‘WWZ’: U.S. Manual for World War III

A fearless multitude swarms through the streets of New York City. In Washington, they storm the nation’s capital. In Israel, they scale the apartheid walls. This global, multiracial mass of millions grows in strength and number until it confronts the militaries of the world’s imperialist powers.
But this is no revolution — it’s World War Z’s zombie apocalypse.
In other recent apocalyptic films, like “2012” or television’s “Doomsday Prophecy,” the threat to the capitalist order comes from nature. But in World War Z (adapted from the book by Max Brooks), the destruction stems from a nightmare version of the ultimate threat to the bosses: the international working class.
In the opening scene of World War Z, a normal day is turned upside down as Philadelphia is overrun by zombies. Within hours, society has been reduced to a libertarian’s vision of the future: the armed survivalist few gunning down the masses to protect family and private property.
As the film unfolds, Gerry Lane, a United Nations investigator played by Brad Pitt, globetrots in search of a cure to the zombie infection. His family is given safe haven aboard a U.S. Navy vessel in exchange for his service — a recurring theme in what amounts to a two-hour military recruitment ad. As Gerry gears up for a mission to South Korea, he joins a team of Navy Seals for a nighttime attack that recalls Barack Obama’s raid to kill Osama bin Laden. The film’s PG-13 rating will help expose countless youth to this pro-Navy advertising and try to prime them to sacrifice for the next wave of imperialist wars.  
Barely escaping zombification in Korea, Gerry makes his way to Israel. As he travels with an Israeli official, the official gives a stock Zionist account of the Holocaust and Israeli history that justifies Israel’s fascist police state and the 30-foot wall that enforces the segregation of humans and zombies. The film’s message is clear — in times of crisis, fascism is necessary.
Moments later, a faceless horde scales the wall. The scene evokes images of a Palestinian “invasion” into Israel and of the recent Arab Spring revolts. The Israeli military then unleashes devastating firepower upon the multitude. This slaughter is made palatable to the audience because the millions are presented as dehumanized zombies. But the imagery also romanticizes Israel’s real-life apartheid, the legalized system of racist segregation and occupation that separates Palestinians from their land (with real walls) and justifies the ongoing slaughter of Arabs throughout the Middle East by U.S. and Israeli imperialists.
Symbolic of the strong imperialist ties between the U.S. and Israel, an Israeli soldier helps Gerry make his way to a lab and discover a cure. To ward off the zombies and test a potential vaccine, he self-sacrificially injects himself with a deadly virus. Barely alive, he makes his way back to his family. In the final scene, Gerry declares that the war has only just begun.
World War Z is not fundamentally a film about zombies. As author Max Brooks argues, the zombies represent various recent crises — the failed war in Iraq, the 2008 economic collapse, the rise of China — that threaten to paralyze the U.S. capitalist system. The film’s actual message? The U.S. is a power in decline, and workers must sacrifice as the bosses struggle to stay atop the imperialist food chain. Workers must give back wages and benefits for the rulers’ profits and sacrifice their lives in inter-imperialist wars. As billions of people in WWZ perish in military assaults, the film acclimates the audience to the idea that World War III could some day be a reality. It would have us accept that billions will die in the bosses’ ruthless quest for profits.
WWZ’s promotional poster depicts a mass of human silhouettes piling toward a helicopter, much like a famous 1975 photo illustrating the “fall” of Saigon. Just as the image of U.S. personnel fleeing Vietnam marked a crisis for U.S. imperialism, the image of zombies overtaking a helicopter in WWZ symbolizes the growing weakness of the U.S. relative to its imperialist rivals.
It’s no accident Brad Pitt both starred in and produced this film. Pitt and his actress wife, Angelina Jolie, have for years served as a “humanitarian” face for U.S. imperialism’s mass murders around the world. In his role as spokesperson for the Not on Our Watch campaign, Pitt has helped give cover for the U.S. dogfight with China over Sudanese oil. This inter-imperialist conflict is the real crisis behind the scenes of mass slaughter in WWZ.
As a UN special envoy, Jolie has played a major role in promoting “humanitarian” war over pipelines in the Balkans and around the world. In 2007, she became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. imperialism’s premier think tank. Her fortune funds special CFR reports, blueprints for future imperialist interventions.
World War Z reflects a disagreement among key members of the U.S. ruling class over how to deal with the crisis within their empire and the rise of China.  Calling for the “restoration” of U.S. imperialism, CFR President Richard Haass argues for the U.S. to rebuild at home and limit “wars of choice” (Iraq, Syria) to prepare for future wars with rivals. But others in the CFR favor different tactics, including U.S. expansion into Syria.
WWZ author Max Brooks has weighed into this debate with frequent lectures, including one to the U.S. Naval War College. Like Haass, he calls for a smarter form of U.S. imperialism. For Brooks, the zombies’ power reflects internal weaknesses in U.S. capitalism. He leads his audience to see education and healthcare as national security issues.
Far more than a mere horror movie, WWZ is a major work of U.S. imperialist propaganda. The working class must defy these dehumanizing images of itself by joining the Progressive Labor Party and building a communist class-consciousness. One day millions will storm Wall Street and Washington and topple the apartheid walls in Israel. But it won’t be a zombie apocalypse — it will be a communist revolution!