I was thinking about Zombies this morning, how they have captured the popular imagination, and how different the modern zombie is from the traditional, the classic Zombie. Within a culture the stories we tell each other and the symbols we use tell us about our culture and what concerns us.
Not long ago Vampires were the popular monster in books, movies and TV shows. Vampires might represent `sucking something else dry’, or taking unfair advantage, but they also incorporate the seductive aspect of the monster: the victim doesn’t know (until it’s too late) that he or she is in danger, and even seeks that risk and enjoys it. From the vampire’s point of view, writers explored the addictive aspects: knowing that what one was doing was wrong, but feeling unable to stop. It is easy to project those issues onto how we live in the modern world, how we worry about what we are doing to the planet and each other, and how we worry that we are not responding appropriately to the risks because of the appeal.
But now the popular monster is Zombies. The Zombie of today is not that of earlier tradition. Those zombies were the victims of the evil men who had the power to condemn innocent people to an existence of endless work with no joy. The traditional zombie was hardly a symbol, they were so close to being just another example of management exploiting the working classes. But not today. Today’s zombie doesn’t shamble listlessly, following orders, or lacking them, reverting to the lifeless corpses from which they were made. The modern zombie seeks us out, chases us down, and in some versions can even talk to us, and try to convince us to submit. The terror of the inexorable persistence of the zombie combined with the horror that they could well be loved ones, powerless to resist attacking you, was bad enough. The victim of zombies in modern media is constantly dealing with the problem (common with their vampiric predecessors) that they don’t want to hurt someone who was, until recently, a friend, but who has no such hesitation about hurting them. Also in common with vampires, the Zombie menace includes the possibility of becoming one oneself, and then being a risk to other friends.
I believe that this is what terrifies us today- the possibility that we may be brainlessly carrying out destructive actions that come not from our decisions, but from the “programming” (previously from the zombie master, now from some internal setting), and that we are no longer ourselves, but mindless, destructive drones. Worse, we create nothing, and will eventually and inevitably fail since our only goal is destruction.
And what does the modern Zombie want? Brains. Unlike the Scarecrow of Oz, even if it gets brains, all it does is eat them and go looking for more. Can this be an expression that we are worried about the way (other) people in the modern world don’t think, and attack anyone (us) who still can? The disappearance of the Bokor (zombie master) directing the action of the zombies reduces the chance that we feel we are being controlled by some person or conspiracy, but at the same time, it may be worse that we see it as simply an implacable infection spreading across the population.
Perhaps the Zombie myth symbolizes the question of how much force it is appropriate to use to defend oneself against the unthinking masses who are, while victimizing you, victims themselves. If we “aim for the head”, are we giving them peace, or are we ending the possibility that they could be restored to themselves?
In the modern world our “zombies” aren’t coming at us with out-streched arms and stumbling gait, and fragments of our neighbors smeared across their mouths. They look like us, they may appear reasonable, until they casually behave monstrously, seemingly unaware that what they are doing is in any way surprising much less wrong. After all, everyone around them is also looking for those same “brains”. Like the protagonists in the stories, sometimes we have to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier just to get it over with and either join them, or “save the last bullet for ourselves”.
This modern myth, like so many ancient ones, simply ignores logic- if the slow ones who have been caught and eaten were consumed, how can they turn up in the next scene trying to eat brains themselves? They rarely seem to have had their heads opened; they ask for brains, but seem content to simply share their “infection” with a quick bite or scratch to pass it along. Are we terrified that we too will be “infected” by the irrationality of the modern world: economic, social, religious, and other issues? I’ve heard it expressed that the Vampires are Republicans and the Zombies Democrats, but it is surely more complex than that. As opposed to so many threats, we can’t deal with this monster by gathering a mob with torches and pitchforks (or even guns). We see ourselves like the protagonists of zombie movies, “locked inside a mall” simply trying to survive until someone else figures out a way to stop whatever is causing it. Old horror stories were better. Like fairy tales, they gave us hope that if we were brave and clever, we could “kill the monster, rescue the damsel and save the world”. The modern “hero” is only fighting a holding action, like the men at the Alamo, with no hope of success
or even survival.
If a symbol is to be useful, it should teach us something. The Zombie Mythos has one clear lesson- don’t let them get the advantage of numbers, if you lose, you’ll become one of them. Don’t let that happen.
Another lesson may be: Brains are to be used, not eaten. If we can learn that, that may be enough for this generation.
