Santa Clarita Diet is sinking its teeth into real-life bigotry

The Verge

The Netflix horror-comedy is confronting bigotry "by outright making real-life bigots its villains, and its prey," says Noah Berlatsky. "Since George Romero invented the modern genre in 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, zombies have been analogies for outcasts and marginalized people," Berlatsky adds. "That’s the case on Santa Clarita Diet, too. In season 3, Sheila gets angry when people refer to her as a zombie, which she thinks is insensitive. And she gets angry when she thinks Joel finds her diet, and her not-quite-living body, disgusting and gross. The prejudice she faces could be read as an allegory for LGBT life, or living with a disability, or as a minority."