Zombie Culture and the March of Socialism

by S.T. Karnick

Yes, vampires are still a hot media commodity, but zombies are vying to knock them off the cultural pedestal, with the rise of zombie movies as a cultural force and numerous books about zombies hitting the stores, capped by the spoof novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies having recently reached the top of the bestseller list. An article in the Chicago Tribune documents the phenomenon and suggests some reasons for it.

First the author suggests audience identification as the main factor: we are interested in zombies because according to the mythology, we could become them ourselves (should we die after being bitten by one):

“There’s a sadness,” said S.G. Browne. “They used to be us. But they’re tragic and comical and they want to be friends, but we run. Vampires are Brad Pitts. Zombies are more like the Steve Buscemis. We can relate.”

That natural sense of sympathy, however, conflicts with an even more fundamental urge: the drive to stay alive, as the latter absolutely requires that we kill every zombie we can find. That’s a rather poignant situation, and I think it does indeed account for some of the power of zombie stories. (more…)

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Posted May 9th 2009 at 10:22 am in Entertainment, Media Criticism | 3 Comments