Dawn of the Dead (1978) Image Analysis - Fran and Peter

In this scene, we see Fran and Peter at the end escaping the mall. From this, we see our archetypal Final Girl and Male Hero who challenge their conventional appearances. This is because we have a Blonde woman who is pregnant and a black man. In the time of release, this would have been seen as uncommon, although we can link this into George Romero’s auteur style through the fact of he is anti-racist. We can compare this with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) where Ben (Duane Johnson) has also had his role flipped around and is the male hero. At the time, this would have been frowned upon by the American audience who weren't fond of the idea of a black person having more power than a white person. This scene is iconic as we see the last survivors and leaves the audience on edge for a possible sequel. We also get the idea of an open ending as the last scene shows that they are low on fuel, leaving many possibilities as to what could happen. The close up allows us to see their emotions, and their expressions show that the characters have become tougher due to getting over their losses.