Black monstrosity and the rhetoric of whiteness in Disney’s Zombies trilogy

ABSTRACT Drawing from strategic whiteness and guided by racial rhetorical criticism, this article analyzes Disney’s Zombies movie trilogy. Situated within the context of anti-Critical Race Theory policies and the use of children and K-12 education as political pawns, the timely release of Zombies as a postracial narrative motivates this research. Through the positioning of humans, zombies, werewolves, and aliens as fixed symbolic racial groups within the imagined utopian United States town of Seabrook, Zombies presents an ideology of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that sustains white power and fluidity. This rhetorical analysis presents three conclusions. First, the imaginary utopian town of Seabrook is a postracial space developed around stereotypical racialized characters and narratives that contribute to the historical marginalization of Indigenous, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), and Black people. Second, through the protagonist Zed and the cinematic construction of zombies, the trilogy perpetuates a postracial anti-Blackness via the inscription of a policed and controlled monstrosity onto Black identity. Third, the second protagonist, Addison, engages in the propagation of whiteness via voyeuristic racial tourism and white purity. In total, the children’s mediated narrative upholds white centrality and power obviated by contemporary DEI discourses and representations.