on the living are shut out of the usual employment options and offered only the undesirable dregs.  Without citizenship, they’re severely restricted – they can’t use public transit or cross international borders – which makes them easy to exploit.  Despite the government’s promises that they’ll be returned the fold if they jump through enough hoops, they’re only empty words to elicit compliance.  Obviously, many immigrants acquire new citizenship, but there’s a similarly arduous process of dues-paying and hoop-jumping, and the benefits, if they finally come, are rarely all they professed to be.