Thunder without rain: Fascist masculinity in AMC’s The Walking Dead

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I offer a critique of the five seasons of the television series The Walking Dead (TWD) broadcast to date (2010–2015). As the popularity of this show continues to rise, many viewers have demonstrated a willingness to praise TWD without carefully examining its narrative commitments to violence or to attack media critics who point out negative elements at work. My critique contends that the series is decidedly fascistic in nature, and celebratory of fascist masculinity as the key to surviving an apocalyptic situation. I analyse the show through a comparison with the literature of the Freikorps as detailed by Klaus Theweleit’s study of fascism, Male Fantasies ([1977] 1987, [1978] 1989). I examine in detail the prevalence of the ‘soldier male’ in TWD, the limited roles for women, and the representation of the ghoulish undead, drawing upon Theweleit and related scholarship on fascist aesthetics.