I can’t seem to get away from them either.
The Daily Beast recently unpacked what appears to be a trending topic in our cultural lexicon.
So what is it about zombies? Arguably, they are the perfect interchangeable metaphor for everything from Nazis, to consumerism, to the loss of individuality, to the collapse of civilization, to the impending doom of swine flu, and most recently representing mindless bankers, stumbling around and feeding on whatever fetid bad debt they can, however unsavory it later turns out to be.
Unlike other more glamorous monsters that always come across as a little too cool and a little too chiselled, the zombie is the reassuringly accessible underdog—often vulnerable, powerless and alone, but also blissfully unaware. Theirs is a condition that is far closer to that of the human being than we would like to admit, and it is perhaps for this reason that zombies will always have resonance in times of social and economic upheaval: We start losing our jobs and homes, and before long we’re all completely lost, left to shamble around mindlessly until someone takes pity on us and shoots us in the head.
So this isn’t just coincidence. Insolvent banks are commonly known as zombie banks. And with good reason; practically every Friday, a new bank failure failures. One of them was a beast. I’ve come to expect announcements of bank failures around 4:30 PM -7:00 PM every Friday with a bit of disaffection. I don’t know if that’s good or not. But with the threat of something so familiar in ‘normal’ life as a un-dead flesh eating beast, there isn’t any room for nostalgia.
Some clever activists took a different stance on the theme and organized a performance:
I don’t need to rehash the freakish success of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. We’ve got a whole filmography centered on zombies –Shaun of the Dead, Resident Evil, 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, Thriller— our worst nightmares and appetite for the macabre manifested in so many places. Even in the film adaptation of I am Legend, those monsters seem to live in the in-between zombie and vampire for me. Sure, everyone now is flocking to the theaters to watch pretty adolescent boys embody trite and reductive gothic romance trilogy. I’m sure that feeds the soul in some way. However, the campy Zombieland admittedly has captured my imagination. I think I live in fear of something feeding on my brain.
I think it’s safe to say that we all live in fear a zombie apocalypse.
Over the past few months, I’ve been informed by my friends that I need a ‘zombie plan’. My friends have advised me that should a mysterious viral pandemic descend on all of humanity and Brooklyn, and I don’t have a plan, they will feel free to leave me to the teeming flesh eating masses. So I’m reading World War Z, A History of the Zombie Wars. They say the book is an excellent resource, puts this situation in a probable context and that I should also read the companion piece, The Zombie Survival Guide.
Worry is not preparation; or so they say.
The origin of the word zombie seems to have it’s origins in Africa, it’s etymological roots from the Kongo word nzambi, which means ‘god’. According to the Random House Dictionary, the earliest recorded use of the word zombie was in the 19th century and has come to describe a ‘reanimated corpse’.*
What is old is new again, yes?
We’re surrounded by the fact of death and the idea of death everyday. I wonder if our psyches need zombies –harmless or menancing– to make the cruelties we witness our world bearable. Some supernatural power outside of us to account for the evil that is done in our name. Fela Kuti’s Zombie comes to mind. If you’re unfamiliar, get familiar here. Some lyrics to help:
Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go (Zombie)
Zombie no go stop, unless you tell am to stop (Zombie)
Zombie no go turn, unless you tell am to turn (Zombie)
Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think (Zombie)
This track was such a powerful expression of the frustration of the sociopolitical climate in Nigerian in 1978. More than thirty years later, it still has resonance now.
Should a zombie apocalypse destroy our way of life, what evidence that we ever existed will remain? Art carries our collective memory. Is all of this a chronicle of a death foretold? Another friend, who is quite adept at handling knives, is currently working on a series of persona poems, imagining a woman living through a zombie apocalypse. If we’re all really good, she may actually be a guest blogger and post some of her work here.
What’s in your head?
*zombie. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/zombie (accessed: November 24, 2009).
