Would zombies still be scary
if they didn’t eat people?
When pop culture historians start dissecting the era we currently find ourselves running amok in (which will be interesting, since no other era has ever been so minutely dissected while it was actually occurring) they no doubt will pay special attention to our seemingly insatiable fascination with tales of the living dead. Just when we think we’ve reached the point where we as a culture might have been zombied out, The Walking Dead hits the air and becomes a popular phenomenon and World War Z overcomes a highly-publicized turbulent production to become a summer blockbuster with sequels on the way.
We’re clearly obsessed with the rotting scamps, but is it because they serve as an allegory for our constant fear of civilization’s collapse or because they’re just inherently gross and icky? Are they the cold war nuclear weapons of the digital age or are they just freaky cool monsters that send a collective shiver down our spines?
Imagine that the dead did start rising out of the ground and walking around the earth, but turned out to be as harmless as puppies. Would they still freak you out?
In my case, I think it would be initially unsettling, but it wouldn’t take very long for me to accept it as a part of everyday life. For me the fear of a zombie apocalypse has far more to do with the actual apocalypse than the cause itself. I am not in any way prepared for the collapse of civilization as I know it, so I’d like civilization to pretty much stay as it is (barring some obvious improvements). If zombies appear but the status quo doesn’t change, I’ll be alright with it.
Live and let dead, y’know what I mean? How about you?
You can’t understand the full cultural phenomenon of zombie mania if you only think about them literally. Of course they would still be scary, because they embody some really deep social anxieties. They represent an elitist paranoia or individualist anxiety about “the masses.” They represent people’s fear of a stupid, mindless majority. They would stop being scary if we stopped being scared of our own electorate, of it we stopped being afraid of the power of the advertising industry or stopped being afraid of peer pressure. I just don’t see that happening any time soon. (I also tend to think… Read more »
“You can’t understand the full cultural phenomenon of zombie mania if you only think about them literally.”
I’ve also said the same thing about Wrestlemania.
That’s different. That’s, like, totally real.
The Bethesda game Fallout 3 kind of plays with this a little bit. Ghouls–the horribly radioactively mutated denizens of the DC Wasteland that you meet–look like stereotypical zombies. The “feral” variety are the “roar! I’mma eat you!” type and are classed as enemies, but the rest are just normal guys and gals who look sort of less than fresh and are classes as quest givers, shop-keepers, etc. You eventually don’t even look twice at them as the game rolls on into it’s hundredth or so hour (seriously, Bethesda games are LONG). It’s sort of a neat experiment in cultural immersion,… Read more »
I’ve heard so many great things about the Fallout games but have never played any of them. These days the Demon’s/Dark Souls franchise is the only one I’m willing to invest that kind of time in. (179 hours on Dark Souls so far!)
I have so many unPC I could say in response to this that would get me in soooo much trouble so I’m just gonna say “Ditto” to Alexa 😉
Are you afraid of offending ME? Because we know that’s pretty hard to do….
True dat 😉 I’ll lose any feminist street cred I have left with Joanna and Dani LOL
Hahaha.
We are the enforcers of feminist street cred! 😉
There is already a Zom-Com: Warm Bodies. Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNytA-KumTE
Saw it! Really good idea, but it moved a bit too slowly for me.
I think at first, we’d all be very afraid, but after awhile, they would become like any other slightly scary pest. We’d have to spray our tomatoes with zombiecide. Other people would start rescue shelters to feed and clothe them and give them good homes. We’d interview them. Conduct experiments. Eventually, we’d fall in love with zombies and bear their un-dead children. Zombie movies would become rom-coms. Many of them would go into standup-comedy. Then we’d start mainstreaming zombie children into public schools, and somebody would write a book, “The Language of the Zombie,” which would argue that their language… Read more »
Zom-coms?
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They’d be scary because they’re walking corpses. That is disgusting.
But we’d get used to them and it would be like, “Don’t mind that noise, it’s just a zombie.”
“That is disgusting.”
Even if it’s zombie Mark Ruffalo?
Worse if it’s Z-uffalo! Keep him perfect!
I believe zombies would still be frightening even if they did not harm people, because we are (probably) hard-wired to fear death and shun the dead. This wiring, after all, is what gives rise to the uncanny-valley effect: something which looks like a living human but is not a living human fills us with dread or at least a “creepy” feeling.
Plus, there are obvious problems with putrefaction, etc. In my opinion, the dead are better remembered than seen.
” This wiring, after all, is what gives rise to the uncanny-valley effect:”
I dunno, people got used to the Kardashians pretty quickly.