Branding the bad man: Rape as the ultimate violence in

The Walking Dead    

Shannon Sindorf PhD candidate, Journalism and Mass Communication

University of Colorado

@shannonsindorf

Presentation for The Rocky Mountain Conference on

Comics and Graphic Novels 2013

Life after the zombie apocalypse

Community is precious

The greatest threat to life and community is not the zombies, but

other people

Life after the zombie apocalypse

We ARE the Walking Dead (but are we really?)

Violence in the Walking Dead

All can be justified in the service of

community protection, even

violence for amusement

Invisible Danger

How do you determine which individuals are evil when brutal and

violent actions are often

necessary for survival?

The act of rape marks one as a BAD man

Functions of rape in fiction

domination and helplessness

the Other

dividing the civilized from the savage

moral instruction

Rape in the Walking Dead

Victims are always

women and children

The rape of Michonne

Rape in the Walking Dead

One way to distinguish good men from bad men

is that some men rape and

others protect

The rape of Michonne

The Governor

Safety is valued above all else

It’s not violence alone that makes the

Governor BAD

Other acts that make a person BAD

cannibalism

domestic violence

To sum up…

In the Walking Dead, rape acts as the

boundary between

good and evil, between civilized and

savage