12th Composition --11°
16 December, 2009
What started the zombie craze and what kept them “alive”?
AHHHHhhhhhh........! Imagine being awakened by a soft, distance scream. Wide awake, the world returns to being silent except for a racing heartbeat. Suddenly, a soft resonating moan starts to fill the empty air of the bedroom. Looking out the window, the world is an eerie grey with nothing moving but the occasional garbage blowing in the wind. Suddenly the horizon begins to change as a crowd of people begin to emerge. Watching nervously, the figures get closer and turn into something much more menacing. They are all disease-invested, flesh-rotted, brain-hungry zombies! Where did these undead monsters come from? How do they survive? What helped them crawl into the popular culture and continue through the changing fads of past decades? The zombie craze was “born” for the hardcore horror fans but has been kept “alive” by fear and publicity that is focused towards everyone.
Before the zombies arrived, the hardcore horror fan needed something gruesome and zombies really gave it to them. A zombie is the living undead that has been awakened by some phenomenon such as the heat of the moon. The zombie then roams the earth in constant hunger for human flesh and brains. Every victim is then infected with the “zombie disease” and turns into a zombie themselves. The birth of the first zombie is attributed to the low-budget, locally made film “Night of the Living Dead”. This film helped “reanimate the horror genre, bringing a much more realistic vision of terror to the screen” (Machosky). Gary Streiner, the sound engineer for Night of the Living Dead said, “Bottom line, it was the first horror film to do what it did, which was devour flesh...
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...ombies aren’t leaving modern culture quietly!
Works Cited
Bateman, Daniel. “Dead Easy to Fight Zombies.” Townsville Bulletin 29 Mar. 2008: 041. Student Resource Center Gold. Web. 9 Nov. 2009. .
Greene, David. “Zombies: Still Undead, and Suddenly Everywhere.” Morning Edition 1 July 2009: n. pag. EBSCO. Web. 25 Oct. 2009.
Lauer-Williams, Kathy. “I Was a Teenage Zombie Writer: David Lubar Starts a New Zombie Series for Middle Schoolers.” Morning Call 27 Aug. 2009: n. pag. EBSCO. Web. 9 Oct. 2009.
Machosky, Michael. “Zombies Keep Shuffling along in Popular Culture.” Pittsburg Tribune Review 5 Oct. 2009: n. pag. Student Resource Center Gold. Web. 16 Dec. 2009.
No book has captivated the zombie apocalypse better than World War Z. Max Brooks creatively presents “a worldwide zombie pandemic from outbreak to aftermath” (Boyd, Tristan). His book encompasses many social and political themes in the world today. The book reveals true fear and shows the strength of the human race.
Victor Harplin’s black and white film, White Zombie, and W.B Seabrook’s short story, “Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields”, both were produced in the early twentieth century and were among the first works to capture the nature of the zombie. The zombie being a unique monster, it originated in the folkloric and ritual practices of the New World, specifically in the Republic of Haiti (The Sub-Subaltern Monster). They both centralize around Zombies, however they do differ in the way that they are portrayed. Both were set in Haiti where the zombie originated. Also around this time the U.S. occupied Haiti and American businesses were moving to the island. America was going through serious social change in this time as well. Both women and African Americans were trying to get more rights. Women were also acting more provocative and doing things that would have been seen as inappropriate at the time. The social mold was being shattered. America was in a boom period with big business and new technological innovations. Also both the story and the film relate closely to Cohen’s first thesis. These two literary works have similarities and differences to them, however both tend to play on social and political differences of the 1920’s and 1930’s.
Max Brooks explains in his article ‘’The Movies That Rose From The Grave’’ [2006], that zombies and the supernatural forces have impacted and have become popular in the world today. The first main idea that Brooks points out is the way society has changed the meaning and glimpse for the supernatural creatures like zombies causing them to become increasingly popular. To support this zombie movies have changed from darkness and mystery to violent and bloodier scenes therefore making them more prevailing. The second main idea that is discussed by Brooks is how the media has helped to increase the popularity of zombies, vampires, ghosts. Highlighted by the author particularity both ‘’resident evil,
Torie Boschs “First eat all the lawyers” appeared in Slate october 2011. Her piece was to reach out to horror fans and to explain to them why zombies are a great monsters in current media. Zombie fanatics who read this short essay will love her vast knowledge of zombies while others who still do not understand why zombies are horribly terrifying can get behind her argument. Bosch explains that the current zombie craze has to do with our current society and how white-collar workers would be left defenceless in a world over run with a rampant horde of zombies. While blue-collar workers can flourish in this current state as they have more skills suited for survival.
James Parker essay “Our Zombies, Ourselves,” informs readers that the zombie has almost outranked the vampire, and why they’re so popular. This undead monster originated from a Caribbean folk nightmare and was adapted over time by, the Halperin brothers, William Seabrook and George Romero and numerous others. Much like the vampire, zombies owe their fame to the progressiveness of technology, allowing them to consistently invade various media forms. The zombie has infested countless tv shows, movies, video games, and books, throughout the 21st century. Zombies themselves are soulless corpses who were regurgitated back into the world of the living. This making them rejects from the underworld, this presents the zombie as rejected yet inexpungable. What makes the zombie so popular, however, is that symbolizes everything that is rejected by humanity. “Much can be made of him, because he makes so little of himself. He comes back, He comes back, feebly but unstoppably” (Parker). The zombie represents humanity itself as well as what is rejected by humanity. Much like individuals today, the zombie is burdened by life’s demands, converting to nothing but a rotting, groaning human shell that stumbles through life without a purpose. The zombie is symbolizer of the real world, and all things irrepressible, whereas the vampire is a symbol of an alternate world and all things
As said in the previous discussion regarding the second chapter of Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human, zombies and their culture are examined and broken down in order to understand their motives for the progression of zombies globally. Through different perspectives from individuals based around the world, the discussion of the zombie culture debates over the idea that zombies have not just evolved within the narratives that have brought them to life, but they have evolved in such a way that ultimately transforms the narrative itself. However, in this specific chapter, “They are not men.they are dead bodies!” : From Cannibal to Zombie and Back Again, Chera Kee breaks down the introduction of zombies into mainstream consciousness, and eventually cinema.
“Grrrraaaahhh” someone behind me yelled. I yelped loudly as I jumped and turned sharply around. There stood another zombie with a bright red mask who was also wearing a dark black cloak. But this zombie had a bloody axe in one hand causing me to scream very loudly. As I bolted in the opposite direction back out the entrance. I ran in between 2 of the arcade booths, then looked over my shoulder and sighed in relief as I realized this zombie hadn’t followed me.
George Romero's reinvention of the zombie in night of the Living Dead (1968) is clearly a critique of elements of the American society, and the film as a whole is easily twisted into a warped view on the 'American Dream'. Themes throughout Romero’s film, dealing with controversial topics during the time that the film was made, are still, to this day debated by critics and film historians. Themes of racism and war are defined within the movie, hidden underneath the idea of carnal, cannibalistic zombies and over the top heroes who, eventually, succumb to the reanimated; despite their every effort. These themes are colored over and painted to hide beneath subtle references to the typical American Dream during this time, and Romero does quite the good job at it too. This dream, whilst continuously changing in the everyday lives of modern Americans, can be loosely defined as a national ethos of the United States, or a set of ideals dealing with freedom and the opportunity for success - an upward social status that can be achieved through hard work and effort.
In this essay, I will be critiquing two articles “Monsters and Messiahs” by Mike Davis and “My Zombie, Myself: why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead” by Chuck Klosterman, to show the different fallacies along with the argumentized style that is being used. Both of this articles can be found in the book Monster A Bedford Spotlight Reader by Andrew J. Hoffman.
Zombies have become very popular due to their depictions of being easy to kill and being communal. Zombie apocalypses are also very relatable due to the fact that they are set in lives similar to our society and seem easy to overcome. Zombies, themselves, can be identified with because we see ourselves when we look at a zombie. Zombies drudge on through the same task of finding human flesh to consume every day just like we drag ourselves to either class or our job in order to sit through another boring lecture or perform the same menial task every day. Just like the zombie, R, in the book, Warm Bodies, said, “I am Dead, but it’s not so bad. I’ve learned to live with it,” we have learned to succumb to our daily routines and just live with
In Night of the Living Dead, the zombies were eventually eliminated. Or were they? Theorists argue that the monster’s elusiveness is due to its physical, psychological and social characteristics that cross the lines of classification. Human’s innate fear of the unknown is due to their inability to make a distinction or draw a clear conclusion. This is explained further in Jeffrey Cohen’s second thesis in “Monster Theory” that claims that; “the monster never escapes” (Cohen, 14). The zombie as a monster can never be destroyed completely and if it is, it leaves a remnant the make people feel uncertain of its destruction. Base on Cohen’s theory, the zombie’s different interpretation allows it to emerge in other forms (a faster, smarter zombie?)
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