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Ars Erotica
May 2004 I Walked With A Zombie For the first time - maybe since 1990, when you all bought The Cure's Disintegration album -- I'm totally keeping pace with the Uberculture. Why? Because lately, you can't swing a decapitated cat without hitting a zombie movie: Dawn of the Dead, The Passion of the Christ. Everybody loves zombies, which is how it should be. Of course, the latest cinematic top-ten zombie furor seems to have given way to petty revenge films, but really, when you're dealing with zombies, every revenge seems a little petty. At least there's a logical progression at work there. I adore the zombie movie. 28 Days Later is a pillar of my epistemology. I'm glad that Sam Raimi was able to work through at least a few of his women issues between Evil Dead 1 and 2. I used to like vampires a bunch, but zombies don't take interviews. Nor, as of today's Googling, does there appear to be motion towards a zombie live action role playing game - ergo, no zombie posers. Organizing zombies is a doomed project; proving this notion true may be the most useful service that the Bush administration has provided the planet. Since first confessing my adoration for zombie films, I've been treated to lots of other suggestions for films and stories I might enjoy. I've ogled anime with giant eyeballs and forced myself to hitchhike across galaxies, but the science fiction leaves me cold. My life is already science fiction, and so is yours. Watch Ernest Borgnine eat that piece of lettuce in Soylent Green and tell me that isn't how you feel when you can eat a real salad instead of some low-carb fiberfill from Subway. I'm wary of discussing my zombie pride with all my fellow filmgoers for fear of the bloom falling off the rose. I want to believe that we are all there for the same reason, that there is something common to our life experiences that will make us unite culturally and politically. There could be parades and festivals, multiplying the population until zombiedom just doesn't seem as daring as it once did. But some folks don't want zombie parades. They are there because, like the mad scientist in Day of the Dead, they are thinking "Wow, slavery has become so unpopular that nowadays people even seem to think maquiladoras are offensive. Maybe if I could get me some zombies on leashes..." And others are there just to sublimate their repressed junior high traumas. The motivations of my fellow film-goers are so suspicious that sometimes, I wonder if it would even be worthwhile surviving a zombie attack with them. (FYI: Statistically speaking, the safest place to be during a zombie holocaust is watching a zombie movie. Ask an actuary. They know plenty about zombie behavior.) It's probably safe to assume the masses flocking to the zombie movies are always ironically identifying with the survivors - but that's understandable. We are all individuals - except that one guy in the Monty Python movie and everybody who quotes him. Most of the folks I know are rather particular about the ways they deindividuate: some have chat room sex and others wear Abercrombie & Fitch. Some become showgirls and others buy into condo communities. But I think you can still do all these things after you become a zombie, although my money is on Hot Topic. After the zombie holocaust, Hot Topic is gonna bury Abercrombie & Fitch in the NASDAQ. Mark my words. So it would seem that the primary horror that keeps us riveted in these films isn't so much the horror of losing one's identity. It might be the fear of no longer being able to purchase one. But if deindividuation isn't the main CinemAngst at work here, what is? In every zombie movie, there's a variation of this scene: things look dire for one of the poor underdog "survivors." Let's call him Francis Macomber. Francis is cornered and bleeding and he hasn't had a square meal in days. Another "survivor," Bob, is a position to help him. Suddenly, Francis has forgotten all about how Bob was an executioner in Texas 28 days before. Francis begs: "Please don't let me turn into one of them," as if getting zombified is worst option left to him. After all, he's hungry, and what is it that zombies do? They eat. And then they stumble around until they find something else to eat. It's like the ultimate in fast food. So what if they eat humans raw? The Donner Party did it and nobody thinks they were bad people. Plus, it's not like they eat other zombies, so clearly there is some sort of morality that transfers over. Speaking of morality, since zombies don't seem to be too interested in sex, all the questions that plague the by-the-book types seem to vanish. The zombie life is a simpler life, and who hasn't yearned for that? Think of the efficiency that zombification might provide you. Let's say you're bulletproofing your will in order to prevent your nasty ungrateful children and their even nastier lawyers from desecrating your collection of heirloom doilies after your passing. If you're a zombie, you throw a big meeting, eat all of their brains, ensure that your will is eternal because you are undead, and still have time left in your lunch hour for dessert. You get to fast-forward through all Kubler-Ross sentimentality, and you get to fight your own battles. One of the most annoying things about modern humanity, especially the doom-and-gloom types, is that there's this conflation of "the end of humanity" with "the end of the world." Please. This is identity politics at its most pathetic. Everybody knows that Earth will still be round long after we've all slobbered our last guttural slobber. But that's the way it goes. Personally, I'm hoping that they can come up with a way of being a zombie that doesn't involve all that furious biting and chewing, like maybe zombies that can use knives and forks. And napkins. Return to Ars Erotica Index |
