Serial Horrors of Loneliness: The Impossibility of Communitization in “The Walking Dead”

Abstract

For a long time, zombie movies have lead a shadow existence. Nowadays,, zombies have surprisingly become in vogue: today, they are a constant telemedial companion, reaching all relevant target groups. "The Walking Dead", offers a promising object of investigation. The main question is why has this series with its dark lonely world become one of the most successful telemedial narratives of our times? The paper wants to show from a sociological-philosophical perspective how we can understand modernity as an age of growing loneliness as it generates uncertain social relationships and living conditions, provoking a longing for a simpler lifestyle without the antagonisms of modernity. But this desire for an anti-modern change, which leads to ‘post’-modernity, and the hope to overcome modernity’s loneliness, does not only negate all modern achievements —prosperity, democracyand freedom—, but also those modern means of mass communication like television, which made the loneliness of modernity bearable through mediated forms of communitization.KEYWORDS: serie, The Walking dead, anti-modernity, communitization.; Uno de los valores de la serie a la que se refiere el texto es que se sale de la modernidad, a través de la forma de vida que propone y del consumo en continuo y de la omnuipresencia de los medios.Es la soledad en nuestras modernas sociedades la que da lugar a nuevas formas de producción, y de rutinas diarias. Desde esta perspectiva, el placer de ver "The Walking Dead" no procede del horror que presentan sino de una nueva forma de "communitization". La serie muestra la anti-modernidad, en la que el sentimiento de alienación es infinito, a la vez que se produce un sentimiento de sentirse perdido en ese mundo de soledad.PALABRAS CLAVE: serie, The Walking dead, anti-modernidad, communitization.; Testu honetan aipatzen den telesailaren balioetako bat da modernitatea duela abiapuntu, proposatzen duen bizimoduaren, etengabeko kontsumoaren eta hedabideen nonahikotasunaren bidez.Gure gizarte modernoetan, bakardadea da ekoizteko modu berriei eta eguneroko ohitura berriei bide ematen diena. Ikuspegi horretatik, “The Walking Dead” ikusteak ematen duen plazera ez dator irudikatzen duen izutik, baizik eta sozializatzeko modu berri batetik (“communitization”). Telesailak antimodernitatea erakusten du, eta, antimodernitate horretan, alienazio sentimendua infinitua da eta, aldi berean, bakardadezko mundu horretan galduta egotearen sentimendua sortzen da.Hitz gakoak: telesaila; The Walking Dead; antimodernitatea; communitization.