‘An embodiment of white fears’: how zombies went from Haitian spiritual tradition to Hollywood monsters

Maya Annik Bedward’s fascinating new documentary goes beyond reductive imagery to place the zombie and vodou in their true historical context American film has a canon of racist disinformation that famously includes The Birth of a Nation , King Kong (1933) and Gone With the Wind .

A new documentary makes a compelling argument that zombies, as presented, commodified and popularized by Hollywood, are part of the same tradition. Black Zombie serves as work of…