‘Walking Dead’ Photo Shoot Causes Protests On Facebook


The Walking Dead is clearly a show meant for only mature audiences and might be a bit much for younger kids to watch. When a New Jersey mother, who is also a professional photographer, set up a Walking Dead photo shoot with kids aged 4 to 7, she probably never believed that attacks she would get from protesters online.

ABC News reported that Alana Hubbard of Woodbridge, New Jersey, decided that she wanted to set up a photo shoot to pay homage to her favorite TV show, The Walking Dead. Hubbard was already semi-famous for shooting a young cancer patient dressed up like a princess in 2014. She received a lot of praise for that, but she was on the wrong end of the stick when her Walking Dead photo shoot went viral on Facebook.

She had the various children, who she got by sending out a casting call through a local Facebook page, dress up like characters from the show and like zombies. She then set them up for the Walking Dead photo shoot in various poses from the show, such as one child dressed like Daryl on a bike racing away from Walkers.

However, the one photo from the Walking Dead photo shoot that probably got her the most criticism was the one where she depicted the scene from The Walking Dead where Carol shot young Lizzie in the back of the head.

People began to insult Hubbard online for the Walking Dead photo shoot. The complaints were that she was teaching kids that killing is okay and that the pictures were disgusting and disturbing. Those complaints took Hubbard by surprise, as she never saw that at all in her photo shoot.

“I would never put other people’s children and my children in harm’s way. We chose not to use the real zombie effects because there were young siblings there too. We didn’t want the kids to be scared. We wanted them to have a good time.”

However, the complaints did have one negative aspect on Hubbard. The Today show reported that Facebook blocked her from her page for 72 hours for “posting inappropriate photos.” Since Hubbard relies on Facebook for her business, she said that the people’s complaints had an effect on her financially.

Facebook eventually responded and unblocked her, apologizing for the misunderstanding. Facebook explained that they receive millions of reports and complaints each week and sometimes they “get things wrong.” Now, the page is back up, the Walking Dead photo shoot has over 45,000 likes, although there are still comments under it that rip into her for the disturbing photos.

Of course, there are fans of The Walking Dead who loved the photo shoot and have worked to share the photos. At the end of the day, both Hubbard and the parents of the kids involved compared it to playing pretend as a modern-day cops-and-robbers.

The parent of the child who portrayed Daryl in the Walking Dead photo shoot said that she couldn’t understand the anger. She explained that they kids were all having fun playing and none of them took anything that happened seriously. When asked about the “guns” in the shots, she explained that they were just toys.

“I actually bought my son’s crossbow last minute at none other than Toys ‘R’ Us. I disengaged some features on the crossbow so that it couldn’t shoot any projectiles… during each take, the kids would start playing with each other and it honestly looked like a modern day cowboys and Indians, just with a zombie twist.”

At the end of the day, controversy usually benefits the artist who receives the bad attention. In this case, more than 20,000 new followers have begun to follow Alana Hubbard’s Facebook page, and that could result in more business for the photographer. This is all thanks to a Walking Dead photo shoot that complete strangers decided they didn’t appreciate.

[Image via AMC]

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