Romeo and Gretchen's movie review comes after our field trip to see the new movie, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016), as part of our Spring 2016 seminar, Languages of Fear, Racism, and Zombies at Swarthmore College. **SPOILER ALERT**
The film is so White that we can mistake it as one of this year’s Oscar nominations.
“Everything belonged to him -- but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over." - Heart of Darkness

Wickham's family crest was St. Lazarus (which is enough of a biblical reference to know that he’s not a Good Guy). His characterization however was kind of lacking, with a lot of plot points not really explained (such as his capture of Lydia), save for the Darcy angst, of which there was plenty. Perhaps the saving grace is that he is certainly one of the few allusions to the original Haitian myth of the ‘Zombi,’ in which one of the ways Zombis are formed are “to serve the master who created them”[2]. Since Wickham was the antichrist, he became the leader of these zombies since he continuously produced them and held them captive in a church. This is a very loose allusion, but it still is refreshing to find somewhat of an homage to the original Zombie myth.
All in all, this movie delivered on its title promise: Pride in the story’s history and narrative in all of its seriousness, prejudice against women and people of color in many forms, and a horrifying amount of zombies.
Notes.
[1] Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Dover, 1902. Print.
[2] Kordas, Ann. "New South, New Immigrants, New Women, New Zombies The Historical Development of the Zombie in American Popular Culture." Race, Oppression and the Zombie Essays on Cross-Cultural Appropriations of the Caribbean Tradition. Jefferson: McFarland, 2011. 15-20. Print.
About the Authors.
Gretchen Trupp is a sophomore at Swarthmore College pursuing a special major in Languages and Linguistics. They enjoy talking about language, social issues, and dank memes. See her previous contribution to #languagestory blog here.