Not the zombies themselves, of course. You can't figure out what a zombie means because it is usually grunting or growling or moaning.
But zombie films are meaningful. They've always pointed at some deep-seated fear we may not even be aware we have. The stories and the monsters themselves keep changing to keep up with what keeps us awake at night.
Just look at the original White Zombie. It came out in the 30s and features a lovely couple (both white) who must overcome a mixed race antagonist who turns people into zombies so that they can be his slaves in his factories. Not exactly the type of zombie flick you would see today. The main woman is even turned into a zombie at one point to do the bad guy's bidding and must be saved.
The film would now be considered horribly racist, especially when you look at the fears that were probably being manipulated: fears of people with dark skin rising up, overpowering whites with their numbers, and seducing their women. Racial equality was literally a nightmarish idea to these people.
What fears do zombie films pull at today? I tend to think a common thread has usually been the fall of Western Civilization. It seems every month there are new stories coming out that hint at our impending doom. Terrorism. The rise of China. Pollution. You can't turn on the news without finding some segment hinting at the end of the world. There was even a miniseries about Bird Flu wiping out most of the planet in 2006 (might as well have made it a zombie virus - wouldn't have really changed much).
Every now and then I'll hear someone mention, "Man, zombies are everywhere these days." If I had to pick a date where zombies started to become popular again, it would probably be right after 9/11. In fact, I don't really find it a coincidence that 28 Days Later came out in 2002 and found success at the box office. There was an undercurrent of fear again, a notion that even a powerful government could not protect us at all from a menace like that.
In most of the 1990s, zombies were considered corny. Insanely corny. In fact, I recently just downloaded a game on our Wii from 1993 called Zombies Ate My Neighbors! where teenagers with attitude ("attitude" must have been a buzz word in the 90s) must save their very dumb neighbors from zombies and monsters which have taken over the world.
Zombies just weren't very frightening. Compare that to 1968 when Night of the Living Dead revolutionized the horror genre and was followed up with the 1978 sequel Dawn of the Dead. Those films terrified people.
So what was the difference? Why did it work on the 60s and 70s but not in the 90s? I tend to think the end of the Cold War had something to do with it.
Think about it. Most modern zombie films trace their influence back to Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend. In that story, Matheson plays on the fears of a nuclear fallout spreading a vampiric virus. The main character must survive alone in a world overrun with vampires, which are simultaneously portrayed as alluring, senselessly violent, barely rational, and deceptive. All of these were common descriptions of Russians at the time.
So when the Cold War ended and there was no longer a giant Russian boogeyman, life became pretty good. The economy was strong. America was #1. We got the Dream Team into the Olympics. Some of the best horror movies just tried to take advantage of our complacency by introducing monsters into the suburbs in Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Sure you had disaster movies like Independence Day, but America still won because America was awesome. If a race of technologically superior aliens couldn't wipe us out, what chance does a slobbering, slow-moving ghoul stand?
But that's not the case so much anymore, is it? Americans look at our own country and there's a sense of pessimism there. If your guy isn't in the White House then the country seems that much worse. There is little faith that a government as impotent as our own right now would be able to do jack diddly to stop a horde of zombies from eating the flesh off your face. I mean, holy crap, we can't even pass a farm bill right now.
And so now here we are. Back to zombies being popular and zombies being fun. Because if we don't love America, the zombies win.
What fears do zombie films pull at today? I tend to think a common thread has usually been the fall of Western Civilization. It seems every month there are new stories coming out that hint at our impending doom. Terrorism. The rise of China. Pollution. You can't turn on the news without finding some segment hinting at the end of the world. There was even a miniseries about Bird Flu wiping out most of the planet in 2006 (might as well have made it a zombie virus - wouldn't have really changed much).
Every now and then I'll hear someone mention, "Man, zombies are everywhere these days." If I had to pick a date where zombies started to become popular again, it would probably be right after 9/11. In fact, I don't really find it a coincidence that 28 Days Later came out in 2002 and found success at the box office. There was an undercurrent of fear again, a notion that even a powerful government could not protect us at all from a menace like that.
In most of the 1990s, zombies were considered corny. Insanely corny. In fact, I recently just downloaded a game on our Wii from 1993 called Zombies Ate My Neighbors! where teenagers with attitude ("attitude" must have been a buzz word in the 90s) must save their very dumb neighbors from zombies and monsters which have taken over the world.
Zombies just weren't very frightening. Compare that to 1968 when Night of the Living Dead revolutionized the horror genre and was followed up with the 1978 sequel Dawn of the Dead. Those films terrified people.
So what was the difference? Why did it work on the 60s and 70s but not in the 90s? I tend to think the end of the Cold War had something to do with it.
Think about it. Most modern zombie films trace their influence back to Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend. In that story, Matheson plays on the fears of a nuclear fallout spreading a vampiric virus. The main character must survive alone in a world overrun with vampires, which are simultaneously portrayed as alluring, senselessly violent, barely rational, and deceptive. All of these were common descriptions of Russians at the time.
So when the Cold War ended and there was no longer a giant Russian boogeyman, life became pretty good. The economy was strong. America was #1. We got the Dream Team into the Olympics. Some of the best horror movies just tried to take advantage of our complacency by introducing monsters into the suburbs in Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Sure you had disaster movies like Independence Day, but America still won because America was awesome. If a race of technologically superior aliens couldn't wipe us out, what chance does a slobbering, slow-moving ghoul stand?
But that's not the case so much anymore, is it? Americans look at our own country and there's a sense of pessimism there. If your guy isn't in the White House then the country seems that much worse. There is little faith that a government as impotent as our own right now would be able to do jack diddly to stop a horde of zombies from eating the flesh off your face. I mean, holy crap, we can't even pass a farm bill right now.
And so now here we are. Back to zombies being popular and zombies being fun. Because if we don't love America, the zombies win.
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