I've been pretty vocal about how sick I am of zombies in my movies and games. Nevertheless, the genre has been going strong for a few years now, longer than I would have expected from a "fad"; long enough that it may actually qualify as a cultural movement, or at the very least, the current "zeitgeist". Clearly, something about this is speaking to our culture at this point.
I was talking with a friend about it a while ago (after watching [REC], I believe), and we hit on something.
In the 70's and 80's, we were treated to a lot of post-apocalyptic visions in popular fiction, almost always of the post nuclear war variety. It wasn't hard to understand why. That was what was on our minds at the time; one of the superpowers could launch at any time, and that would be that.
Zombies are obviously the new post-apocalypse. Most of the entries in the genre are not the standard horror in which the threat is isolated, and once defeated, leaves us going back to life as normal. It's almost invariably depicted as a growing threat, something that's spreading at an alarming rate. Some, like Zombieland, show us a world that's already been overrun.
Obviously, the culture isn't afraid of zombies in the way that it feared nuclear war. Nobody seriously believes that the dead will rise up and start eating us. This leaves two possibilities for what the zombie trend symbolizes:
One: disease. Every year, the media shrieks warnings of a new, deadly contagion, no really, even deadlier than last, this time we really mean it. The link here is pretty straightforward.
Two: basic distrust of our neighbors. This is the more insidious possibility. As our culture becomes increasingly divided, and public discourse becomes ever more shrill and driven primarily by anger, the possibility of an all-out culture war, perhaps even of the violent variety, becomes ever more believable. The idea that the guy down the street who you wave to occasionally might be going for your jugular next week is a pretty scary spectre to begin with. When you think that it might actually happen, it becomes downright terrifying.
Possibly, it's a combination of the two.
Thoughts?
I was talking with a friend about it a while ago (after watching [REC], I believe), and we hit on something.
In the 70's and 80's, we were treated to a lot of post-apocalyptic visions in popular fiction, almost always of the post nuclear war variety. It wasn't hard to understand why. That was what was on our minds at the time; one of the superpowers could launch at any time, and that would be that.
Zombies are obviously the new post-apocalypse. Most of the entries in the genre are not the standard horror in which the threat is isolated, and once defeated, leaves us going back to life as normal. It's almost invariably depicted as a growing threat, something that's spreading at an alarming rate. Some, like Zombieland, show us a world that's already been overrun.
Obviously, the culture isn't afraid of zombies in the way that it feared nuclear war. Nobody seriously believes that the dead will rise up and start eating us. This leaves two possibilities for what the zombie trend symbolizes:
One: disease. Every year, the media shrieks warnings of a new, deadly contagion, no really, even deadlier than last, this time we really mean it. The link here is pretty straightforward.
Two: basic distrust of our neighbors. This is the more insidious possibility. As our culture becomes increasingly divided, and public discourse becomes ever more shrill and driven primarily by anger, the possibility of an all-out culture war, perhaps even of the violent variety, becomes ever more believable. The idea that the guy down the street who you wave to occasionally might be going for your jugular next week is a pretty scary spectre to begin with. When you think that it might actually happen, it becomes downright terrifying.
Possibly, it's a combination of the two.
Thoughts?
