Tough women of the apocalypse: Gender performativity in AMC’s The Walking Dead

AMC’s The Walking Dead has gained immense popularity and has brought a great amount of scholarship on the show’s gender politics. In contributing to this discussion, I argue that characters Michonne and Carol function to critique gender performativity and compulsory heterosexuality during the fifth season. Specifically, I contextualize these women with discussion of female action heroines, masculinization, and hypersexualization seen in similar types of characters in popular culture. Overall, Carol knowingly parodies gender via her housewife persona, thus destabilizing heteronormativity, while Michonne critiques the white male leadership of the Governor and Rick that is commonly enacted through acts of violence.