Some thoughts on zombies

[andrewducker]

praymurray asked what was so fascinating about Zombies and the popularity of paranormal fiction. And despite not being particularly fascinated by Zombies I am incapable of not having an opinion on something, so I wrote a reply that got out of hand (and went to email, as, like most things worth saying, it was longer than 140 characters).*

Zombies have a range of characteristics (to me). They are us but not us - they fall into the uncanny valley of uncomfortable resemblance. They are us but diseased, which triggers our revulsion instinct. They are our fear of death. They are the apocalypse, because the world is now ending and we cannot rely on civilisation to support us any more and must learn to survive on our wits alone. They are unstoppable - there are always more dead people than the living, and everyone who dies becomes one of Them. They are the fear of strangers, who might act in awful ways. They are the fear of madness - of people who look like us, but act in dangerous, unpredictable ways.

Having awoken from a nightmare and then laid next to Julie for a few seconds, not sure that she wasn't a zombie, waiting to hear her breathe so I could be sure she was alive, I acn sympathise with a lot of this stuff.

On top of that, there are things like The Infected from 28 days later - who tap right into my fear of people being angry at me. And things like The Crossed from the Garth Ennis comic, who come from his nightmare** that just under the surface of an ordinary person there lies a murderous, cannibalistic rapist psychopath who just wants to do awful things to each you.

As to the wider question of why paranormal stuff is popular - I think that paranormal ideas are largely about the facets of humanity that we find fascinating. Vampires are the dangerous killer in the night, and their seductive power. Succubi are people who are all about sex. Werewolves are the animal within us. Telling stories about them allows us to talk about the things that we find fascinating about ourselves, and manifest the ideas/drives into physical form. This is easier nowadays with CGI than it was thirty years ago, and that might be enough reason to make them more popular. And it's much easier nowadays to make a low-budget TV show and get it out to a tiny niche that's spread across the planet. So what was supernatural books/comics a decade or two back is now TV, because that's now affordable. I don't know why paranormal romance came back into fashion - any theories?



*The commas in there look completely messed up to me. How should I have phrased that?
**Literally. He woke up from a dream where suddenly everyone in the room turned, looked at him, and smiled, and he knew bad things were about to happen. And thankfully then woke up.

Comments

[dalglir]

Have I introduced you to Dalglir's Index of Zombie Improvement (DIZI)?

It is an informal method of measuring the amount by which any form of fiction in any format can be improved upon by the addition of brain-craving, Fast Zombies.

Anything from period literature to the latest cinema blockbuster are fit for the phrase, "needs more zombies!"

[dalglir]

http://absolutelymadness-feed.dreamwidth.org/377171.html

[andrewducker]

That's awesome!

(And I've added the feed to my flist too!)

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

In response to * - I think you can remove the comma before "as".

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Commas like fine to me. You could have dropped the one before the 'as', but it's just as good with it.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

Paranormal Romance:
this is pure speculation, having not read or watched any.
Twilight is born of a generation of Americans suffering under Abstinence Only sex ed. That is, people who have *absolutely no fucking idea* how their own bodies, or relationships, work. Those books resonated with hundreds of millions of teenagers with a particularly warped view of 'romance' born of total ignorance. And so they sold an absolute shitload.
As to why they were written: the first was based on an image shown to the author. She had to find an excuse as to why the guy was 'sparkly' and decided to create a new type of vampire, cos vampires are sexy. He also happens to be an absolute fucking creep, but surprisingly few people noticed or cared.

anything that sells that much will naturally produce more of the same. So now we have whole sections of bookshops dedicated to the genre - which, curiously, none will actually admit to browsing.

[lizzie-and-ari.livejournal.com]

I'd have maybe gone with: (and went to email, as it was, like most things worth saying, longer than 140 characters).*

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

You can use zombies as a convenient and topical analogy for other groups without offending anyone too.

Also, nerds will seemingly buy any old crap with zombies on. Go looking at the zombie related weapons available in the US for example.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

To me, the allure of the zombie is the fear of having those closest to you turn against you. It doesn't matter how much that zombie loved you 2 minutes ago, now it's going to eat your brains. You can't fully trust anyone, because even with the best of intentions, it only takes a drop of blood in the eye and it's all over.

And to survive, you have to be able to let go of all that history in an instant and be ready to do what you need to do -- even if that means bashing your one true love's head in with a shovel. That's pretty rough stuff there.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Zombies mean a permanent loss of personhood, which differs from vampires (same person, but sexier) and werewolves (same person, most of the time).

A rotting corpse is also more abject.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

For me, the thing that always fascinated me about zombies was their implacability: a vampire will return to its coffin; a werewolf will revert to human; but a zombie will follow you until you destroy it, or evade it, or it falls apart, or it eats you.