IZombie: Evil corporations, culpability and ir/responsibility

Abstract

iZombie (2015–19) is set in Seattle where part of its population is infected with a zombie virus created by a corporation. iZombie sustains the productive use of the zombie to explore consumption and late-stage capitalism, but unlike most other zombie fiction, situates this in a familiar, banal present where social and governmental institutions, laws and bureaucracies continue to operate. Central to these questions is the role and responsibility of corporations, situated within an eminently recognizable, but not particularly effective, law and order. iZombie accurately portrays the continued production of a dangerous product within a legal framework that protects corporations and investors, rather than customers. Given the dependence of zombies on access to brains, the series sheds light on the responsibility of consumers, legal authorities and broader society in perpetuating harms. In light of our increasing dependence upon corporations and the systemic harms that they cause, what kinds of justice are available? This article will consider how corporate wrongdoing, legal conceptions of corporate criminal responsibility and the im/possibility of justice are mis/represented in the first season of the series.