As far as politically charged early innovators of the horror genre go, Night of the Living Dead takes the cake. Not only the template for the many zombie movies that would come after it, George A. Romero’s debut feature would set the tone for embedding political commentary in such “gory trash.” In fact, although not a zombie movie, it was only six years later that Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre would be released. Yet another scathing commentary on the Vietnam War lying just beneath the surface.
With Night of the Living Dead, though, it was about more than just accenting the fact that carnage had become nothing but “titillating” news to report on. It was about the apex that the civil rights movement had reached in the late 1960s, culminating not only in numerous constitutional gains (so they said) for Black Americans, but also the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. This, “coincidentally,” was the year that Night of the Living Dead was released. Amid the most volatile of racial tensions, the Cold War and the U.S. government’s open slaughtering of its citizens whether at home or abroad (where many were sent to fight a losing, inane war). Romero’s decision to cast a Black actor, Duane Jones, in the lead role of a horror film was also considered groundbreaking. But who knew better than the American Black man what it was to live a 24/7 horror movie? More “scandalous” still, Jones as Ben was placed in the hero role among the rest of the all-white cast. This including Judith O’Dea, who played the part of Barbra. A part that would have, in later years, framed her as the final girl (instead, that inaugural trope would be helmed by Sally Hardesty [Elena Sanchez] in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre). But in Night of the Living Dead, the trope she instead embodies is one that has endured over many decades: the useless white woman. Not to be confused with the frivolous white woman (e.g., Betty Draper from Mad Men).
The film starts out in such a way as to naturally lead the viewer to believe that this is going to be a movie centered on Barbra, with the first almost fourteen minutes focused on what happens after her brother, Johnny (Russell Streiner), is attacked in the cemetery by the first “ghoul” a.k.a. zombie (played by Bill Hinzman) and Barbra must flee to some kind of safety. This turns out to be an empty (sort of) house not far from the cemetery (itself located in a rural area three hours from Pittsburgh, per Johnny’s complaints about having to travel all the way there just to place a wreath on their dead father’s grave and satisfy their mother [who got to stay home] and her quaint notions of “remembrance”). Upon encountering the mangled, eaten body of the original homeowner, Barbra starts to run outside the house again, only to encounter not only the same zombie following her, but Ben as well, himself seeking refuge from these horrifying “things,” as he calls them. No longer human. And this is an important word to distinguish the “living dead” (a phrase that also describes how the U.S. treats its minorities) from the humans. Because it’s the underlying language white people have used for centuries in their classification of Black people. What James Baldwin once referred to as the “thingification” of Black men and women during slavery. Noting how this is the only race that has ever been viewed as entirely “unhuman,” so as to “absolve” people from any sense of wrongdoing about their treatment. And it is a deeply indoctrinated perception that remains embedded in the white psyche—and, of course, never should have been permitted to happen in the first place. But with that “thingifying” of Black people, it’s no surprise that a police officer’s mere sight of a Black man would prompt him to assume him as a “ghoul,” giving automatic “license” to shoot him. As though he doesn’t have that automatic “license” every day of the week, even when a rash of dead corpses haven’t reanimated into flesh-eating zombies.
Barbra is perhaps able to conceal her own racism by saying not much of anything at all throughout the narrative. Even so, when Ben notices her terrified reaction—as though it might still be lingering because she’s alone with a Black man—after he closes the door behind them, he assures, “It’s all right.” What’s more, Ben is the only person she can rely on in her state. Especially now that she’s witnessed the death of her brother (though is still in denial about him being dead). Because, yes, Barbra is traumatized, entering into a trance as a coping mechanism. But it says something that she is the one who does that over Ben, accustomed, as a Black man, to not only enduring trauma all the time but being expected to grin and bear it. To “power through.” No such expectation has ever been placed on a white girl like Barbra, allowed to indulge and wallow in the shock of her trauma in a way that Ben, quite simply, is not built to.
Thus, he enters into a fight response, proceeding to board up all the windows to the house after realizing there’s no other options for defense. Barbra, meanwhile, is still in her scared little girl trance. Something Ben is expected to accommodate by interrupting his own state of panic to soothe her. To placate her. To, at the very least, try to shake her out of her dark reverie so that he can have the benefit of a partner assisting him in trying to survive. Foolishly, he does try to get Barbra to help out a bit with arming the place against the indefatigably hungry zombies amassing outside, smelling live people the way bears can sniff out food from miles away. As he riffles through kitchen drawers looking for something useful (since Barbra damn sure ain’t), Barbra continues to stare at him blankly, doing absolutely nothing except making the situation worse with her unapologetic uselessness. Finally, Ben gets so irritated by it that he spells out, “Why don’t you see if you can find some wood, some boards, something there by the fireplace, something we can nail this place up?” When she responds by approaching him silently, almost like a zombie herself, Ben snaps and starts to scream, “Goddam—!” stopping himself to try a gentler, more empathetic tack. He tells her, “Look, I know you’re afraid. I’m afraid too. But we have to try to board up the house together. Now, I’m going to board up the windows and the doors, do you understand? We’ll be all right here till someone comes to rescue us. But we’ll have to work together. You’ll have to help me.” Turns out, Ben forgot how much a useless white woman doesn’t have to do anything. Especially help out a Black man.
The rhetoric of Ben repeating his line about needing to work together comes up more than once, and it’s indicative, yet again, of the times. When leading faces of the Black civil rights movement, including King and Baldwin, were imploring white folks to recognize Black people as their fellow brothers and sisters. To, at long last, work with them rather than against them. But that didn’t happen in real life, and it certainly didn’t happen in Night of the Living Dead, where Ben is met with resistance at almost every turn. Particularly when the basement hiders in the house, led by Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman), emerge. Indeed, the fact that they heard all of the noise plus Barbra’s screaming upstairs and did nothing except continue to hide is yet another metaphor for white uselessness in a Black person’s world. At the minimum, Tom (Keith Wayne), is willing to be more helpful. And more adhering to Ben’s inherent leadership role. Something Harry obviously doesn’t feel obliged to relinquish, assuming he’s the one who should be listened to as the eldest white man.
Before they enter the scene, however, Ben actually does end up appearing to miss the form of Barbra’s uselessness that kept her mute because, once she starts talking lucidly, she becomes even more of a shitshow. Initially retelling the story of what happened to her brother with an air of calmness, Barbra grows gradually more frantic and, yes, hysterical. This prompts Ben to urge, “Maybe you oughta calm down.” In other words, Oh god, please go back to your fugue state. As her hysteria mounts, she insists they go find her brother, who she also insists is still alive. After enough of this, Ben socks her in the face, a look of satisfaction forming as he seems to view Barbra as the representation for all such previous demanding but useless white women he’s had to deal with in the past.
As for Tom’s girlfriend, Judy (Judith Ridley), she, too, proves to be the worst kind of useless in that she actually wields that uselessness as a means to bring others down. Namely, Tom…as she goes against the plan to stay inside while Tom and Ben run out to fill the car with gas so they can escape. Instead of just letting him go, Judy latches onto him. As a result, she later ends up slowing him down when her jacket gets caught in the truck—enough time for the fire that’s started around it to make the whole car go up in flames. Leaving behind the perfect “barbeque dinner” for the surrounding zombies. Still, Judy did at least watch Harry and Helen’s (Marilyn Eastman) “sick” child, Karen (Kyra Schon), in the basement when they asked her to. That was far more than the likes of “paralyzed” Barbra could ever offer. Shit, even a white girl like Marnie Edgar (Tippi Hedren) could function through her trauma so long as she wasn’t triggered by the color red. Not Barbra though. She does fuck-all to help Ben, who does the real labor to survive and, in the end, is met with a crueler fate than Barbra being swarmed by zombies and seeing her undead brother among them.
And yet, though it’s sad to say, no amount of Barbra’s assistance likely would have been able to prevent Ben from being met with the average American Black male death: cold-blooded murder by a white person in a position of authority.
