Joanna Schroeder thinks AMC is failing men in its portrayal of masculinity in the zombie thriller The Walking Dead.
Tonight’s a big night for TV nerds like myself, as The Walking Dead, AMC’s wildly successful post-apocalyptic zombie series, has its season finale. If you follow any shows on AMC (and you should: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Killing all run on this network), you know these episodes are precious. AMC doesn’t follow traditional network rules, they run short seasons with few episodes and as in the case with Mad Men, can go more than a year between seasons.
The Walking Dead is typical zombie movie fare, except that Frank Darabont, who brought the original graphic novels to the screen, gave The Walking Dead a compelling group of characters and drama-driven storyline that sucks viewers in instantly. Season 1 had awesome B-stories, a heartbreaking love triangle between the leader, Rick, and his best friend Shane over Rick’s wife Lori, and stunning cinematic cityscapes full of zombies. Of course we don’t call them zombies, we call them Walkers, as you never call a zombie a “zombie” in zombie media.
And the Walkers are terrifying. They mull about in various stages of decay and dismemberment, groaning and gurgling and moving in a perfectly choreographed stutter-shuffle that reflects just how you’d imagine a body might move, were it controlled by a brain that was 99.8% dead.
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But a problem has developed for me in this second season, since Darabont was famously fired by AMC. I can’t help but feel a sense of frustration at what is being said about gender in the series. At first, the women seemed equally able to defend themselves against Walkers, and they were also clever, insightful and good strategic thinkers. The men and women fought their way through the post-apocalyptic world together.
But in Season 2, when the cast arrives at a farmhouse safe haven, the show starts to fall into some really annoying stereotypes. The creators of this post-apocalyptic world could have used the opportunity to drop all of society’s traditional structures and explore what would happen were there no society at all. Instead they put the women in the kitchen and sent the men out to die.
At the center of the men’s stories is the antiquated idea that there can only be one Alpha Male. Shane was the leader until Rick came back, then Shane handed over his woman to the pack leader. And Lori goes along with all of this as if she is some commodity to be traded, to be worn like the king’s crown. She is the Alpha Female simply because the Alpha Male has chosen her. It certainly isn’t because she is so wise, or so strong.
In fact, the wisest and strongest female character, Andrea, also the one who can shoot a gun, is often relegated to being stuck in the house while all the good Walker-smashing is going on. She is highly skilled, but relegated almost totally inert.
The perfect example of these traditional male and female roles being played out is in the case of farmer’s-daughter Maggie. When we first meet Maggie, she’s an anonymous figure on the back of a horse who flies through the woods with a baseball bat, then whacks the brains out of a Walker who is about to eat all of our big tough heroes. Never in the history of TV, including She-Ra or Xena the Warrior Princess, has there been a badder-assed woman.
But then what happens? Maggie falls in love with Glenn. Glenn has a lot going for him, he’s measured, clever, wily, sometimes wise. But Glenn isn’t brave. He’s Asian-American, and so it comes as no surprise that on American television he’s the most emasculated of all the men. Even the child on the show is tougher than Glenn.
But the moment these two pair up, Glenn is suddenly called upon to be a protector, and Maggie is relegated to the house. Maggie, the toughest chick you’ve ever seen, is cleaning up the kitchen when Glenn goes out into the dangerous Walker-filled streets to be a hero. Lori, our Alpha Female, tells Maggie to let the men go do their man-work, and reminds her that it’s the women’s job to support the men.
Just as it makes no sense that one of the best shooters in the group, Andrea, stays home to keep an eye on the kid, it makes no sense that Maggie is left home with a quivering lip and a dishcloth while her unskilled, cowering boyfriend is sent into town simply because he’s a man.
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The message here, really, is that these men, especially Glenn, are disposable. That, in many ways, is what our society says to men: You are disposable and the women, no matter how brave or skilled, are delicate and have to be protected. The women have no voice, and the men have no value. It isn’t working for anyone.
Beyond physical sacrifice is the emotional burden the men bear. In the episode titled “Judge, Jury, and Executioner” the guys find a member of another survivor group, a violent and predatory one, and they take him back to the farm to heal his broken leg. They realize he’s probably going to tell his band of thieves about their little safehaven. They send in the only truly likeable male character, the redneck Daryl, to torture him for information.
This is a really powerful episode, not only because it explores the question of what we would do to keep our loved ones safe, but also because it shows that the burden of these decisions is entirely upon the men, especially Alpha Rick. The women cower, they’re afraid, and so they defer to the men, with the exception of one minor character who pleads irrationally for the prisoner’s life. Of course everyone ignores her.
The burden of executing their prisoner, the burden of protecting the farm, the burden of simply deciding where to go and what to do is placed entirely upon these male characters. Not because they don’t ask the women what they think, but simply because, for some reason, the women don’t even think to speak up—with the rare exception of Andrea who eventually always defers to Rick or Shane without question.
This seems like a feminist issue, and it is, but it’s also a bigger issue in society about the burdens we place upon men and making them into disposable commodities. They will go to war, they will beat up men who look cross-eyed at the women, and they will make the decisions without questioning why they’ve been placed in that position or expecting the women to participate.
And the men of The Walking Dead, as much as a few of them are thoughtful and metered, are represented by Shane, the one battling Rick for Alpha position. Shane is impulsive, driven and fearless. Having been the leader while Rick was in a coma, he’s clearly capable of being more than just a sex-crazed beast, and yet the moment Lori goes back to Rick, his mind turns to mush and all he can think about is her, about fighting for position, about regaining control of the group so as to be back in control of Lori.
And not having Lori drives him mad, to the point of trying to murder Rick and eventually forcing Rick to kill him. The idea here is that there can only ever be one Alpha Male, and the two men battling for top position will be like dogs, and kill the other to win the mate.
And maybe this is how it is in our society. Maybe men really do bear all the burden of protection and physical sacrifice, and maybe women do tend to thrive in the home… Or maybe that’s just what we’ve been taught to believe.
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But the producers and writers of the second season had the opportunity to create a different world for our characters. They could’ve made a world where Maggie would ride with her baseball bat alongside Daryl and his crossbow to try to find the lost child in the woods. She could have his back and help keep him safe, and he could do the same for her.
They could have had Andrea going on rescue missions instead of Glenn, so as to keep their best shooters together, and leave Glenn at home where he isn’t such a liability, as he can’t shoot and he freezes in conflict. Or maybe they didn’t have to buy into the bullshit stereotype that Asian men aren’t tough.
And maybe there can be two strong male characters without them having to battle over one woman. Maybe they wouldn’t have to destroy themselves in the quest to be on top. Maybe a multitude of strong men could all exist together.
Why not have the women join in making the tough decisions? And when it came time for Dale, eviscerated by a Walker in a dark field, to be euthanized, why couldn’t Andrea have done it? Rick chickens out (as he always does) and someone has to take over to spare Dale the agony of suffering. Andrea was there, she could shoot, and she loved Dale most of everyone.
But instead, Daryl had to step up, take the gun from Alpha Rick, and put Dale out of his misery. Daryl, who isn’t the leader, and isn’t trying to be, has to bear that responsibility because he is a man.
Or maybe the producers of The Walking Dead do have a plan, as the hero emerging from the dust for anyone who is paying attention is Daryl, who never cared to battle for Alpha and who isn’t in love with Lori. And now that Shane is gone, maybe Andrea will emerge to lead beside him. AMC has a choice here to give the women more agency and make the men less like shallow cardboard cut-outs of masculinity, and they should take it.
It’s up to you, AMC, to show us that you believe women are more than whining liabilities and men are more than power-hungry protectors of our virtue. Give the women some guns, and let the men use their brains. You have the whole post-apocalyptic world at your fingertips, don’t waste it.
Warning, the video below contains violent and graphic content.
About Joanna Schroeder
That is a much more thorough analysis than I had when I caught up on the episodes. All I came up with was “Every single one of these characters is written like they’re the cartoonishly wrong strawman character who’s only there to show how good and right the hero is. Only THERE’S NO HERO.”
I still think Rick is the hero. He defies male stereotypes in some way, in that he is the leader but he’s not power-hungry and does have reservations about killing. His reservations about killing make him seem like a pussy to some people, but I disagree. Shane’s lack of reservation about killing doesn’t make him more of a “man”… So that’s an interesting dichotomy.
But even in that, these two are so yin and yang that we start to see them a caricatures.
I think the death of Shane will allow TWD to emerge from this false dichotomy of good-guy vs bad-boy, and as I said, hopefully a new hero will emerge in Daryl, and maybe they’ll let Maggie get back on the horse with her baseball bat.
I read your article and as soon as I finished it I got sent this sad link….
http://i.imgur.com/vt9Vg.jpg
I absolutely love this article. It addresses things that have bothered me about the series. Don’t get me wrong, I love the suspense….or loved it…Season 1 was good…until it fell into the typical stereotypes that seem the central focus of so many apocalyptic, end of the world, scenarios – or 99% of all shows. The gender stereotypes, the ethnic stereotypes, all of it is so stereotypical that it’s become sadly predictable. Early in Season 1 it sucked me in because it portrayed women to be as capable or even moreso capable as the men in the group to be providers for the group. They stood up to bullies (Ed), they (Andrea & Amy) went fishing & caught quite the rich spoil of goods, able to do so because their father didn’t see fishing as just a father & son activity, then in Season 2, as you mentioned, you had Maggie ride in, take out Walkers with a bat, and be a hero…and then…blah. Maggie suddenly has a man interest, so is no longer capable of fending/doing for herself? Andrea loses her sister and suddenly is no longer able to her own decisions? I do like the fact since Ed’s death and then the loss of Sophia, Carol has started expressing herself & standing up for herself. As a woman who has been in an abusive relationship and having lost a child I can relate to her character and see the steps she’s portrayed has taken as being steps I once took to break that cycle. But they’ve taken these strong woman and turned them into dishtowel wringing worried house women who are capable of doing nothing else or are trying to turn them to that way of thinking and behaving. It’s absurd!
I really do hope that as the future seasons unfold the stereotypes are broken and the characters grow from what is typically seen in the mainstream media outlets of the last several decades.
Having seen the Season Finale I am pleased with the way it ended and am really looking forward to Season 3. I also did some reading/research and my base opinion right now is that Season 2 was just ‘filler’ for what’s to come.
**Trying not to give spoilers
Lori was with Shane because he said Rick was dead. She is still married to Rick. Why wouldn’t she return to her husband’s side. She returns to her familial role when her family is restored. She is also pregnant. She was never smart or clever, and Andrea was hardly a role model at any point in time. She has finally found a reason to live. Good for her. But her best shooting nearly killed Darryl. She hasn’t made any wise decisions. She should be relegated to protect herself and others. Yes, Shane took losing his status and woman hard, and it drive him crazy. It tends to happen in the media. But why task this show with getting the one that breaks those barriers? With society gone, these people sought after as “normal” a life as they could find. Very relatable. The men don’t want their love interests getting hurt, the women don’t like their men constantly getting themselves in dangerous situations. That’s also relatable. It can get annoying, like the curious young boy getting nearly killed because he always has to get closer and closer to zombies and deer in hunter territory. But it’s relatable, believable, and compelling.
Until you liberate male characters from earning value through their actions, they will always be under pressure to take action to earn value.
And authors know it.
That’s a really interesting observation. Your right, the men only have value because of what they provide to the group. Whereas the women are just seen to have intrinsic value. Those men who don’t provide value are basically discarded throughout the series.
Sometimes I really think we waaaayy over analyze, and give either too much or too little credit or power to various media. There are plots and intricacies written into the story lines that make for great fiction, worthy of some thought. I also believe it is about much deeper meanings like spirituality, and “the moral” dilemmas that might come from such a circumstance. No one knows how even they would perform under such circumstances much less how they would treat or expect others too much. Must we over analyze and look for the divisiveness in everything. Its a story. It has protagonists, antagonists and plot. I really doubt it is a secret missive to devalue men, women or anyone else. Perhaps we should take a chill pill and simply enjoy the story and ask ourselves how we might act in a similar circumstance. Perhaps that is the lesson: To survive or for change to happen we should quit splitting hairs, looking for the “enemy” among us and deal with the more clear cut objective. Killing some damn zombies…Maybe even have some sex, form good relationships, and model good parenting for the ones coming up behind us.
I think you’re probably right, Jack, but as a gender-studies person, the problems in this show are SO obvious.
But I LOVE The Walking Dead. I mean, I LOVE it.
But imagine… They could create ANY society they wanted, and they chose to stick to the traditional gender roles, and in fact they enhanced them. I told Noah the other day that it felt almost like they had purposefully created the male characters to fit into the typical archetypes… Or maybe they’re making the gender stereotypes so obvious on purpose, almost like parody?
This piece could’ve been 3000 words, I had to cut myself off! But there was so much more to say, mostly on the good side.
I agree with Adam & Jack. It’s a show, a show I’m rabidly addicted to. My friends and I enjoy discussing all aspects of it, but we remember it’s “just a show”, and shouldn’t be accused of threatening gender roles or driving society over a cliff due to it’s portrayal of gender roles. Daryl is why I watch, but Shane made a lot of wise calls, and Andrea has done some seriously stupid and reckless stuff. It’s not as simple as “men disposable/women oppressed”.
Joanna, while the show does seem overboard with the stereotypes, it also seems you’d prefer to see this show have no discernible difference between groups of people.
While it would make for a neat program, that these random women would be the homemakers, and less the butt-kickers, though stereotypical, is probably accurate.
You seem to think all differences between groups have been created by what society says. Is that true?
No way, dude. I’m not saying to turn women into men, and vise versa, but the gender lines are SO obviously drawn right now, and in a post-apocalyptic survivalist world, there’s no way it would be that obvious.
I definitely don’t think society is the only way genders are differentiated, not by a long shot (see my blog http://www.shesaidhesaid.com – we’ve actually been called gender essentialist) … But in this case it’s just silly how they’ve put the women in the home and the men out in the woods.
I’m not expecting the women to be out like Xena, but to assume they’d all just wring their hands? No chance.
“But in this case it’s just silly how they’ve put the women in the home and the men out in the woods….I’m not expecting the women to be out like Xena, but to assume they’d all just wring their hands? No chance.”
Huh? In real life I am sure that is EXACTLY what would happen. Didn’t we already run this experiment like a hundreds of times…different environments, different cultures, different norms, different languages, different economic structures, seperated by time and space and technology and exactly the same result almost every single time….gender essentialism, certain roles for women, certain ones for men. Some work women’s work and other work men’s work. Women close to home, men fighting and dying.
So for instance with Native American tribes, women worked the fields and men hunted and were warriors. Working the fields was considered women’s work. How did Native Indians figure this whole idea of women’s work out? Did they observe it from Europeans….no the culture predates European contact. Did they use television, radio. No they were isolated. Somehow they managed to come up with gender essentialism in the same way as every single culture has done throughout history. How? It can’t just be coincidence.
I mean we are all supposed to believe in science. But it appears in this case you run the experiment a hundred times and people still don’t get it. Seperate roles for the sexes happens in almost every single culture every recorded. There are almost no exceptions. In the case of the Walking Dead your talking about returning back to a hunter gatherer existence. I don’t think “no chance”. I think its overwhelmingly likely there would be seperate roles for the sexes.
I”m a much bigger fan of Stephen King’s The Stand for seeing how things would play out. Two communities form, one democratic and collaborative, one totalitarian and violent. Similar to the scenario in Road Warrior.
Of course there were serious religious undertones in The Stand. Thing is, the collaborative and democratic tribes would likely be slaughtered by anyone who didn’t give a shit for anything but power or survival.
Humans. Violent to the end.
PS I really liked Shane, too. I watched that video clip in the post and was almost teary thinking of him dying! He actually devolved, and it was amazing to watch.
I LOVE the show, I’m a massive fan, massive. And I think they do a lot right. But like I said, my piece was about one aspect that bugged me.
I really enjoyed season 1, and wondered “what the h*ll happened?” in season 2. Now I understand, with the firing of its creative force and the slashing of the budget. I suspect that it may manage to limp by for another season, but it has gone from a “must see” that people talked about, to something no one talks about, because no one actually watches it. I have 4 episodes on my VTR and it’ll be 5 tonight. I’ll probably end up just deleting them since its become formulaic with nothing new and down-right boring…
I hate it when morons take over a good show and ruin it – but Walking Dead is a recipe on how to KILL a Blockbuster in a few easy steps…
You didn’t even mention T-dog(or Carol). At least the other characters mattered enough to be mentioned. That’s allright. Anyone who’s read the comic and heard T-dog say, “Yo Randy. Govenor called. You’re off the hook.” knows T-dog got something for you next season. Of course, I will have to blog about how black characters are either irrelevant or evil
Black Yoda, I was *this close* to including a whole section about Glenn and T-Dog. Why couldn’t they have called T-Dog “Chris” or “Mike”.
Silly.
Yeah, I’m just glad that didn’t have him rap or dance. That’s something, I guess. It doesn’t even feel right when Rick addresses him as T-dog.
Right!?
But that was his name in the comics, right? So we can’t blame AMC for that part…
If they’re going by the comics storyline then I have bad news for you regarding the conflict between Fuckwit 1 and Fuckwit 2.
I don’t remember T-Dog (Theodore) in the comic, but there was a character named Tyrese. I’m not sure if they will end up connecting the two. They introduced Michonne (hooded figure) last night. She’s definitely a bad ass in the comic and in the show with her introduction. If they follow the story line in the Comic….ummm……let’s just say I look forward to part two of your blog because there will be a part 2…lol.
I freaked out over Michonne!! She seems amazing!! I can’t wait for more of her, I honestly couldn’t even sleep.
I watched the follow-up show afterword with the comic’s author and got really, really excited. He seems to think the third season will be way better.
Yes, let’s call T-Dog “Theodore”…
BTW I liked the show last night, I thought they did a great job with all the characters. I don’t know that the Asian bad-driver joke worked AT ALL though.
you have to critique it in the context that it’s a show about zombie apocalypse, not an educational video about progressive gender stereotypes.
when the world becomes reduced to a fraction of the population men are going to be more protective of women because there are less of them around. when the world becomes reduced to a place where muscles are again more valuable for survival than smarts, men are going to put the women in a safe place because they can hit harder. zombies are not killed only by shooting; there is a lot of swinging too.
when men and women are under extreme pressure they do not think up better, more progressive options, as easily as when they are relaxed and safe, instead, people tend to act on what they know.
i agree with you that the way the roles are portrayed is frustrating, and I agree that ideally men and women should be presented differently in order for people to become more educated. but this is a tv show. it is not meant to educate, it is meant to entertain. for this reason you have to keep it realistic – will people really believe that under extreme pressure and faced with physical hardships the characters will find it within themselves to rise to even greater heights than people in today’s society, who are comfortably surrounded by comforts and technology, can rise to? I don’t think so. The characters do make leaps and creatively handle situations but we have to remember they are also under constant strain, under threat, and were socialized in certain ways.
in the end i’m not saying they should not have done what you say; i think most people who watch might not think this much about it and i think people desperately need to learn better ways of relating more than they need to watch television. unfortunately i don’t think writers and whoever else makes tv shows know how to do what you want very well. not yet anyway. tv used to be very black and white (pun intended) and people were presented very one-dimensionally. we have barely made enough progress to portray characters in a way we can better relate to given the actual state of the world. to convey characters realistically as well as evolved enough for us to learn from is something, i’m afraid is not something that has been mastered well quite yet. there is a lot of competition and a lot of networks feel it is difficult enough to portray characters that don’t insult people’s intelligence and that appeal to emotion. society will have to become more educated on psychological manners in other ways, i’m afraid, before they start demanding more complexity out of tv characters.
as a smart individual who cares and can write, why don’t you take it upon yourself to write some of those scripts that are desperately needy where characters are both realistic and able to teach something through their role? if you are able to do it well, networks will accept it, and then this kind of progress can occur. until people like you and me actually become interested in tackling the problem, the networks are going to be using whatever resources they currently have, and currently they do not have many people who can pull off the kind of thing you say… go help them!
Oh Carmen, how I dream of the day when I have time to write scripts again! Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Yeah, I think your perspective is a good one.
I do think, though, that if you’re going to create an imaginary world, you can let things happen that are outside the norm and challenge viewers … I think Michonne will do that quite well, and Andrea will no doubt become more bad-ass.
I did like the episode last night, a lot, as far as the gender roles and the way everyone was scripted.
I really wanted to like this show. Mostly because the comic it was based on was awesome. Apparently, however, it was too awesome for TV? Anyway, I’d try the books. You might get your TWD fix and find characters that are more to your liking.
While I agree with your point about stereotypes in this show I think that their may be something more to it. Maybe it’s simply a coping mechanism… ( “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing” or “exceeding the resources of the person”) Susan Folkman and Richard Lazarus.
Their world ended, they lost pretty much every person they had ever known and had to kill some of them to boot. As apposed to the first season where they were searching for a safe haven, they have now found one and maybe they are just trying to make their lives as normal as possible.
As for Rick taking the Alpha role and accepting most of the burden on the tough calls (minus killing Daryl), it only makes sense that the former Sherif assumes the mantle of leader. It also makes sense that he is more rational than his deputy as he had those responsibilities in his previous life. Once again potentially just trying to find some sort of normality in his life. Not to mention that he has 2 1/2 people to take care of.
As for Shane, yeah it sucks that he turned out the way he did but it made things interesting as well, as you have mentioned. However, when did he really lose his head? After killing Otis perhaps? Yes the fact that he now had to ”forget” about Lori, a women he presumably loved and may have impregnated, was surely a factor in him competing against Rick but I think that killing Otis was the turning point. Shane went in to survival mode when he killed Otis and I think that may have been something he had a hard time dealing with after, or he potentially never left survival mode? A very plausible story for any person in such a situation.
Personally I know that if I were in a post apocalyptic world such as theirs, I would surround myself with the most competent people to go out for daily walks, no matter the race, gender, religion, or age.
and of course I mean killing Dale not Daryl :-S
“The women have no voice, and the men have no value.”
Female limitations are male obligations. The heart of the MRM.
Women want, and are very close to achieving, equal opportunity.
Men want, but are nowhere near, equal protection.
I mostly dislike the show. Occassionaly I have watched some episodes and they suck me in. But for the most part I think the show just sucks. Its sucks because the characters are stupid in the extreme. Most of their decisions make absolutely no sense. I keep hoping for them to die. Its melodramatic…the whole season 1 finale was utter crap. Too much speechifying, to much bullshit. Its way way too politically correct. The racist has to be the evil guy. Its sets up mostly stupid and utterly ridiculous moral dillemas. I just find it predictable, boring, stupid and annoying.
This just goes to show, if you really want too, you’ll find a gender war everywhere you look.
I disagree! I think you’ll find gender everywhere, but not a gender war…
I definitely don’t think there is any gender war happening on TWD, but they’re selling some stereotypes (sometimes) that aren’t so great.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t love the show… You can love something and still be critical.
The samirai sword girl at almost at the end of the movie drags two chained zombies. She has cut off their arms and broken off their jaws. They used ot be her boyfriend and his best friend. Typical of women – keeping useless relationships when are unable to create the new ones. They would rather have this company than no company at all. My friend’s ex-girlfirend used to be like this. Because she couldn’t find anything else, she kept “digging” him “out” and dragging him like one of those zombies. The worst part is that she did not have any feelings for him what-so-ever, she just needed company. I don not know what the character’s “real” story will be and how she came about those two zombies, but the image tells me a lot. Why is she dragging them with her. I know why they are following – chains and the hope of a treat, but what’s her motivation?
How do you know those are who the Walkers are? From the comic? I didn’t know that, but now I’m really excited.
The thing all my friends who are fans of the original graphic novels say, is that Michonne (I think thats right) is the only one who actually got ahead of the Walkers, isn’t just hiding or running. She learned how to actually adapt and change.
So it’s interesting she kept her boyfriend and his friend. I imagine it’s less to do with keeping her company and more to do with this adaptation.
Let me ask you another question… Would you be offended if I took something, anything, really, but something offensive and said, “Typical of men…”?
Because I sorta find that offensive. In fact, I find that patently offensive.
Walkers actually do not exist. If you conduct a semiotic analysis of the series, you will see that most visual symbols in it represent something in real life. Whether she got ahead of zombies or not is of little consequence because zombies do not exist. Even if they existed, dragging some dead matter on a chain behind you would be a very pathetic way of adaptation. Some other characters in the series did it way better.
Going back to “typical” things. Most women I know walk around witrh “zombies” on a leash. They just can’t let them go. I’ve met another one recently. She just moved in with her old ex. She let her in because it is difficult to find an apartment so soon in this city. He has complained that she has no intention of moving out. That effectively kills his own private life because she is always there, and she does not sem to be able to move on because there are few men who want to do anything with a woman who’s got a zombie relationship living in the same apartment.
Michonne is a dead end. I’m sure someone is excited at the sight of a chick with a katana and two corpses behind, by not me. She is an example of someone who has no other choice but to be badass because she has failed to be anything else. The zombies are her past, her baggage, her failure. There is no future for her as a human being. She is going to be a badass till the end of her days.
Most criminals in prisons also “adapt”. Real badasses. But that’s a dead end. If someone is really interested in the topic of adapting then it is probably a good idea to monitor the rest of the characters. The series will provide several models of adaptation – there will be plenty to choose from.
Here’s the picture of a woman and her two zombie relationships http://thecount.com/wp-content/uploads/Michonne_the_walking_dead.jpg.
That whole Michonne storyline just looks so awesome.