Film
George A Romero’s 1968 horror film Night of the Living Dead is one of the most inspired critiques of consumerism in movie history. It is about a zombie uprising caused by a virus from outer space, causing dead people to rise from the grave, driven by a hunger for living human flesh. The film satirises 1960s America’s consumerism: people existing in a catatonic state of hunger and thirst and hostility; a metaphor made explicit in the later Dawn of the Dead (1978), set in a shopping mall. Now, in the era of social media, it’s even more relevant. All of us scrolling endlessly through our phones, looking dully through material covertly curated by commercial algorithms. People do it on public transport and even walking on the streets … like zombies. Peter Bradshaw
