The mythical undead creature known as the zombie has been a presence in popular culture for close to a century. While zombie portrayals have enjoyed mainstream success in recent years with television shows like The Walking Dead (2010–2022), at other times they’ve mostly lingered on the fringes of pop culture in small-budget indie films but have never completely gone away. In this chapter, I focus on one place where zombies have loitered intermittently for more than 40 years: pornography. This chapter takes a bird’s eye view focusing on the why and what of zombie porn. I begin by introducing the idea of pornographic spins on zombies, explaining how they fit into modern erotic media consumption. I then explore two taboo appeals of the material: death and bestiality. The remainder of the chapter focuses on key elements of mainstream zombie presentations that have been appropriated in porn such as aesthetics along with character attributes like mindlessness, insatiability, and violence.

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Hardcore Horror: Finding Arousal in the Undead

  • Lauren Rosewarne

摘要

The mythical undead creature known as the zombie has been a presence in popular culture for close to a century. While zombie portrayals have enjoyed mainstream success in recent years with television shows like The Walking Dead (2010–2022), at other times they’ve mostly lingered on the fringes of pop culture in small-budget indie films but have never completely gone away. In this chapter, I focus on one place where zombies have loitered intermittently for more than 40 years: pornography. This chapter takes a bird’s eye view focusing on the why and what of zombie porn. I begin by introducing the idea of pornographic spins on zombies, explaining how they fit into modern erotic media consumption. I then explore two taboo appeals of the material: death and bestiality. The remainder of the chapter focuses on key elements of mainstream zombie presentations that have been appropriated in porn such as aesthetics along with character attributes like mindlessness, insatiability, and violence.