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In the past, there were always people/cultures who were sufficiently unknown to us that we could assign them the role of Implacable Evil in the narratives we wanted to tell. In essence, we could label them with "Here Be Dragons" on the edges of our mental map of the known world.
Often, such examples of Implacable Evil corresponded to economic and/or geopolitical interests. Everything from Columbus demonizing the native Arawaks whose labor and resources he ruthlessly exploited, to modern-day Hollywood movies making tiny relatively-powerless North Korea the source of all Evil Overlord plots.
But with 24/7/365 media coverage which spans the globe, it has become harder and harder to fully conceptualize others as Implacable Evil. If the symbol of Abstract Evil is a ragged toothless militant huddling in a cave in Waziristan, he just doesn't set off alarm bells the way Kruschev pounding his shoe at the UN did.
So, I wonder. Is the recent rise in the popularity of Zombie Apocalypse stories because we need an imaginary Abstract Evil to be our Antagonists? The Indians (and other native peoples) have been almost wiped out. The Nazis are no more. The Soviet Union collapsed. Even China seems more a threat to induce companies to move there and (horror of horrors!) fail to purchase US government debt issues than to invade/murder/pillage.
Do we need Zombies in order to have some foe to battle against (even vicariously) whose humanity we can neglect?
Well, I've always equated similar qualities and conditions to the vampire archetype. Remember how popular vampires once were?
We are a nation of addicts. This desire to live in artificial bliss at any cost, no matter how many suffer, because we cannot stop wanting more, is a perfect personification of vampirism. We WANT and we NEED and the rest of society can just die so long as we can HAVE what we WANT. NOW. GIve me booze, coke, food, sex, money, whatever. I need to be satiated. The problem is there is NEVER any satiation with anything that is temporary. A temporary fix is all we know of. We are not letting go of our NEEDS for the temporary fix no matter how debilitating it is to ourselves and of course, who cares about anyone else?
Now, zombies? What better word for those who plunder and pillage and don't even know why? The walking dead? 'There IS not any global warming.' They don't want to deal with it. 'There is no problem with no gun control. We want our guns. '
Zombies to me, symbolize the unconscious dolts who just eat, sleep and expel excretia with no thought of anything besides plopping in front of their Color TV's or latest internet toy and living vicariously by being "entertained" no matter how low-level the entertainment is. No matter how big the LIE, if it is more convenient to hear and believe the LIE, then the LIE is a good thing.
Get out of their way or the real-life zombies won't eat you, they will just shoot you. It's their right.
The Zombie is understood by everyone. But zombies will never admit they are part of the zombie horde. It's better to point the finger at THEM, the OTHER people. THEY are the Zombies. After all, Zombies do not know they are zombies, even in the movies.
There is something to what you say. George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (the wellspring of modern zombie fiction) is pretty clearly a send-up of mindless consumerism.
Perhaps zombies are the personification of the side of ourselves/our culture we don't want to admit exists? So we transfer those qualities to the zombies and tell tales about how Good People fight the valiant fight against them/it? It's plausible.
Interesting, I never thought of that aspect of it. I had only considered the horror aspect, relating to fear of death and dead rotting things in human form. But this is a good point. I think any good hero story needs an enemy that is both powerful (zombies have this in terms of their vast numbers and relative immunity to physical harm) and yet inspires little or no empathy.
sigh. I think I just said that?
Ah, I just reread your reply and, yes, my recapitulation was somewhat redundant. The only thing I think I added was the possibility that the Zombie archetype could either represent what we believe about other people ("they're all mindless consumer dolts") or about ourselves ("I'm a mindless consumer dolt, but don't want to admit it").
If you look at propaganda and military practice throughout history, you see a consistent pattern of dehumanization of any potential foe. It is MUCH harder to commit violence against another one sees as a fellow human being. It's much easier to be violent against an Inhuman Monster or a Subhuman Vermin.
