“Your Government Thanks you for your Participation”: Schizophrenia, Late Capitalism and The Purge”

Abstract

The zombie genre experienced a significant resurgence of popularity in the early 2000s, and proved enduringly popular with both cinematic audiences and critical discussions of cultural fears. By the beginning of 2010, the genre, as noted by Cannavan, turned its considerations to an interrogation of the future of late capitalist hegemony (2010, 433). Yet soon after Canavan’s remarks came a film franchise that borrowed the aesthetics of Zombie narratives to tell an entirely different story: The Purge. On first glance, The Purge franchise appears to be a piece of speculative fiction on what might happen if American society entertained it's baser instincts (specifically violence, extreme indivi..