Before Zack Snyder became the comic book director we know him as today, he began his career in a genre that still surprises most. Dawn of the Dead is great for many reasons; the film is a part of a small list of remakes that are as good as the original, it’s genuinely terrifying with sharp black humor and most importantly, we have a final girl who’s just as smart as she is emotional but doesn’t let her weaknesses get her killed. This is a zombie film, after all.
Like all of Snyder’s films, there’s a lot to be said about the role that women have in the story. For Dawn of the Dead, we can instantly tell that protagonist Ana is someone who is used to being pushed around. The opening scene features her and a male doctor; he’s busy making plans for golf on the phone while Ana is holding a ton of paperwork. When she tries to speak up to tell him that her shift is over, he cuts her off to finish his conversation. After he finally hangs up, he asks her about a patient that came in at the beginning of her shift (she makes sure to tell him the exact time, 6 AM) and tells her check on him despite the fact that her shift ended an hour ago.
This type of male arrogance is something that any woman can relate to in and outside of the workplace and regarding the film, it plays a larger role into the power dynamics that we see later on with the remaining survivors. Despite the constant hassle from higher ups, Ana is overall satisfied with her life. We get a sense of how comfortable she is with her repetitive schedule—she goes to work, she drives home, talks to Vivian, the local neighborhood girl, and ends her day watching TV with her husband.
The simplicity of her suburban life is quickly ended the second that Vivian appears mangled and bloodied in the doorway of her and her husband’s bedroom. Ana’s husband is the one to approach her and he gets promptly bitten. Within seconds, he turns into a zombie and Ana is thrust into survival mode. She doesn’t try to approach him like he did with Vivian, she grabs her car keys and runs into the bathroom.
This kind of quick thinking is what makes Ana such a great final girl. These survival instincts aren’t rocket science but we’re all too used to seeing characters make stupid mistakes that could’ve been prevented. Things move fast after that—she jumps out of the bathroom window to run to her car and she sees her previously peaceful neighborhood in chaos. She doesn’t have time to dwell in her shock, she leaves her neighborhood and ends up joining a group of survivors—Police Sergeant Kenneth, everyman Michael and Andre and his pregnant wife, Luda.
They reach the abandoned Crossroads Mall where they escape zombies on the first floor and run into a group of security officers who make them give up their weapons in exchange for refuge. Ana’s interactions with the guards—particularly C.J., the leader—marks the beginning of her challenging that same male entitlement that was seen before. While treating Kenneth’s wounds, Ana tells C.J. that she needs stitches so she
can finish the job and C.J. comments, “You a fucking doctor?” Ana replies with, “No, I’m a fucking nurse.”
Unlike the situation with the doctor, Ana and the rest of the group are in a life or death scenario. They can’t afford to question each other’s ability to protect when lives are on the line. We see a similar scene with Michael and Andre; Andre belittles Michael’s leadership because he’s an electronics salesman but in the end, what does it matter? No one will be able to return to their normal lives so they have to adjust to new positions based on their desire to survive.
Although Ana is logical and calm on the outside, she does have her moment to mourn which is cut off by C.J. It’s an asshole move on his part, but it’s also reflective of this new world that they live in. The world has always been unexpected and dangerous but adding zombies to the mix presents an additional set of challenges. Some of these challenges are difficult for people to face, but Ana is one of the few who takes on the leadership role in order to solve them.
The most pivotal moment in the film is notorious zombie baby birth scene. Luda gets bitten but instead of telling the group, Andre keeps it a secret and eventually chains her to a bed when she begins to turn into a zombie. To protect the group, Ana kills the infant off screen. As a nurse, she’s used to caring for newborn children. There’s a sick irony in the fact that she has to abandon that maternal role to survive but she’s seen the damage that can be done by a zombie child and she refuses to risk that for a zombie baby.
That scene also serves as an example of what happens when male dominance takes over a woman’s choice—a recurring theme that we see in the movie. We never find out how Luda feels about not telling the group their secret because Andre keeps her locked away. Ana tries to visit her but Andre dismisses the idea and that unsettles her. Although Luda wanted to have her baby in the beginning, would she still want to if she knew she was going turn into a zombie? Would she have kept the bite a secret if she knew it could turn her child?
These are questions that could’ve been answered with the guidance of someone level headed like Ana. Andre’s obsession with having a family led to his loss of sanity. Luda would’ve had to die regardless because she was bitten but his denial of the severity of the situation led to his death as well.
There’s a cabin fever element to being cooped up in the mall for so long and after the zombie baby incident, some survivors start to act recklessly. Nicole, one of the later newcomers, forms a close bond with Chips, a dog that the group found in the mall garage. Animals are immune to the zombies, so they’re free to run around without the possibility of being bitten. When the group decides to use Chips to transport food to a survivor across the street, Nicole loses it. She gets in the nearest truck to drive to Chips and ends up getting stuck in the same building as the survivor after he turns into a zombie.
One might say people do crazy things when they’re in love but Ana’s newfound love with Michael never got in the way of the overall goal: to survive. She doesn’t resort to reckless behavior or try to run away with only him; she continues her role as leader right to the end. In the midst of chaos, Ana finds a way to keep it together.
The group makes the final decision to go to the marina and take a yacht in order to head to a possibly secluded island. The plan was arrogantly suggested by Steve, who instantly denounces the idea when the group starts to consider it into reality. But at that point, they had nothing to lose; the mall could only give them so much and it was already taking a mental toll on others.
Ana is consistently at the center of group discussions; she worries about others but not in an overbearing way, she just wants to make sure that everyone is okay. Isolation is something that can easily happen even in close quarters and Ana is the one who keeps conversations going to help others feel included. Her role as a final girl leaves a lasting impact.
She doesn’t follow the usual steps that put lives in danger and she even reverses the tired trope of being the last one to make it on the bus when they leave the mall and run into zombies: the group used two buses to get to the marina and after one crashes and they stop to get the remaining survivors, Ana sees that Steve has turned into a zombie.
She shoots him in the head (just
like he previously suggested she do if he ever happened to turn) and is about to leave for the bus when she remembers that he has the yacht key in his pocket. Michael is frantically waiting for her to show up and when she comes running into the bus he asks her, “What the hell were you doing?” She shows him the yacht keys and he just smiles.
That observant, but quick thinking is what kicked off her adventure into survival. If she wasn’t aware of her surroundings, if she didn’t care for others, if she let fear and grief consume her, she wouldn’t be alive. But she always remembered the goal at hand and that’s why she’s a final girl.
Ana isn’t defined by her gender or her occupation, she isn’t pushed to the sidelines in favor of men despite how often they challenged her role. She knew her strengths and she capitalized on them to help herself and others. When we put those same traits into context for characters like Lois Lane, Diana Prince, Laurie Juspeczyk and the girls from Sucker Punch, we see a clear pattern that’s frequently shown in Snyder’s films. Not only does Ana represent the feminism that’s essential to his filmography, but she’s also an example of how we need to constantly demand that mainstream cinema represent characters like her.
