This is the scene in ‘Dawn of the Dead’
(2004) where the buses have just crashed after Kenneth losing control. After
the crash Stephen recovers, grabs a pistol and exits the bus. In the process
rejects Kenneth’s hand out for help, signalling his betrayal of the group. He
gets bitten by a zombie and turns into one, Ana goes to save the others and is
faced with him. She shoots him in the head resulting in his death.
This is all about the dominant characters and their representations. Ana is the goal-directed
protagonist (a key feature in
Vladimir Propp's “Morphology of the Folktale”) and she drives the group's survival
forward. Ana is extremely feisty in the process, being a lot more influential character than any of the men. Ana
often wears white vests, jackets and denim jeans fitting to her tomboy style final girl archetype. This is due to
the fact that what she wears doesn’t indicate weakness it conveys strength and lack of fascination on appearance, a trait
that is very common for a final girl.
Stephen is a very arrogant, self-involved,
insensitive character that does
nothing but get in the way and make things more difficult for the rest of the
group through his selfishness. For example when he had to hold the door for the
characters who went to save Nicole’s life but he didn’t bother, nearly
resulting in their death. This shot indicates that good ultimately prevails,
people who are all for themselves and are selfish are the ones that become
worse off. Plus, Ana is holding a gun directly at his face, which is a phallic symbol, which connotes to the rise of feminism,
relating to the current context. She
is overpowering an arrogant man with her power.
This shot is all about representation and how characters
are perceived and, as with many horror films, this reverses negative sexist
stereotypes and presents a pro-feminist ideology through the mise-en-scene.
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