a sense of joy and then a panic

Oh yes, I had that moment too when I read that sentence. I was like "YES!" And then "Huh? Oh, it's about Twitter."

Your second paragraph is exactly what I feel about the current zombie craze (I first started thinking about this while watching Zombieland). I think it's gone into hyper mode since 28 Days Later, which was much less kill-all-zombies (more like kill-all-soldiers in that movie) and much less... hyper and happy about it.

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timesygn.livejournal.com

A fun link to an entertaining article, thanks. I would add that the present zombie craze arises only from the necessity to provide a liberal counterpart to the predominantly conservative vampire. As Chuck notes, zombies are communal. Vampires, by contrast, are arch-individualists. Zombies live in hoardes. Vampires live alone or in small groups riven by intense internecine quarreling. Vampires are Republican. Zombies are Democrats. One cannot exist without the other. You see? 'course ya do ...

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Hmm - except zombie movies do prize individualism (as an alternative to the communal zombie, as a survival instinct). Vampires are definitely conservative aristocrats, though, and sometimes working together defeats them!

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cucumberseed.livejournal.com

That was my take as well, that the classic zombie horde is what a reactionary sees as enemy and the vampire is what the progressive sees. Though that last bit is incredibly problematic in the fact that the earlier vampires were coded with unfortunate implications and they have sort of been steadily whitewashed over the last 30 years or so until they became the Olympian aristocrats of a decidedly Anglo-Saxon vintage (with the odd RPG inspired power fantasy sociopathic badass) that dominate the current portrayals. Vampires are twisty.

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Yeah, hard to argue that Dracula's overall moral scheme wasn't very conservative. Kind of funny now that I think about it that Twilight's good vampires have a lot in common morally with Mina and Jonathan.

There really isn't that much in the way of genuinely/overtly left-leaning horror, I feel. You might argue something like Pontypool... but really, can you think of anything?

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Zombies, like Sarah Palin, are currently overexposed. Which might explain why a lot of folks are more like "meh" when it comes to the Walking Dead series than they probably would have been a year or two ago.

Also, like Sarah Palin, they just keep coming. Rule #3: Double tap.

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They are overexposed (particularly for people who already knew about 'em) but on the other hand, The Walking Dead had huge numbers for its finale. People are eating zombies up (haha). The question's why.

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like the title

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It's from a Zombina and The Skeletones song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a4q_KMzqnU).

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talk of zombies and songs reminds me of "I Am a Revenant":

We are the revenants
And we will rise up from the dead
We become the living
We've come back to reclaim our stolen breath

Different take on your theme...

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That sounds more like the internet ghosts in Kairo. Some people have written "the zombie's side of the story" - those takes just aren't as common by far. Kind of reminds me of an io9 article that suggested zombies were supposed to represent history and how history won't be denied/forgotten, and the comments were just like, "yeah, that's a nice idea, but I don't think so."

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hard time viewing the video, so far kinda 'meh' on the song

But...I need new music. You should give me music. Not that you have to or anything, but...if you have a moment.

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You don't like any of my music though? Or if you do, I don't know what you like. What are you feeling like listening to? Do you want the new Arcade Fire album (I really like some of the songs on it)? Random stuff I've been listening to? Individual songs or entire albums?

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What? Of course I like some of your music. We share so much music. I am feeling like listening to...something energetic? or angry? or, you know, beautiful music is always good. I probably like folk more than you do, though. Sure, new Arcade Fire album would be cool. Random stuff is especially cool. I guess if I really like an individual song, I can bug you for the album?

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I guess, but I feel like the music we share is mostly your idea/impetus (if you get what I mean). Do you know the Tragically Hip? I'm obsessed with their song "Courage." Hmm... energetic and angry. I'll send you the AF album, and... whatever else I think of.

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In my opinion (yes, more often than not, the preamble to some seriously failworthy comments ;)) the zombie tale is adaptive to many fears/escapist reactions of any given time. When George Romero came out with Night of the Living Dead, in many ways the movie wasn't about the undead at all, but moreso segregation and racism. At the end of the movie, one of the main protags, a black man, is arbitrarily slaughtered with the undead by a white mob, even though the events of the night were not only the setting for a totally acceptable romantic interest between him and the white woman in distress. The original ending was very powerful at the time. The remake was the same up until the man's infection and execution as being an actual zombie. Sadly enough, at the time, a zombie-pocalypse was the only chance a romance like that would have had a chance.

Now, I think that zombie movies are more escapist. We live in a time where apathy and ignorance are the law of the land. In short, we are already surrounded by zombies. These movies take it one step further by allowing those who are crafty enough to escape this fate to split heads open and basically road rage on everything they hate about society. But the article is right, the zombies keep coming, which means that we are doomed to failure despite our valiant (violent) efforts.

At its core though, zombie-ism is a long way from its roots in vodun. It represents the mundane and the commonplace becoming toxic, infectious, and bloodthirsty. Also, uncontrollable. It gives a quality of betrayal to that which we never feared and always underestimated. It's like Old Yeller getting rabies, but on a society level. In times where we feel like the odds are stacked against us, in Z world, they are. But we can use any means at our disposal to fight back. Unlike the world we live in where we often find ourselves powerless. To use an old cliche, we have met the enemy, and they are us. So destroy the brain and keep moving.

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Yep, Night of the Living Dead was pretty ground-breaking (don't like the remake though).

Right, I think the "road rage on everything they hate about society" is what people get out of zombie movies. Which, though I understand because I certainly feel anger about various things in society, is really pretty creepy, no matter how many odds are stacked against us.

Agreed, these zombies have nothing to do with West African/Caribbean zombies. Those were way more interesting.

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Also, there was more to Mary Shelley's impetus for Frankenstein than unbound Promethean dreams of technology. There was the whole Year Without Summer. And Shelley penchant for necrophilia and also watching live demonstrations of electrical current on human remains.

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Mary Shelley had a penchant for necrophilia? This I did not know.

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According to legend, she used to have sex on her mother's grave. Maybe it's a loose interpretation...

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talea-st-amour.livejournal.com

I have to say, I've been thinking about the zombie craze lately and I just didn't get it. Thanks to your post and the article, it's making a bit of sense to me now, though I quite agree with the comment made in the article that there isn't very far to go with the zombie as character. Fast or slow is as diverse as it gets. To me, that's the reason they have NO appeal for me. I can see the appeal of vampires. They are thinking creatures and whether evil or good, have a sort of inherent sexy appeal to the darker side. The whole curse of death and beating death attraction, I understand. If I'm going to live after death, I'd certainly NOT want to be a zombie. The connection to the apathy and idea we live among zombies makes sense to me, but I'd still want to fight the zombies with putting out thinking artistic efforts as opposed to just killing them. ;)

Thanks for an interesting post, article link and discussion. :)

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I grew up with Chinese jumping vampires (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Shi) (which behave way more like zombies than vampires), so I've always been able to "get" fear of zombies to a certain extent - for me, it's the ol' "everyone else has gone insane/changed, leaving me behind (or making me a target)." So the zombie apocalypse in 28 Days Later was intriguing to me for appealing to those themes of, well, abandonment and isolation. But I don't necessarily see it going any farther, no. As monsters they just aren't very interesting, you're right.

No problem!

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Wait, I thought jiang shi were zombies. Yeah, it says "'stiff corpse' or 'zombie'"? Oh, I see that they later came to suck blood too. But everyone here just calls them Chinese zombies.

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