“Zombie”: terrorism, violence and globalization in the success track from “The Cranberries”

Abstract

Technological advances, notably in the 20th century, boosted the creation of mass destruction weapons that, from the “grapeshot” to nuclear weapons, terrified the world in the Age of Catastrophe  – 1914 – 1945, a term used by the historian Eric Hobsbawm. In the same perspective, the Cold War period (1945-1991) was also marked by terrorism, violence, and advance of the recording industry, in which rock and roll, mainly in the 1969 Woodstock, enhanced counterculture actions with criticism of violence, of the bureaucratic State and the capitalism. From this context, in the 90s, the band The Cranberries, and the song Zombie, produced in 1994, criticized terrorism inspired by the attack in Warrington, England, that killed two kids, Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball, 12 and 3 years old, respectively. The actions of the nationalist Catholic group IRA not only motivated the Irish band but also justified the analysis of the mentioned song video clip to investigate its connection and audiovisual productions to civilization clash and terrorist actions that persisted and strengthened, even with the last-minute Cold War, in 1991.