“Jimmys to the south west! Thousands of ’em!”
Okay Danny Boyle did not in fact showcase Zulu during 28 Years Later, but considering the meme-ification of that scene online it would have fitted in well with the film’s pop culture references and ideas about the changing of history and what we remember about it.
There are several Jameses in this franchise though, some by coincidence and some by design. We first meet a James – Jim – in 28 Days Later. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland probably never imagined that their indie horror, which revitalised both zombies and entertainment featuring them, would still be going strong over 20 years later. I expect they simply thought Jim was a good everyman name. It has remained solidly popular even as other boys’ names have gone in and out of fashion (goodbye Gary, Barry and Steve, welcome back Ernest and Albert).
Once we get to 28 Years Later, the Jimmys – a bizarre cult whose adherents dress like the late sex abuser TV presenter and DJ Jimmy Savile – it’s a coincidence. Jimmy was Savile’s name after all.
When it comes to Spike’s dad Jamie though it is a choice. Maybe it’s a tease; or maybe Boyle and Garland spotted a pattern and are running with it, a way of showing all the sides of Man in one name, different facets of humanity coming to the fore in order to make a life during this nightmare.
Jimmy graffiti
Think of it as a line of Jameses. At one end you have Jim from 28 Days Later, solid, dependable and rising to the challenge. There’s one moment where Selena is frightened by his uncharacteristic violence but it’s quickly over.
At the other end of the scale are The Jimmys. They adopt the name and over-the-top dress of a man who turned out to be one of Britain’s most prolific predators, using his access to hospitals via his charity work as a way to abuse the vulnerable, and his friendships with the Royal Family and others as cover. Savile died in 2011 and wasn’t officially unmasked until after then; rumours had been swirling for decades before this, though the child Jimmy from the start of 28 Years Later – now Sir Jimmy Crystal – would have been very young and unaware. Sir Jimmy is now a stylised thug (witness the man hanging up in the cottage), brutalised by his life since the start of the epidemic (his parents were both killed and we don’t yet know if he has had any adult guidance since then).
In the middle is Jamie, Spike’s dad. He has been changed by what he has been through, and no longer sees the infected as human, though everyone knows that really they are sick and not undead in the traditional sense. He also feels he has to talk up his son as a hero while ignoring his own feet of clay. However he teaches his son how to survive and comforts him when Spike thinks he has failed. So Jamie’s not a terrible dad, just an average one existing in a brutal world that no one expected. And he is devastated when Spike returns to the mainland alone, for who knows how long.
Isla of course means island; she was always Spike’s only safety, and, at the end, he hers.
READ MORE
28 Years Later: my 5-star review
28 Years Later plot recap: who, why, where… WHAT?!
Abandonment, isolation and memory in 28 Years Later, plus what comes next
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