Zombies and Prisoner Rehabilitation

Abstract

This chapter looks at how, in 2007, 1,500 inmates in the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) went “viral” with their online rendition of Michael Jackson’s music video “Thriller.” Representing an exercise program aimed at building teamwork and reducing gang activity through dance, the CPDRC’s “Thriller” circulated as performance-based proof of prisoner rehabilitation. This chapter argues that central to the production’s worldwide popularity are narratives of discipline, colonial choreography, and the alterity of Wenjiel Resane, the cross-dressed leading lady. It situates the dance in relation to the African American original, the actions of the prison administrators, and ideologies of Filipino mimicry. This chapter examines how neocolonial and market-oriented reforms fundamentally influenced the social construction of Filipino Otherness presented in the dance and thus shaped its popularity in unexpected ways.