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Really? The bad guy is called Major Henry West. I thought it was kind of on the nose.
But yeah, I get it. It's a point that's hard to explain to those who're not big on film in the more pretentious artsy sense. The idea that screenwriting can be intentional in this way goes over most people's heads unless directly pointed out. And even then the concepts here are esoteric and dramatic enough that most don't want to entertain them regardless of anything else.
On top of that '28 Days Later' is 'entertaining' enough and the subtext is marginal enough that you could say it's not intentional at all in isolation. But if we recognize that screenwriting, including subtext, allegories and foreshadowing via various means in film are often intentional, even if they are not always tied to a subtext or narrative, then these things warrant explanation. Even if only to entertain the notion that, by coincidence, we can gleam this out of the film.
A better and more undeniable demonstration of explicit racial subtext in film is the Gattaca review by the same person. There are names and shots that only make sense in that context.
As far as I can tell these are generally 'inspired' by Mark Brahmins work. I find these to be more accessible and less pretentious than the blogposts though.
I don't need to see a video to notice that there's racial subtext in Gattaca. The film's message can be summed up as "even when scientific racism is 100% obviously true and a master race demonstrably exists, it's still false and the master race aren't actually any better than the rest of us, fuck logic". The Wikipedia article cites at least one review pointing out the racial angle.
But I can't even construct a particularly-consistent explanation for 28 Days Later being secretly about white rage. If it's meant to be about racial hatred being good, why are those with it portrayed as literal zombies? If it's meant to be about racial hatred being evil, why didn't anyone involved cash in on belatedly noting it the way the Wachowski
BrothersSisters did?More options
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