Why Zombies (Part Two)

So, everybody agree that zombism plays a suspiciously important role in contemporary American culture? Anybody disagree? Crickets?

***crickets***

Yeah, the crickets can disagree all they want; they're still wrong. Zombies matter to us, dammit.

But why? What is it about zombie lore that so appeals to contemporary Americans?

I have three reasons for the sudden popularity of zombism in contemporary America. First, we are attached to fundamental zombie story structure because it is linked with American exceptionalism. Secondly, modern zombie fiction encourages paranoia of disease, which is itself a growing concern of contemporary America. Thirdly, we can actually make zombies look more realistic in film than we used to, so, you know, the movies don't suck so much.

Russian President Putin would agree with my first argument: Americans think they're special. We do. I mean, he's a dick for saying it like it's a bad thing, but we do think we're special, exceptional, different, and (dare we say) better. We made famous the term "manifest destiny" with our westward expansion, we are perhaps the only country who has its own "dream." From our foundation, we have been heavily populated by A-type personalities who act, seize, and stake their future in the land they plot (and steal form American Indians, but that's another story). As a nation, since we rose to the status of a world power, we've been growing into the role of international peacekeeper. Well I wouldn't say peacekeeper, but how many times have we gone to war with someone over something that had pretty much nothing (on the surface) to do with us? Many times. We have frequent discussions on world rankings for just about anything, and we for some reason assume we should be ranked highest in every single field, from education to happiness, to GDP and cheese production. We don't have to. We could be a nation striving for mediocrity, but we aren't. We are a nation of people striving for elitism. And we have been the world's sole superpower for the past several decades (China is gonna collapse soon, don't worry), and if that doesn't scream elite, I don't know what does.

So, anybody on the side of the crickets, who claim that we aren't all about being elite?
**crickets**
Nope? Okay.

So, we're all about being the few capable and superior hands striving against a swarm of stupid.  We have the intelligence, the equipment, the foresight, the planning and the tactics, but our opponents have numbers. We are the 1% fighting a horde of unequipped, stupid, drooling, multiplying masses. Come on, that's a friggin zombie movie! Modern zombie lore has never been about one bad guy, one zombie raising hell, murdering people and burning down towns. It has always been about the survival of one or few against many. Straight-up elitism. The entire concept of contemporary zombism, what with how its spreads from person to person, fights against the possibility of it being anything but the elite few against the sub-par many. One zombie isn't a problem. One is stupid, slow, and already half-dead. It can be outran or killed with an improvised weapon relatively easily (by a main character), but let your guard down and one zombie becomes many. Let your guard down some more, and those many zombies won't be so easily overcome, and it's just a matter of time until you're eaten -- or worse, bitten and turn stupid yourself!

That drama itself would be short-lived (see Dawn of the Dead, both the original and the remake for evidence of what happens when that's pushed to its limits), so zombie lore has to introduce a new dilemma: who are these elite people with whom we are surviving; can they be trusted? We, as the elite, fear those elite surviving with us. Now THAT is the essential drama of all modern zombie lore, without which the stories tend to just fizzle out (World War Z, the film).

Now, is that an essential drama for Americans?

Yes (duh): we are a nation of constant strife, and it's usual with one-another. We are torn between Republican and Democrat, Pepsi and Coke, Walmart and Target (we seem to seek a duality, but that's for another post). A president is elected by a bare majority, usually, and he is almost always in conflict when in office. He, our leader, is in conflict with his own American people, without end.

We Americans like to think we're the best. Whether that's true or not, we like to think so. Zombie fiction is built around the best vs the worst. Or the common becoming the best through conflict with the worst. The reason Daryl Dixon has survived so far into The Walking Dead series on AMC is not because he's the best (although he certainly is [note the blue meth at 2:32]), but because he's so well-loved (SPOILIER: that's why Andrea died). It just so happens that we love him because he's the elite member of the group, who would survive without the group if he needed or wanted to. He is that rare kind of elite that rises above the rest, that kind of elite with which we Americans identify and to which we aspire.

Boom

So I was planning on making this just a two-part series, but with the epic length of this part I'm thinking I'll need to make this at least a three-part post. Make a noise if y'all are cool with that.

**crickets**

Finally, the crickets are on my side. I'll be back later to discuss disease-inspired-paranoia across American ideology and zombie lore. In the mean time, click some ads!

**crickets**

Leaving, part One (Bonus: sawn-off review of "World War Z")

You ever get the sense that a state is convincing you to leave and never return? Not in the sense of being railroaded out of town, or tarred and feathered, but little things.

[Scroll down for the spoiler-free sawn-off review of World War Z]

I was driving a route I've gone about once a week for the past two years, which half of Conway drives to work and back in Little Rock, when I almost got into an accident. Part of me isn't surprised, because when I moved here, my insurance rates jumped up a good chunk. That suggests bad drivers, sorry, and it was confirmed when I actually saw people "drive." Forget about the rushing through yellow lights, or even outright blowing through the reds, that's too expected for people here. No, I saw a guy make a U-turn in the middle of a busy road, weaving around what traffic he wasn't blocking! He was ten feet past the intersection (which allows U-turns legally, but that's another story), and just fifty from an actual parking lot in which he could safely turn about. But no, he HAD to turn RIGHT THERE. 

That's one story from this week, and one smidgen of evidence suggesting Arkansas needs to require a driver's education class.

Thankfully, I wasn't near a collision there. A few days ago, however, I was almost in a pile-up. Yep, thanks to some late braking by the pair of idiots in front of me at the time, we all had to engage in a tactical swerve to a staggered-line formation for safety. They went left and right, and I went right then left and deftly avoided the semi to my right and the ditch to my left, all while pulsing, pumping, and finally slamming my brakes to keep myself out of their cars. I thanked the god of anti-lock brakes and the god of attentive drivers for existing, that day (they happen to be the same god (God), who happens to be the God of Everything, which includes anti-lock brakes and attentive drivers). And of course, I do what everybody does when the cause becomes apparent: I looked. Did I see a grisly car wreck? How about our president, handing out money? Or perhaps Johnny Cash, not so dead? Of course not. So what caused the unnecessary and sudden slow-down? A young girl got pulled over. She was wearing jean-shorts that looked homemade. That's about it.

At least it wasn't nothing (that's happened way too often already).

Then later, THAT SAME DAY, I was turning right, onto a main road, when Bozo McOld decided to pull out in front of me from the bank opposite me. It was an aggressive maneuver, which I can respect, but it did require that I slam on my brakes (and same for Dude behind me) when he realized what he was doing and then immediately apologized by SLAMMING on his brakes in the MIDDLE of four lanes. I'm not kidding; he took up the entire street. Now, had he gunned it from the get-go, everything would've been fine. So it just goes to show you that half-measures don't cook, and that it's better to be an ass-hole than just an ass.

That's not the worst, though. Once, I saw a driver work VERY VERY hard to pull a u-turn to go the wrong way down an offramp. He worked for that shit. And there's a particular stretch of highway in Little Rock that I've witnessed, I kid you not, a delivery truck (big sized) pointed the WRONG WAY (toward me!), and suddenly fix his error and about-face. That was in my first month of living here (welcome to Arkansas; we don't require a driver's education course).

And that's just the road-safety stuff.

Today, I saw World War Z (It was okay, but not nearly dark enough to be a proper zombie horror, and not light enough to be a proper zombie comedy. Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead: those are proper zombie movies/shows and you should watch them all twice. This movie fell short of greatness, but was good for eight bucks' fun. Not worth 3D, but worth the big screen.) After the (decent) movie, there was an encounter between two women in the audience that was honestly more tense and exciting than anything that happened on screen. Many a "fatass" was slung in that discussion, and I was convinced that yes indeed, Arkansas is convincing me to never return.

The places we live, they shape us, but there isn't much of Arkansas I want to take with me wherever I go (that stuff will be covered on a later post; this one is about bad drivers). As always, I'll close with this: Click the ads! All of them! Many times!