Kill is kiss: viral words bringing the end of rhetorical discourse in Pontypool

Abstract

ABSTRACT Bruce McDonald’s 2008 film Pontypool is based on Tony Burgess’s novel Pontypool Changes Everything (1998). In the film, certain words become viral and infect people, turning them into zombies. The audience experiences these events on the surface level as a sense of meaninglessness. Yet, on a deeper level, the film highlights the meaninglessness of everyday language and the urgent need to cleanse language of the medium through which the virus spreads – rhetorical discourse. This article explores the premise of the film in the antidote to viral words that it offers. A radical shift in the perception of language finds meaning not in words, but in feelings and experiences, thereby obviating rhetoric and creating posthuman freeplay. The essay elucidates this posthuman understanding of meaning as it is presented in a narrative that transcends a poststructuralist understanding of language.