Meta Zombies

[digitaldiscipline]

So...

Zombies can represent:
- powerlessness in the face of compulsion (self or that of other); a loss of will or self-control
- threat of powerlessness in general
- slaves to consumption
- soulless drones (self or other)
- consumerism / consumer culture
- threat of the / an apocalypse
- agents of infection / decay / death
- surrogate victims (guilt-free objects for us to harm)

I miss anything?

I think my inability to find zombies cool stems from my general indifference to or avoidance of splatterpunk; as Stephen King put it himself, "I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out."

I don't respond to the gross-out with anything but avoidance (I'm not averse to dirt, I just prefer not to fuck around with squidgy shit. For a laugh, watch me try and handle raw chicken or raw tomatoes).

The gross-out is a staple of the zombie ouevre; I find it very easy to see, now that I've done some poking around this particular rhetorical and stylistic mulberry patch, why I gravitate(d) towards vampires when horror was what I read voraciously (they're at least getting laid-by-proxy while noshing on the flesh of the living, plus the prolonged life vs. rapid decay motif).

I'm already motivated questionably, shambling, ugly, and smell funny. I don't need any weird brain-cravings to add to that list.



"zombie thesis" turns up some interesting stuff, most (but not all) of it with tongue firmly in cheek:
- http://zombiealert.tripod.com/academy/id6.html
- http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/zombie.html

[inspired by some of the interesting responses posted here.]

Comments

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

I just like saying "braaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnssss."

If I put on my over-educated-English-major-who-knows-how-to-BS-hat, I'd say that eating brains is about subverting intelligence & mocking the life of the mind in the most literal sense.

But really, "braaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnssss" is just kinda funny.

[mitejen.livejournal.com]

I think they also represent a clear, unambiguous threat from 'foreigners' or at least unfamiliar ideals, rather than one that must be rationalized or justified (a Roddenberry quote in a book about sci/fi horror went along the lines of 'there are no real monsters, just life forms with different goals from yours' and I took that deeply to heart).

As people's concept of the world gets smaller (even though it's not, really) it becomes harder to reconcile the idea that a person with vastly different goals and life experience can also be a human being, even if they're 180 degrees from your position. It's not racism by any means, but people are intrinsically mistrustful of the unfamiliar and different from themselves. The gut manifestation of that mistrust is most often fear and hate.

I guess it falls under the fear of becoming a soulless drone, but I would say that zombies also represent the specific fear of involuntary conversion to differing or even opposing 'ideals.'

zombies....

[maelstromsl.livejournal.com]

the only cool thing about zombies is blowing their heads off... I don't think zombies are cool, because I think of all the stupid normals and "suits" and church people as being zombies - so yeah, pretty much the antithesis of cool...

KA-BLAM!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I'd say that eating brains is about subverting intelligence & mocking the life of the mind in the most literal sense.

so, being GWB, then?

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

That did come up (http://didjiman.livejournal.com/272136.html) yesterday.

Re: zombies....

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should rephrase, the -concept- of zombies is cool to some people (however, that cool quotient eludes me); zombies seem to be pretty uniformly objects of scorn and disgust, or at best, pity.