28 Days Later - Leadership

Zombie Apocalypse stories are fascinating in that they provide an excellent setting for raw human behavior. People in imminent danger, with many friends and family not only dying but attempting to kill them, cannot mask their baser instincts. The will to survive, the hunt for food, the desire - or lack of desire - for human companionship, are exposed as society crumbles. In most of these stories, people must band together in order to survive. However, this pseudo-society is very fragile: any one of them could be dead at any moment, and the struggle for survival interferes with their ability to form relationships.

In 28 Days Later, the societies that form are defined by the leaders that either are appointed or assume command. The first leader is Selena, and her group is defined by survival at any cost. By her hand, her companion of the last few weeks dies, and she warns Jim that the same would happen to him. She is focused only on her own life, and has followers only for the sake of safety in numbers. When they meet Frank and his daughter, the society changes as leadership changes hands. She slowly relinquishes her command of the group, and in doing so adopts Frank's outlook on the situation. People become more important as individuals, and friendships form as survival takes a backseat to creating a society that is worth living in. Frank's death throws everything out of balance, and we see Selena cry for the first time as the society that made sense, that was worth living for, loses its leader. In its place Major Henry West assumes command of the group, and under his leadership the friends are worse off than they'd ever been. He is a man of war, and sees the infection as nothing more than "men killing men." As such, he treats his new guests as part of the war effort, endorses the rape of the women for survival and attempts to kill Jim for insubordination.

In all of this we see that leadership is important, and a society formed under authoritarianism and "survival of the fittest" does not ever work, even in dire circumstances. We must always be aware of our humanity, and strive to form and value relationships, or else the society will not be worth living in.