How does the movie Night of the Living Dead reflect the 1960s, specifically the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War?
It have been said that the movie Night of the Living Dead by American filmmaker George A. Romero, co-written by Romero and John A. Russo. The main characters in the film are Duane Jones as Ben Huss, Judith O’Dea as Barbra, Karl Hardman as Harry Cooper, and Marilyn Eastman as Helen Cooper. This movie is about Barbara, Ben, the Cooper family and a couple who as trapped in a farmhouse in Pennsylvania trying to survive the night while the house is being attacked zombies. This film is one of the important movies in America cinema and it was also known as the first modern horror film in the 1960s.
Due to many researches this movie was symbolic to the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War “Argue that this film can be read as a subversive critique of 1960s American society with most of them interpreting the film as dealing with racism, the Vietnam War, a patriarchal society, and distrust of authorities.” As my personal reference this quote is valid because in the movie Ben Huss (Duane Jones), played by African-American, he is known as main protagonist but the director’s also make Ben the antagonist of this film by not
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the war at home—racism—and the war abroad—Vietnam.” Ben has fight for other life he even but his life at risk to support Barbra the copper family and the couple, note that he was the only black you will notice in this film Ben was even killed in this movie. Which shows that zombie were impossible to get rid of, this can be reflected on the “shattering of 1950s optimism that had been going on since John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. Romero’s negativity shows a “society on the verge of collapse” (Deming, “Night of the Living Dead”) with the monsters becoming even more powerful and with authorities that cannot be trusted and that are too inept to deal with a threat to