In last week's stereotype feature, Movieline spotlighted the Desperate Housewives, who in their exhausted seventh season on ABC, are pretty much the television equivalent of the walking dead. And this week, Movieline takes a look at actual small screen zombies (as well as sluts and drunk daytime talk hosts) haunting the airwaves.
1. Zombies (The Walking Dead)
As Movieline's horror and paranormal expert Lindsay Wolfe explained earlier this week in her first recap of The Walking Dead, AMC's comic adaptation is remarkably fleshed out and sympathetic to its humans -- like Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), who has concerns back home that don't even begin to factor in the walking dead terrorizing his small town. And for that, Movieline credits AMC for making its heroes in the face of horror multidimensional and original. But the zombies....they are a different story.
Zombies did not get much screen time in the hour-long pilot but when they were featured, it was as the mindless, slow-moving, decaying corpses reaching awkwardly for human flesh typical of all zombies in popular culture. Zombies cannot just be lurching, expired bodies hungry for human flesh. OK, maybe by definition they are. But at one point in time, vampires were just evil creatures who feasted on the blood of humans. And then books -- and their big screen adaptations -- like Interview with the Vampire and Twilight helped dispel the whole vampire stereotype. Vampires now have cares and concerns. There are benevolent vampires who try not to kill (but romance) humans, narcissistic vampires, evil, chaos-wreaking vampires and every shade of vampire in between. So isn't it about time that zombies are fleshed out by something other than their rotting prejudiced profile?
Wouldn't it be great to see a complex zombie -- like, a teenage (dead) girl whose standard anxieties about appearances are only heightened by the oozing bullet hole on her forehead. How will she ever get a date to the fall mixer!? Or maybe the suburban zombie who was just been laid off from his lucrative accounting job in the suburbs. How can he continue to support his family of five, especially with Christmas just around the corner?! Do zombies have concerns about love, the economy, politics, holidays ("Tell your sister that she is cooking Thanksgiving this year!") and sexually transmitted diseases (The irony! They are already dead!)? We may never know unless zombies are given the benefit of the stereotype doubt.
2. The Walk of Shame-ers (How I Met Your Mother)
On this week's How I Met Your Mother, "Canning Random," writers poked fun at the "Walk of Shame" phenomenon by positioning Ted, Barney and Marshall on the street early on November 1 morning to watch the Annual Post-Halloween Walk of Shame Parade. Like in every other television show or movie to ever lampoon ladies walking home after a one night stand, a group of women -- all looking dejected, embarrassed and pathetic -- trudged back after an evening of assumed drunken revelry between the sheets. Only in How I Met Your Mother's twist, the Walk of Shamers were all wearing their Halloween costumes from the night before. "Looks like that French maid didn't turn down someone's bed," Ted fired after a not-so-sexy-anymore French maid dragged by. "Looks like Pocahontas has a couple of wounded knees," countered Marshall while another sad lady passed with her head down. It was refreshing to see a tired sitcom concept turned on its ear. But next time, could we get at least one male Walk of Shame-er. Not all participants in one night stands are female, you know.
3. Drunken Kathie Lee Gifford (Drunken Kathie Lee Gifford, Today)
While Movieline's third tired stereotype of the week does not apply to a social group, it is still a weary prejudice about one individual that has been perpetuated so many times -- in parodies and real life -- that even her own guests mock her to her face, like Joel McHale did brilliantly this week by bringing his own wine to the interview. Kathie Lee Gifford, Movieline recognizes you for your tireless work drinking on air. This week, your daytime drinking reached self-parody heights when you slurred through your teleprompter lines during an Amy Sedaris segment, sloppily giggled as your dropped your cue cards and then chugged white wine while your guest taught you how to make beer caps into a fun craft.