Graduation Semester and Year
Spring 2026
Language
English
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in English
Department
English
First Advisor
Penelope Ingram
Second Advisor
Jim Warren
Third Advisor
Timothy Morris
Abstract
This thesis examines disability representation in The Walking Dead by shifting critical attention away from zombies as metaphor and toward disabled human characters within the narrative. Drawing on disability studies, crip theory, and bell hooks’ concept of the oppositional gaze, it develops a “crip oppositional gaze” as a method for reading against the show’s survivalist logic. This framework reveals how the series both reproduces and destabilizes ableist assumptions embedded in zombie media, particularly the association of survival with autonomy, productivity, and bodily normativity.
Across close analyses of all eleven seasons, the thesis argues that The Walking Dead operates through a conditional inclusion of disability. Physical disabilities are tolerated when they can be stabilized, prosthetically mediated, or rendered productive, while conditions requiring ongoing care are frequently excluded or narratively foreclosed. Similarly, mental illness and neurodivergence are often pathologized or racialized, though moments of resistance
and reinterpretation emerge through alternative readings. The project also interrogates “contingent” forms of disability—such as age, pregnancy, and fatness—demonstrating how the show constructs a hierarchy of survivability that reflects broader cultural biases.
Situating these representations within the ideological contexts of neoliberalism, biopolitics, and horror media, the thesis contends that disability is not absent from zombie narratives due to “realism,” but is instead actively marginalized through narrative structures that naturalize its exclusion. At the same time, a crip oppositional gaze uncovers fissures within the text—moments of care, interdependence, and adaptation—that challenge its dominant survivalist ethos. Ultimately, this study argues that attending to disabled characters expands both zombie studies and disability studies, insisting that disability be understood not as metaphor, but as a lived and represented experience with critical interpretive potential.
Keywords
The Wayking Dead, Disability, Zombies, Zombie, Zombie media, Crip theory, Disability studies, Post-apocalyptic
Disciplines
English Language and Literature
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Josey, Abigail S., ""You Gotta Play the Hand You're Dealt. I Only Got One": Viewing AMC's The Walking Dead Through a Crip Oppositional Gaze" (2026). English Theses. 1.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/english_theses2/1