Zombies
I haven’t posted in a while. Maybe it’s because everyone else on Shambot is all “SCHOOL IS OUT OMGZ BBQ TIME L0Lz!!1!!” Whereas I am still stuck in the middle of finals week with tons of stuff to do. I have two tests tomorrow, Thermodynamics and Computer Science, and they are both comprehensive and will be hard. Then on Thursday I am giving a presentation on Zombies! I am super psyched for this presentation, but everyone else in my group has done no work! Hit more for a preview of the presentation!
Anyways, zombies are really interesting to study as a horror monster because there is little scholarly research on the monster, and almost all of it focuses on Romero. Probably because a lot of Zombie movies are really bad. We are in the middle of a new zombie arch/cycle. Post-splatter caused primarily by video games like resident evil and a new sort of self awareness brought by films like Shaun of the Dead. Also Zombie literature is going through the roof, which is kind of interesting because zombies have no literary tradition. They went straight from Haitian Voodoo mysticism to stage then to film.
The reasons that cause zombies are often topical: radiation, AIDS and other viruses, mad scientists, the Military Industrial Complex, and Voodoo. The way the zombies behave is far from consistent. Early zombies were mechanistic, nowadays zombies often are like Romero’s original zombies on speed. There are no accepted rules for how to kill a zombie. Some people might say a gunshot to the head, but that can’t really account for decapitated zombies. No one really even has a good definition of what counts as a zombie and what doesn’t.
Horror as a genre and it’s monsters are a manifestation of cultural anxieties. Zombies have been seen as metaphor as everything from Fordist laborers who can only obtain power through organization, anxieties about Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement (in Night of the living dead especially), and consumers. Personally, I think zombies are first and foremost a perversion of life after death. Unlike other undead monsters: vampires, werewolves, et cetera, zombies have no special powers. Even mummies, while similar, have social standing and sole function is to protect the hierarchical society they come from. Instead of becoming part of a few, select, patriarchal figures, when you become a zombie you are just one of the multitude. The best you can hope for in distinguishing features are the consumer items that brand you, like baseball uniforms, or a expensive suit. This total lack of individuality and regression into “reptilian”-level intelligences also plays with fears of lack of autonomy, and various zombie movies/literature focus on this part too. So while no one can really agree on what a zombie is or what a zombie does, we can all agree on one thing: you don’t want to become one.
Anyways, I just typed this instead of studying for physics! AHH! it probably is full of errors and I didn’t get as in-depth as I wanted to. The history of zombies is pretty fascinating. Maybe I’ll type more later. Speaking of death, Jerry Falwell died today. I was really surprised to hear the news, mainly because I don’t know how to take his death. I am sad when I think of all the people who probably loved him, but at the same time, he was not such a nice guy in my book. Now I just wonder who’s ass John McCain is going to kiss when he is trying to appeal to the Republican base, especially with Haggart gone too. Please please don’t be Pat Robinson!
Brock wrote:
i enjoy your insight into zombie lore… there is definately an academic vaccuum surrounding them
Posted on 15-May-07 at 7:58 pm | Permalink
Emma B wrote:
I saw this really cool documentary on the history channel once about the real origins of zombies… like people who’d be forced to (or would voluntarily) take powder that induces a zombie-like state, or different trances people can fall under after eating certain roots and things. But zombies were never seen as scary until Romero. It was just a part of a couple different cultures…
Posted on 15-May-07 at 9:03 pm | Permalink
Patrick wrote:
Actually, I think zombies were still seen as scary in Haiti/Caribbeans, but just in a different way. Instead of being evil, the zombies were more like slave laborers, and you were afraid of them as much as afraid of becoming one. It was scary cause most of the people living in Haiti were slaves are ex-slaves. Plus all the zombie movies before Romero, were undoubtedly horrors, like the movie White Zombie. At the same time Romero really did fundamentally change the nature of zombies by having them become cannibalistic. He combined the traditional zombie with the Western ghoul. That’s why in Night of the Living Dead, the monsters are called ghouls, I heard (from Tim) that Romero actually still prefers the term ghoul. Regardless, it is definitely Romero who is responsible for the modern zombie.
Posted on 15-May-07 at 9:26 pm | Permalink
Bill wrote:
It seems like most movie/video game zombies are created due to a “chemical” right? I mean, wasn’t that the explanation in Night of the Living Dead? The Resident Evil games too, those were the T or G Virus. I think the only movie where it is an act of God was “They Came Back”, which I think the synopsis called it “the thinking man’s zombie movie” or something to that extent. I guess with the Romero film, the origin is never 100% clear, but I seem to remember some part of the movie that mentions a chemical.
Posted on 16-May-07 at 7:45 am | Permalink
Katie (Jones) wrote:
Night of the Living Dead mentions something to do with a weird satallite or radioactive material or something, but only briefly (through a tv program) and it never makes it clear why it happened. I’m pretty sure Dawn, Day, and Land never state why the zombies were created either, which in some ways I think is best since the films are much more about how people are dealing with the zombie apocalypse rather than trying to figure out why it happened. At one point in Dawn a guy says that his grandma or something told him that “when there’s no room in hell, the dead shall walk the earth” or something to that effect. I don’t really know what other zombie movies use as explination (except for 28 Days Later which has the infection of the “rage”), but, yeah!
Also, Patrick, I thought your reason as to why zombies are so frightening–the fact that you become one of the multitude and are completely stripped of your individualism–is really true. A fear of zombies isn’t just in the fact that they attack you and eat you and stuff, but also in the after effects of that. (Although the having your intestines pulled out of you while you’re still alive bit is also kind of terrifying.)
Posted on 16-May-07 at 8:34 am | Permalink
Sam wrote:
There are are two flicks that are meant as “unofficial” sequels to the romero flicks. There is Zombi, which is an italian flick that is supposed to be a sequel to Dawn, and there is Return of The Living Dead, which is a sequel to night. I don’t think Zombie offers an explanation, but Return claims that the reason for the Zombie attack is a chemical spill that was caused, and then covered up by, the government. The cover up is supposedly why we don’t get an explanation for events in Night. In Return, the chemical is absorbed into the atmosphere, which causes acid rain and then makes the dead rise from their graves. Interestingly enough, the Return zombies survive being beheaded, and they are the first appearance of Zombies that eat brains.
I have to say, I love discussions like this. The 3 most interesting classes I have taken in college are Graphic Novels, Detective Fiction, and Sci-Fi. I think so called ”trash” fiction can be every bit as rich and full of potential analysis as more traditional art. I mean super-hero comics, horror flicks, and crime fiction deal with the same kind of themes that “real” literature do. Sex, death, identity, crime, justice, good and evil. They are just more entertaining in doing so.
Posted on 16-May-07 at 1:08 pm | Permalink
Katie (Jones) wrote:
Patrick! You have to open your presentation with Zombie by the Cranberries! And sing along, of course. And pretend to be a zombie and go slowly towards your professor until you are uncomfortably close! Best presentation ever.
Posted on 16-May-07 at 4:14 pm | Permalink
Emma B wrote:
But that should be all of your presentation… Once you get uncomfortably close to the professor, have a classmate stand up and shoot you in the head using his fingers as guns.
Then he can do the presentation…
And Sam, you use the word ‘flick’ too much… As a pretentious cinema major I know things like that…
Posted on 16-May-07 at 7:58 pm | Permalink