Warning: Spoilers.
Fido is a
zombie film set in a 1950s-esque universe where The Zombie Wars had been won
and a company called Zom Com have domesticated zombies. It is the latest trend
for each household to have a zombie, as a pet or as a servant. We start with
little Timmy learning about zombies, as the wars are taught in school so
children understand the world they live in, and about the wastelands that are
outside the barriers. Their world is calm, beautiful, and the colour scheme is
very bright – despite the zombies, who are very grey. It paints an odd but
common picture of the 1950s as being all about the family, about men working and
women looking after the home. The zombies don’t change much about the universe
until our protagonists buy Fido.
Whilst most
are fine with seeing the zombies as no longer human Timmy disagrees and
questions the world around him. He is not liked amongst his friends and his
father has set up a funeral fund for him – in a world where special measures
need to be taken to stop someone being a zombie funerals are expensive
luxuries. At the start his Mum, Carrie Ann Moss, was the same but after meeting
and getting to know Fido, a beardless Billy Connolly, she changes her way of
thinking. It triggers a series of events where zombies go back to eating and
turning people and we see how an egotistical man, a work focused father, a stay
at home Mum, and a little boy deal with it.
Timmy’s
father works in the funeral business and he spends almost all of his time
working or golfing; his son asks him if he can go golfing with him but he lies
and rejects him because his son is a bit odd and asks the ‘wrong’ questions. He
ignores his wife as a person and as a partner so much so that he doesn’t even
realise that she is pregnant, and when she tells him his response is simply “Maybe
you’re just getting fat”. His demise comes when he tries too little too late to
be a father and be there for his son, leaving his wife to pick up the pieces. At
his funeral she simply turns to Fido, her new odd companion, and explains “It
was what he wanted” – a funeral, with his head in a separate box, and a line
from the priest about dust never reanimating. His character is perhaps what
1950s men might have been – focused on work, seeing his family as a status more
than anything, and happy to ignore his son if he’s not exactly what he wanted.
Though the
1950s perhaps tried to paint men as the great providers, as competent and noble
yet modern representations understand the type of man that might have created.
For example shows such as Masters of Sex paint a picture of men as struggling
with their emotions and their anger, not being able to cope to any challenge of
their ego, and happy to ignore the skills of women to suit their world view –
admittedly because the men of today are so similar. Yet these representations
of the ‘50s also do the opposite for women; they don’t simply paint women are
two dimensional housewives, as mothers with no story and personality in fact
they create more three dimensional characters than a lot of modern films do. Especially
modern zombie movies where it’s easy to fall into tropes of damsels in
distress.
As someone
who watches a lot of zombie films it can be exhausting seeing women reduced to cheap
jokes or tools to show a range of qualities of men – from the good to the bad. For
example in The Horde there is a moment where a female zombie is stumbling down
a hallway, a dismembered head in hand, and after knocking her down three of the
male characters start calling her a slut, and talking about having sex with
her; they even take the head she was holding and make her kiss it and despite
one character’s brother scolding him, asking if it makes him feel badass, it
still ends with her top wide open showing her bare breasts. I’m not even going
to get started on the misogynistic horror that is Deadgirl. This is where Fido
follows suit however – with a character called Tammy.
Tammy is a
running joke in the film as the adults struggle to explain to Timmy who she is
to their neighbour. Tammy is a zombie, one who died young and was domesticated
early enough for no decomposition to set in; their neighbour who bought her was
fired from his job at Zom Com because of his relationship with her. Timmy’s
parents trip over the words to explain that Tammy is kind of his girlfriend but
clear to explain that he doesn’t love her. It’s an open disgust and
uncomfortableness but one they can’t do anything about because there’s nothing
wrong, technically, with owning a zombie for whatever use you want it for. It
is a twisted storyline but as it is in a comedy it is used for cheap laughs and
to poke at an adult situation in a film about a little boy and his pet zombie.
Again however it shows a sadly accurate understanding of what would happen in a
world with calm zombie pets. It understands the misogynistic world around us
and makes it clear that Tammy is unhappy and that the neighbour is a creep.
But what’s
more is that Carrie Ann Moss’ character is a shining light in a film set in a
1950s universe. She is one of the three main protagonists along with her son
and Fido, a silent character but a strong performance from Connolly. Her
character, yes, looks after the home, she bought Fido in the first place
because she was embarrassed that they didn’t have a zombie of their own. Yet
she is very skilled with a gun, calm in a ridiculous situation, and
understanding of Timmy and his weird questions. She is always beautiful yet
never shallow, she is pregnant but never in the background, and whilst she
bought Fido for status she begins to grow close to him as a mute zombie becomes
a better partner to her than her husband. It’s this depiction of a female
character, especially in this decade, that shows an understanding of women that
often appears seemingly in contrast to the sexism in the rest of the film.
It’s this
depiction of strong women, of capable women, that I think is one that is
important when looking at history. Whilst the 1950s stand out as a particularly
regressive time for women the rest of history, and present day, has hardly done
much better. Women across the world and across time have been ignored, put
down, and not given the opportunities that their male peers have; from
education to work and even to ownership of their bodies women have had a struggle
men simply haven’t had. It would be easy, but wrong, to assume that throughout
history women have let the time they live in define them. It would be a false assumption
that women simply sat back and let themselves be dehumanised objects for men,
that they never tried to break the boundaries around them, and it is something
writers would be wise to remember this. Whilst Fido is one that understands
this there are many films that don’t and sadly many, many modern films forget
this most of all – making women sexual backdrops to the male leads adventures. Women
are complicated, strong, ambitious, and amazing even when they are flawed and
writers would do damn well to remember that.
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