George Romero is known for revolutionizing the zombie genre with his Dead series of films beginning with Night of the Living Dead in 1968. In these films, zombies became representations of American culture and social issues, rather than exotic others. Romero portrayed zombies as metaphors for topics like racism, consumerism, containment during the Cold War, terrorism, and media panic. Other scholars have analyzed how Romero's zombies critique capitalist society and represent social processes and the disintegration of communal bonds.