Plague - Present

I have been looking up plague in media and have listed what i have found in my research


In films there was "Daybreakers" which is set in a world where everyone has been infected with vampirism and as per usual has to drink blood to survive. There are blood factories where humans are slowly bled dry as food for the people while they try to develop a blood substitute. Eventually they find a cure to vampirism but also a blood substitute that works so it ends down to a cure for the disease or a cure for the symptoms with the big blood organisation wanting to get money through the substitute.

Poster of the movie.

The really interesting thing about this film i think is that it treats vampirism as a disease in a more modern sense instead of the old tradition mythical curse way. Another interesting thing i feel is the film plays and uses the idea of plague in the way associating it with corporate greed.

A good example of plague again in media is the classic book "I am Legend". in the book it deals with a man who is the sole survivor of a strain of bacteria that effects the living and dead. this disease give the host the effects similar to vampirism. Spending years alone battling the infected, he meets a woman who turns out to be infected saying that people are starting to adapt to the disease and can spend short periods of time in the sun. She says that people are trying to rebuild but they fear and hate him for killing so many. After he is captured and on his way to his execution, he contemplates the fact that he as the last man, after killing so many has become the thing feared by the infected that they tell to their children, he had become a legend. .

Front cover of the book

This book is very interesting i think for the theme of Plague because it reverses the view as he realises the infected are not mindless and that he had just been judging them on their illness, thus turning the whole idea of infected vs uninfected on it's head.

In the very popular table top game Warhammer, there is a god in the lore named Nurgle who is considered "The plague father" he is a demon god of illnesses and diseases. His followers are usually bloated with disease, unable to feel pain. This is represented in the figures as plague marines and demons of Nurgle. The plague marine figures look the same as the normal marines that are the main good guy of the universe apart from they are swelled up and bloated from the disease.

Nurgle Deamon Prince from Games Workshop

Squad of Plague Marines from Games Workshop

Also in the demon figures there are several different figures. There are Plague bearers, who look like one eye trolls with the same bloated and rotting, there are demon princes that are big demonic demons that are festering and rotting with disease. There is an Epidamious who is being carried along by lots of smaller demons.

Plague Bearers from Games Workshop

Epidamious From Games Workshop

Greater Deamon of Nurgle from Games Workshop

The grizzly look of the plague marines and deamons are rotting apart and green colour feel gets the Plague feeling across really well i think. It takes the whole human disgust of disease and plays on it as so to make the player feel the idea of physical corruption.


It is interesting to note as well that Plague has been present inside media in the form of a plague inside a game. In 2005, in the game World Of Warcraft the developers created a new section of a dungeon named Zul'Gurub in which a boss would release a disease called Corrupted blood which would damage the player for a while but would also pass to nearby players if they got too close but was only meant to be contained to the boss area. After a while players realised they could use teleportation methods to take the disease outside the area they were meant to and spread it around the virtual world of Azaroth. This caused a massive spread of panic as people characters kept dying over and over causing player to avoid main towns and other highly populated areas. Eventually the Developers were forced to clean up the mess fixing the exploit.

Screenshot of a major town that was struck from the Plague

Despite not being an intentional use of Plague in media i still feel this is relevant because this incident caused attention from the likes of epidemiologists recording how it accurately portrays humanities reactions to a deadly virus and also anti-terrorist organisations studying the plan set of the ones who abused the exploit in the first place and how they planned it. Thus i feel it shows how the use of media has been used to help further epidemic research and prevention.




In general after looking at Plague in modern media i have seen that the idea of a plague being a metaphor for consumerism be utilised as well as showing the idea of plague in stories be more twisted in interesting new ways which keep the idea of plague fresh. Also on top of this i have seen how plague is being used as art style for some things with the idea of rotting flesh being used to shock and horror people.