Eating Together or "Eating the Other": Interrogating the Role of Food in Configuring Ethical Relations, Social Structures and Vulnerability in the Post-Apocalyptic Society of Snowpiercer

This article investigates a post-apocalyptic civilization in the American sci-fi movie Snowpiercer (2013) by Bong Joon Ho in which the foundations of society have crumbled, humans are vulnerable, and necessities are denied. It also scrutinizes the role of food in configuring ethical relations, social structure, and vulnerability in the post-apocalyptic society fabricated through a closed ecosystem where natural order is reinstated by resource optimization, culinary settlement, and created inadequacy. The fabrication of such a structure is analyzed through the concepts of Commensality and Gothic Vegetarianism. Food transcends the role of sustenance and functions as a control mechanism that not only arbitrates who eats, but also who prevails, who heeds, and who taunts to spurn the succulent order.