An Examination of Racial and Ethnic Issues in the Walking Dead

The walking dead is one of the highly entertaining television series currently in its eighth season. The series is set in a period during zombie apocalypse in Georgia detailing days and months after zombie invasion. The walking dead was rated fourth in 2015 among the most watched television series that shows the level of success that the series has been able to have. The walking dead has assembled one of the most diverse casts on a television series.

However, despite focus on the diversity of characters in the walking dead series, there has always been major concerns regarding the racial and ethnic divisions. It is very clear that there exists some form of racial profiling among the casts in their overall role as developed by the series development. This paper seeks to highlight some of the common aspects of the walking dead series that depicts racial and ethnic tensions as developed throughout the series.

The main issue within the whole setup of the walking dead series is a black man problem across all the series that have been aired so far. Atlanta is a city that has almost 50% of its population being African American and the setting of the series within the outskirts of the town was expected to provide a representation of the real situation on the ground with many African American lead casts.

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However as per the first season of the walking dead only two characters were depicted and had limited screen time which limited their overall role in representing the people of Atlanta. Morgan and T-Dog who are both men are only black casts who appear in the first season of the walking dead playing peripheral roles (Garland et.al, 14).

A common issue that has been significantly highlighted within the series is one black man at a time. When focusing on the first three seasons of the series, it is evident that a black character is only introduced when the previous one has been eliminated. An important additional aspect that is also visible is the fact that they do not play any role of worth and they are all fringe characters who are only introduced to create some form of balance. This very negative focus has been developed within the series highlighting the different form of reality that was supposed to be focused upon based on the setting location with a high African American population (Bibel, 35-12).

The people of color within the series have also been depicted as being unable to lead the pack of the survivors with obvious tensions between the white lead character Rick Grimes and other characters. The lack of trust is highlighted on more than one occasion and it is only the leadership of Rick that is deemed acceptable by all considering the fact that most of the survivors were white.

Most of the surviving black characters are killed along the way. This is clearly some form of profiling which has been introduced into the series even though there is no outward claim among the characters of the open profiling between the character of color and their white counterparts (Garland et.al, 28).

The first episode in the series when Rick has just woken up from a coma, he is saved by Morgan who is the first black man in the series. Morgan tells Rick about the Zombie apocalypse and prepares him for the tough times ahead by arming him. At the end of the episode Rick in search for his family, he lives him behind. This scenario creates a very complex picture to understand why Rick would live Morgan behind putting into focus the fact that he saved his life at the hospital after waking up from a coma.

This is mainly because the series was developed to follow a different story line where a white character is exemplified while the heroics of the black characters as seen as normal things which cannot be taken very seriously. Had the series taken a different route it would have been Morgan leading the survivors considering the fact that he was developed as a string character who knew what was happening as well as the risks involved but the series producers did not chose this path to develop the series. Morgan would have effectively represented the people of Atlanta of which majority are people of color (Doolittle, 55).

The character Oscar is the series is introduced while in prison with his crime being breaking and entering. The portrayal of Oscar who is a black character in prison aims to emphasize on the underlying notion that black individuals are always criminals and nothing good can be associated to their actions.

He is locked up in prison that means that he was a threat to the society and this was a punitive and correctional measure considering the fact that most of African Americans are imprisoned for breaking and entering and are considered more violent than any other community is. This move aimed to create a diversion from the real issues at hand and introducing a negative character that is associated to the black community and casted by a black character to cement some form of negative thinking in the minds of the viewers (Greene and Michaela, 36).

Having such, a commendable audience number per view shows that the shows is developed to the liking of its audience. Although key issues are depicted within the development process of the series that do not create a well-engaged environment under which it would be viewed as an ethnically diverse series that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of its racial composition.

Almost all of the survivors who have been found are led by white characters, does this aim to portray that the people of color do not have leadership skills especially in demanding times. This focus does not augur well on how the production of the series was developed. It is also very clear that when Rick is not around nothing seems to move on and no decision can be made without Rick in sight, what he says is final while the ideas that are suggested by other individuals are suppressed(Bibel, 61).

Therefore, in overall focus, the series has been effectively developed based on a very different perspective regarding what the objective of the series was. It is very clear through the various episodes that the input of people of color has not been significantly taken into consideration and have been developed to form a unique consideration and develop negative themes where they have been actually made inferior. The racial and ethnic division is very clear within the series even though many efforts have been made to try to cover up these issues throughout the series development.

References

1. Bibel, Sara. "The Walking Dead Season 5 Finale is Highest Rated Finale in Series History,
2. Garnering 15.8 Million Viewers." TV by the Numbers (2015). Doolittle, Benjamin R. "Are we the walking dead? Burnout as zombie apocalypse." The
3. Annals of Family Medicine 14.6 (2016): 578-580.
4. Garland, Tammy S., Nickie Phillips, and Scott Vollum. "Gender politics and The Walking Dead: Gendered violence and the reestablishment of patriarchy." Feminist Criminology (2016): 1557085116635269.
5. Greene, John, and Michaela DE Meyer. "The Walking (Gendered) Dead: A Feminist Rhetorical Critique of Zombie Apocalypse Television Narrative." Ohio Communication Journal 52 (2014): 64-74.

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