Patriarchy and The Walking Dead

 

I have recently started a rewatch of one of my favorite shows: The Walking Dead. It started as just something to watch while I was at work to have some background noise, but I started paying really close attention to it, and realized that this show is a great case study for patriarchy. This show swings widely from reinforcing traditional patriarchy to poking holes in it with their female characters. Early on, the leadership roles fall automatically to the men.

Breaking it down, we have the titular character who primarily leads the action: Rick Grimes. Rick is an ex-police officer (only because of the circumstances, not by choice) who takes on a leading role within his group of survivors that includes his wife, Lori, and his son, Carl, among others who have come together to try and make it through this world they’re being forced to live in. Rick is the moral center of the group and its main strategist. And he hadn’t even lived through the early stages of the, for lack of a better word, pandemic. But he comes in, finds his wife and kid, and then just naturally falls into the leadership role, a role which had previously been held by his best friend, Shane. The villains of the show: people like Shane, Negan, the Governor, etc, are all hyper-masculine authority figures that have a “my way or else” mentality. This heavily mirrors patriarchal ideals that men are “natural” leaders (especially in crisis situations) while women are expected to be the emotional stability and support.

In another sense, the apocalypse itself rewards traits that are seen as more masculine. Traits like physical strength, emotional distance, and being able to be violent and dominant when it counts the most (such as killing walkers/other people/etc). Men like Dale and Hershel are kind of sidelined because of their caring natures at first because they don’t truly “understand” the need to be violent toward people all the time. But, in hindsight, it truly comes down to the need to be both willing to do what it takes to survive but also to have compassion for others because that is needed for long term survival. 

Negan’s character is one of the forms of patriarchy in the show that ultimately shows how unstable it is, especially in this world. He controls his people through fear, treats his “wives” like property rather than people, and uses violence and his dominant personality to bully the people around him into submission.

All of the women, at first, are reduced to traditionally feminine roles. Lori is the dutiful wife and mother, defined by her relationships to Rick and Shane. Carol is the battered housewife, seen as quiet and weak. Andrea is seen as lesser because she doesn’t immediately fall into line with traditional female roles within the survivor group. The thing about this show that I found the most interesting, was that the patriarchal overtones of the narrative crumble the longer the show goes on. It lets the women throw off the blanket cover of the patriarchy and come into their own as leaders. Carol evolves from the victim to a strategist. A character introduced later in the series, Michonne leads people through her competence rather than using brute force like Negan and the Governor. Maggie becomes a political and moral leader in her own right. The show goes from focusing on the brutality of men, to focusing on the women who are not only supportive, but leaders in their own right. So, I guess the question here is this: Do you consider The Walking Dead to be more patriarchy focused? Or do you think it lends itself more to feminist perspectives overall?