by Fanyi Ma
Female Warriors and 'The Oriental'.
The first thing that caught my attention in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was the appearance of “the oriental” in the storyline. The Bennetts send all five of their daughters to China to study the martial arts, which is very economically demanding. What’s more, there are multiple moments in the movie that portray various characters' fetishization of “oriental” cultures, including scenes where Chinese and Japanese are spoken by the Bennett sisters and their companions.
While it’s reasonable for one to assume that the opportunity to study martial arts is a privilege of the noble class, these women's new fighting abilities are only tolerated by the nobility as a necessary evil. Even under the threat of attacking zombies, women are still held to a particular level of decorum and manner. This complex attitude towards female warriors underscores the prominence of gender inequality in the film.
While it’s reasonable for one to assume that the opportunity to study martial arts is a privilege of the noble class, these women's new fighting abilities are only tolerated by the nobility as a necessary evil. Even under the threat of attacking zombies, women are still held to a particular level of decorum and manner. This complex attitude towards female warriors underscores the prominence of gender inequality in the film.
I’ll just be honest with you—I am very disappointed by this movie. The zombie is a social concept we’ve been contesting throughout the semester, and it has so many potential ways to be embedded in Jane Austen’s novel. Being a by-product of pride and prejudice itself, the zombie can be a perfect tool for conveying themes like social class, self-identity, hatred, fear, etc.However, what I saw in the movie was just the thread of human vs. zombie simply synchronized and paired up with the plots of the original story, creating a logically flawed, overly dramatized and self-contradicting pandemonium.
Flawed Depiction of China-Western Relations.
Another detail of the film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that caught my attention was the time period in which the story takes place. The early 19th century is a crucial era in the history of China-Western interaction. That’s when the falling empire of the Qing Dynasty clashed with rising Western powers.
Great Britain, along with many other European countries and westernized Asian countries, forced the historically self-sufficient agricultural empire to open its gate and pushed China into the trend of global trade. The weakened Chinese empire had no choice but giving away its land and sovereignty after several unsuccessful attempts at fighting back.
Foreign missionaries and businessmen swarmed into China to spread "civilization" and seek their fortunes. Encounters with Chinese culture were usually described as modern civilization converting the primitive, mysterious, and incompetent doctrines of the Chinese. If we keep this historical background in mind, the appreciation of what is referred to in the film as "Oriental culture" seems pretty out of place.
These two paradoxes--Orientalism and female empowerment in the early 19th century--both have the potential to escalate the original story to a deeper level of inquiry into gender and cultural privilege. However, the movie's directors don't seem to bother. Instead, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies easily focuses on dramatic battle scenes, while leaving these two threads unresolved.
Great Britain, along with many other European countries and westernized Asian countries, forced the historically self-sufficient agricultural empire to open its gate and pushed China into the trend of global trade. The weakened Chinese empire had no choice but giving away its land and sovereignty after several unsuccessful attempts at fighting back.
Foreign missionaries and businessmen swarmed into China to spread "civilization" and seek their fortunes. Encounters with Chinese culture were usually described as modern civilization converting the primitive, mysterious, and incompetent doctrines of the Chinese. If we keep this historical background in mind, the appreciation of what is referred to in the film as "Oriental culture" seems pretty out of place.
These two paradoxes--Orientalism and female empowerment in the early 19th century--both have the potential to escalate the original story to a deeper level of inquiry into gender and cultural privilege. However, the movie's directors don't seem to bother. Instead, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies easily focuses on dramatic battle scenes, while leaving these two threads unresolved.
Unpacking the Zombie Concept.
Before we try to understand the connection between zombies and Pride and Prejudice, let’s check our glossary first.
With these two key terms defined, we can now start unpacking some plots of the movie and try to spice it up (or nerd it up) with a hint of zombies.
- Zombie—an undead being created through the reanimation of a human corpse. (Wikipedia) Originated in Haitian Vodou, zonbi can mean several different beings, from a stolen soul to a spirit receptacle. (Kordas) However, since its first appearance in American pop culture in the 1932 movie White Zombie, “zombie” (note the difference in spelling with the original Haitian zonbi) has been depicted as a “reanimated, mindless, soulless corpse taken from its grave to serve the master who had awakened it.” (Kordas) The social and cultural representation of the zombie in the United States is usually strongly linked with social groups that are feared or considered threats by White, middle-class Americans, examples vary from immigrants of color to “modern, strong women.”
- Pride and Prejudice—a novel by Jane Austen. It follows the story of its main character, Elizabeth Bennett, the second of five daughters of an early 19th century English country gentleman, Mr. Bennett. The novel discusses multiple themes, including marriage, social class, morality, and identity in the society of landed gentry of the British Regency. (Wikipedia)
With these two key terms defined, we can now start unpacking some plots of the movie and try to spice it up (or nerd it up) with a hint of zombies.
Why Fear Zombies At All?
Now that we’re talking about fighting zombies, I can’t help asking this seemingly stupid question: why do people (both characters of the movie and the audience) fear zombies in the first place? In its Vodou origin, the formation of a zombie (being awakened by master to serve the master) is a vital part of collective religious belief. In the movie, the transformation from human to zombie is also emphasized and contested at multiple points.
On one hand, the distinction between human and zombie, us and them, is clear from the very beginning. Whoever is found out to be a zombie will be outcast by the aristocratic community, just like how the chosen one is stoned by the villagers in Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery. On the other hand, no one is immune to the zombie plague.
Even main characters like Jane, Elizabeth’s own sister, have the possibility of being infected. When the warrior faces the fact that she might need to fight her beloved sister, her faith shakes. Elizabeth tries to protect her sister from Mr. Darcy’s suspicion that she’s bitten by a zombie. This is the director's opportunity to push the film's moral dilemma to the max. This is the moment when pride and prejudice can be penetrated and broken. But then again, everyone’s too busy fighting zombies with dazzling weaponry and flamboyant moves to really engage in these philosophical questions.
Overall, I’ll say the movie is TOLERABLE. The film is tolerable as a product of pop culture, aka mass “pride” and “prejudice”. The director has no intention to join Jane Austen for the timeless discussion on all those great moral themes. In fact, Jane Austen, in this case, is like a zombie, appropriated by pop culture makers and positioned as a source of entertainment.
As for all my disappointment mentioned above, forget about it. I blame it on my sociology-anthropology student mindset that complicates everything and makes me one of those obnoxious zombies.
On one hand, the distinction between human and zombie, us and them, is clear from the very beginning. Whoever is found out to be a zombie will be outcast by the aristocratic community, just like how the chosen one is stoned by the villagers in Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery. On the other hand, no one is immune to the zombie plague.
Even main characters like Jane, Elizabeth’s own sister, have the possibility of being infected. When the warrior faces the fact that she might need to fight her beloved sister, her faith shakes. Elizabeth tries to protect her sister from Mr. Darcy’s suspicion that she’s bitten by a zombie. This is the director's opportunity to push the film's moral dilemma to the max. This is the moment when pride and prejudice can be penetrated and broken. But then again, everyone’s too busy fighting zombies with dazzling weaponry and flamboyant moves to really engage in these philosophical questions.
Overall, I’ll say the movie is TOLERABLE. The film is tolerable as a product of pop culture, aka mass “pride” and “prejudice”. The director has no intention to join Jane Austen for the timeless discussion on all those great moral themes. In fact, Jane Austen, in this case, is like a zombie, appropriated by pop culture makers and positioned as a source of entertainment.
As for all my disappointment mentioned above, forget about it. I blame it on my sociology-anthropology student mindset that complicates everything and makes me one of those obnoxious zombies.
About the Author.
Fanyi (Faye) Ma is a freshman at Swarthmore College studying music, anthropology, and religion. She’s also a proud speaker of Mandarin, Shanghainese, and a few other Chinese dialects. In her spare time, she loves making tea, listening to canton-pop, thrift-shopping, reading novels and ethnographies, searching for new music, and whining over life.
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