Dawn of the Dead (1978) Image Analysis - Stephen and Roger

In this scene from Dawn of the Dead (1979), we can see Roger and Stephen near the beginning of their trip to the mall. This scene is very important as we can see Roger having the use of a phallic weapon being his gun, which is symbolically more powerful than Stephen’s. From doing this, we learn that Stephen is the weaker of the two and is given the overall impression of being less of a man than Roger. This also gives the audience a look into the characters’ overall abilities and it lets the audience choose who they like the most. We can also see that Roger can be viewed as your stereotypical male hero which is then shown as false later on. This scene is also quite interesting as it flips character stereotypes. We see this by looking at the difference in Stephen, who is a TV producer and is classed as "good looking" compared to Roger, who is just working with the military, doesn't have the best of looks and is looked down upon. This could be seen as one of George Romero's auteur theories as he is well known for flipping characters overall roles (shown with Peter).