Over at First Things Ethan Cordray writes:
But what if this [Zombie] fascination is about more than just gross-out gore and action thrills? What if it represents a subtle, subconscious understanding that something is wrong—spiritually wrong—with our culture.
Zombies represent the appetite divorced from everything else. They are incapable of judgment, self-awareness, or self-preservation. Though they still move and act, they are not really alive. They hunger and are never filled. And they aren’t just hungry for anything—they specifically want to eat the living, and even more specifically the brain, seat of rationality and self control.
Zombies represent two of the greatest fears of the Baby Boom generation — mortality and disease. As mortality, they are relentless. You can run and hide, you can fight, you can do everything imaginable, but you’re only delaying the inevitable.
As disease, they leave you in pain, disfigured, corrupted and corrupting. Since the vampire was divorced of the role of plague bearer in horror symbology, they’ve taken on that role.
They also represent the fragility of society. World War Z is oddly one of the most optimistic about this; as I recall, society is severely strained and damaged, but still exists at the end of the book. Most other stories of the genre end with society completely gone — to that end they may represent “the barbarians among us”, but I agree that the barbarian is implied to be ourselves, not a foreign presence.
Or it could be that I just love zombie movies. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Thanks for the link, Elizabeth. Love your posts and love your links, this is no exception. Cordray makes some great points and as a student of phenomenology, I definitely think he’s onto something.