ZombieLand of the “Free”: You Are What You Eat?

If you’ve been generous enough to follow my blog, you’ll know that I recently vented my frustration with our culture’s current obsession with making monsters “sexy,” a tendency that provides evidence of the degradation of the horror film genre in the past hundred years (among other more serious societal ills). However, it’s time for a confession: unlike my warm feelings towards the elder vampire Nosferatu, I’m not so nostalgic about the oldest zombie flicks. Not that the oldies aren’t great in their own way, or that zombie films have necessarily gotten better over the past fifty years—unless they’re comedic, they always seem to slip out of control these day—but I have to say that I find 28 Days Later much more frightening overall than the original Night of the Living Dead. I remain hopeful that we may still produce a masterpiece because, for some reason, our culture has left zombies off of the sexy bandwagon—and thank goodness we have, because to do otherwise would result in the ultimate distortion of monstrosity.

Of course, I’m not going to give us credit for being self-aware on this one, so I’m curious as to why it is that we’ve allowed zombies to remain scary. If anything, our fear of them seems to be increasing. One of the most noticeable developments in the portrayal of zombies since George Romero’s classic 1960’s and 70’s Living Dead series is their threat level: zombies in today’s films are usually a whole lot faster, with the most lethargic of humans seemingly morphing into a record-setting sprinter once bitten; they are also stronger, and they’re always more grotesque. In addition, zombies are getting a lot more coverage. The 1990’s and 2000’s witnessed an explosion of media attention to the undead, from the Resident Evil videogame (which, by the way, may be the scariest rendering yet—I’m pretty sure that the time I spent watching my brothers play it is the root cause of one of my recurring nightmares) to Image Comic’s Walking Dead series, to 28 Days Later and all of its cousins on the big screen, to the more recent self-aware “zombie irony” that gives rise to lovable parodies like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and the novels written as zombie re-takes on classics.

Admittedly, zombie fascination in our culture is not terribly new; folklore concerning corpse re-animation has been present in Western society at least since the 1800’s. However, pop culture’s current level of interest in zombies is unprecedented. There’s zombie s.w.a.g. galore, and recently as I was driving through Nashville I noticed a marquee for a camping goods store that said, “Get your zombie survival gear here.” It’s not even close to Halloween, and this is no Spencers-esque novelty outlet. What’s going on with us? 

Some might suggest that this recent upswing is due to our ubiquitous access to T.V. and obsession with carnage; throw in our increasingly global consciousness, and it’s no wonder that we’ve been consistently paranoid about a worldwide zombie apocalypse since the advent of Romero’s Living Dead. There are even folks who seem eager to go ahead and get the apocalypse started. You’ve heard of the “zombie walks,” right? If you live in a big enough city, you’ve perhaps even witnessed one? This phenomenon originated in 2001 and is contained primarily to larger urban areas in North America. Basically, a zombie walk entails a decent-sized crowd getting together to stagger around town, in character, as the walking dead. Most of the time they do it for no particular reason, although there are some charitable zombies who use the walks as an opportunity to raise money to combat world hunger (it would be irreverent if it weren’t so clever).

…As a side note—it only seems natural that if these people really want to stay current, they should be conducting “zombie sprints” around their cities. It would make a great Halloween Day marathon, if nothing else.

It’s hard to believe that all of this heightening anxiety about/fascination with the un-dead only stems from our inundation with visual stimuli and violence (although I’m confident that these proliferate our obsession). Instead, I wonder if it doesn’t have more to do with our repressed fear that we are witnessing the zombie apocalypse already—that we are becoming, more and more, the living dead.

Think about it: What characterizes zombies? First, they look like they are alive but aren’t. This might correlate with the widespread depersonalization endemic to our culture. We humans have an inherent tendency to place ultimate trust in those things which will not sustain us—to passing pleasures, especially rising social statuses of various expressions. A culture like ours that privileges one-upmanship is especially encouraging of this tendency (and it’s time we admit that our resistance sub-cultures are not exempt from this temptation either). And when we can’t numb our emptiness in the forms of wealth/beauty/fame, we usually turn to over-medication, intoxication, and other forms of escapism. Thus, we easily become those who continue working and socializing, looking as if we were alive when we have actually forfeited our humanity and are enslaved to success and escapism.

Second, zombies are intent on one thing only: the consumption of the living. This probably speaks to our one-upmanship once again, wherein people become little more than means to desired ends. What’s more, in our quest for success, we make ourselves into “means” as well, striving to become that product which other people want not for relationship but for benefit. The zombie’s appetite also probably connects with our paralyzing insecurity in light of the physical and emotional violence we perpetuate: we assume that most people are out to get us, so we’re gonna get them first; and round and round we go. If you are what you eat, it's no wonder that we're all behaving like the undead.

Finally, when it comes to zombies, everyone has the same personality: the individual is consumed by the masses and is then unidentifiable from the masses. This probably correlates, again, with widespread depersonalization and viewing the self as a product of consumption. These conditions engender our interacting primarily via contrived forms rather than genuinely and vulnerably. The result is the irony of isolation—by closing ourselves off from one another, we lose our individuality.

Essentially, I believe that our culture is obsessed with zombies because, in the back of our minds, we feel like the picture zombie fictions paint may not be far from the truth. I’m reminded of the tagline on the original Dawn of the Dead poster: “When there’s no more room in HELL, the dead will walk the EARTH.” Catchy. However, I might tweak it a bit: “When the dead walk the earth, we create our own hell.” We are so afraid of vulnerability that, to borrow Paul Tillich’s terms, we “avoid non-being by avoiding being,” worshipping that which we control instead of that which is of ultimate concern. And so we become the living dead. It’s worth mentioning that, of course, Christians are not exempt from this danger. Christians are human and so, though we profess to worship that which is ultimate--God--we are much more apt to place our trust in the tangibles of our culture along with everyone else.

However, all of this zombie-mania could encourage us Christ-followers to admit and even find solace in the fact that there are two things we cannot avoid: First, we cannot escape the fact that to be human is to seek ultimate meaning and security in something, and that most of us (“Christians” and non-) find it much easier to put our faith in that which, in the end, lacks the power to save us by giving meaning to our existence. Pretending otherwise is just another form of escapism, and a quick ticket to zombieland. Let’s admit instead that faith is an ongoing struggle: that because we are finite, the element of uncertainty will always be there. However, we should also recognize that there is something beautiful in accepting that. Turning again to Paul Tillich, “If faith is understood as being ultimately concerned, doubt is a necessary element in it. It is a consequence of the risk of faith…Faith includes courage. Therefore, it can include the doubt about itself.”

And second, let us come to terms with the uncomfortable reality of our mortality. We cannot escape our embodiment, try as we might through anti-aging procedures and reliance on technology. This means that we Christians should resist making “salvation” abstract, and that we should more readily acknowledge that we are ALL going to die. However, let us not forget that that proclamation is paired with the promise of resurrection—not corpse re-animation, but re-creation into the fullness of life that we’ve yet to experience.

Perhaps our clearest reminder of this is the Communion Feast, a celebration which is the ultimate reversal of the zombie myth. In it, we are not consumed but rather feast on the body and blood of the crucified Christ, and in doing so our embodied souls are brought to restoration, renewal, and resurrection. Until our Lord comes, this sacrament proclaims his death, teaching us that the final word will not belong to death but that there will come a day when the dead may walk in the newness of life. 

Tell Me All Your Religiopolitic

Well, I had originally intended to write this—my second blog entry—on the theological implications of zombie obsession. For those of you who would find that topic more interesting than mediocre reflections on a subject you’re likely already tired of, I apologize for buzzing about something more cliché.  For those of you who would rather avoid my nerdy rants about the horrific and supernatural, be forewarned: zombie reflections are forthcoming. 

For now, I’ll talk about something I’ve thought about far less (believe it or not), and I’d like your take on it. Basically, while watching the news this past Tuesday night, I was reminded that I’m often disappointed with the showing of Christians who visit with political talk show hosts. Allowing a few welcomed exceptions, it seems that they generally make us look like people who can’t give a solid account for our beliefs.

Of course, rationalists averse to Christian faith might respond by suggesting that Christians, in general, aren’t all that intelligent. Though I’m not here to build a defense for the overall IQ of the faithful, I have hung out with enough Christians to contend that our A-team does not doesn’t tend to make up the group that speaks most loudly. At least, not on television.

In addition, just to be sure that they get a good knee-jerk reaction from their viewers, the talk show hosts and commentators seem to work towards making their guests look (at least a little bit) foolish. Rob Bell’s recent semi-disastrous foray into the MSNBC political realm serves as a good case in point, don’t you think?

Though it’s hard to blame them for coming up short when put on the spot so publically, I do wish that these folks had better responses on the ready. If nothing else, Christian viewers themselves usually aren’t amenable to finding commonality with extremists or sentimentalists who speak from whatever end of the political spectrum they oppose. For those of us who care about unity and/or progress, this leaves us with our hands full; not to mention it makes more onerous the task of demonstrating to non-believers that Christians aren’t all potential (or confirmed) nutjobs who spend their time opposing one other. But I digress.

Of course, right now it seems that everyone is weighing in on the death of Osama bin Laden, either by celebrating it or cautioning against such celebration. Naturally, this makes excellent religiopolitical fodder for the talk shows. I don’t begrudge this, but I do wish I could turn on the TV and hear a more articulate Christian response—from the Left or the Right—to this sensitive issue than I’ve heard thus far. If you’ve come across one, please do share.

What stemmed this particular reflection is when on Tuesday night I caught an interview with Father Edward Beck on the O’Reilly Factor. Perhaps I'm an overly harsh critic, but I found it following the standard drill: he made a few solid points but ended up seeming as if he hadn’t thought things through (at least, I’m sure all of those who’d disagree with his starting place or conclusions would say so…and not just for the sake of disagreeing). The interview was followed up by the usual vitriolic commentary, potentially sealing Beck's fate as one more unreasonable Christian voice on the airwaves. 

Am I wrong here? If you think so, I’d genuinely like to know why...maybe I’m overlooking something. See what you think: 

  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxKIF42J8tY&feature=player_embedded#at=10 

Of course, I’d hope that most of us non-crazy Christians would align with Beck's being “uncomfortable with the killing of Osama bin Laden being celebrated like a Superbowl win”—frankly, I’ve found the fanatical mass-celebratory reaction pretty unsettling, whether coming from Christians or not. Touché, Father Beck.

However, I was disappointed when he began sending mixed messages: on the one hand he attributes bin Laden’s death to necessary evil, while on the other suggesting that we ought not respond to violence with violence, equating a non-response with forgiving jihadists who “know not what they do.” So, which is it? Necessary or unnecessary evil?

And as for the rest of us Christians, what would we say? Is it human to feel relieved at the news that a perpetrator of mass violence is no longer with us? Surely. Is it morally incumbent upon us to protect innocent people by doing what we can to end mass violence, even if it means resorting to violence ourselves? This is an age-old question on which Christians have disagreed; however, a strong case can be made that it is our moral duty to do so, and that this is a case of “necessary evil.” However, it seems of utmost importance that we view it as such—an evil—and thus a tragedy, not a cause for celebration. Speaking of which, are we at liberty to call Osama bin Laden “evil” as O’Reilly does? Father Beck is not comfortable issuing this judgment, preferring to call only bin Laden’s actions evil. However I’d contend that, of all people, Christians (should) acknowledge that humans are intimately tied to what they do; so evil actions, in some sense, lead to an evil person.

With the same breath, however, I’d tell O’Reilly that my faith stipulates that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Thus, while it may be natural to feel relief that bin Laden is out of the equation, it seems clear that Christians ought not endorse celebrating his demise with party horns in the streets. Because when we celebrate, we work to solidify the distance between ourselves and our “enemy”…but, the truth is, he is human. Thus we are much more like him than we’d care to admit. When we deny his humanity, we deny the potential we all have to commit murder, as much as we’d like to believe otherwise.

Post script: This is why I’m okay with the fact that bin Laden was afforded a ritualistic burial, with prayers read for his soul by his Muslim brother: the sailors on that ship seemed to sense that they should acknowledge the sacrosanct nature of God’s creation, the embodied soul. Regardless of how “evil” that soul may be (which, by the way, is God’s call, not ours), we are all tied to it—for we all were created out of God’s love; we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory; Christ died for the sins of all of the ungodly.

This reminds me of one of my favorite stories C. S. Lewis tells. He remembers speaking with a priest who once had seen Hitler in person, and asking him (rather foolishly) what Hitler looked like. “He looked like all men,” was the priest’s reply: “like Christ.”   

Where Have All the Vampires Gone?

The other night, I finally got around to watching the 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu. This has been on my to-do list for some time now (at the recommendation of my film buff brother), but I’ve been putting it off because I anticipated having to watch it with a certain amount of self-discipline, akin to that required for sticking with a Victorian novel. So I was pretty surprised when I found the movie completely mesmerizing—beautiful yet macabre, true to its subtitle: “A Symphony of Horror.”

I was even more surprised that it actually frightened me. I mean, as much as I avoid modern disasters like Saw IV and The Hills Have Eyes, I’ve become inured to the shock tactics they employ as much as everyone else in these unfortunate days. So I didn’t quite expect the black-and-white vistas of a 1920’s silent classic to be so unsettling. After doing some research (er, reading my Netflix mailer slip) I found that, in fact, “many horror-film fanatics call F.W. Murnau’s silent German classic…the scariest Dracula adaptation ever.” Thank you, horror-film fanatics, for making me feel less like a total lame-o.

However, I’ve been thinking about it, and I disagree with their assessment. Assuming it’s safe to say that most North American vampire lore comes from the Dracula legend in some fashion, I’d postulate instead that the modern-day Twilight saga is actually its most frightening adaptation to date.

Of course, I’m working with a different definition of “scary” here—I’m thinking more along the lines of cultural implications than hair-raising fun. Basically, the fact that vampires on the silver screen have somehow gone from looking like Nosferatu to Edward Cullen scares me because it says something about the culture in which we live: a dishonest culture, which has little sense of real mystery left. Real mystery is frightening, and an honest look at life means acknowledging the mysteriously monstrous for what it is. Twilight is supposed to be about monsters, vampires (not to mention werewolves)…but these guys look more like androgynous runway models from Milan. I mean, take a good look at our boy Edward here. I don’t care if sunlight doesn’t kill him (I’ll not mention the awkward fact that he glitters under UV exposure), or how fast he can run a baseball diamond; he looks like a light hors d’oeuvre for Nosferatu.

So while half of America overexposes itself to violence so much that the only thing that satisfies its average horror movie-goer is quite literally “torture porn,” the rest of us make monsters sexy and romantic, and feel good about ourselves because we’re not lining up for Eli Roth films. But at the end of the day it seems like we’re all playing with fire. 

Now, don’t get me wrong: just because I’m a half-closeted culture snob doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate a guilty pleasure as much as the next gal, and all of my friends who enjoy Twilight tend to label it as such. Plus, people LOVE this stuff, and it’s hard for me to tell people to stop reading. Though I’ve not read the books, I have suffered through the first two movies. When I went to the theater to see the first installment, there was an entire row of giggling 6^th graders sitting behind me, each with an open Twilight book in her lap, eagerly absorbing the last detail of Edward and Bella’s affair before the lights dimmed. Seeing that I literally used to read the latest Babysitter’s Club book while walking behind my mother at the grocery store, who am I to deny them their pre-teen literary addictions?

In the end, what scares me about Twilight is not the lowbrow culture it creates (we all have our indulgences). It’s not the false concepts of romantic love the story encourages (although far less cheesy, is Jane Austen really that much more realistic?); it’s not even the gender stereotypes it enforces (though I do find them vapidly cliché, not to mention a potential setback for those who want young women to strive to be more than objects of desire). What actually scares me is that there are hardly any real monsters left in our cultural mass productions. While torture porn numbs its viewers to the fragility of our incarnation and its close ties with the spirit, the Twilight culture takes what used to be mythic semblances of death and makes them easy on the eyes and cheap to the imagination. And I suspect that Western culture’s vampires have gradually evolved from Nosferatu to Edward because we’re increasingly so obsessed with youth, progress, and happiness that we’re de facto more and more obsessed with denying the slow reality of decay and the empty darkness that is woven into the fabric of our existence. The natural dénouement is that we throw some hair gel and a top-40 soundtrack at it and sweep the rest under the rug.   

Why do I wish someone would preach on this from the pulpit, you might ask? Because I believe that people who profess belief in the sacred ought not try to escape reality for too long or too often. Shouldn’t Christians most heartily endorse art that will equip us to embrace life more deeply, rather than avoid it? And the monstrous nihil of existence just isn’t sexy in real life.

I’m not saying that everyone needs to go out and burn his or her “Team Jacob” t-shirt and rent some lesser-known Hitchcock (though I’d be supremely okay with that). I’m just saying that of all people, Christians, who ascribe such power to the movement of death and resurrection, should get comfortable with the mysteriously macabre, truly frightening aspects of life—which I believe are intertwined but ultimately redeemed by that which is mysteriously beautiful and life-giving.  

Watching F.W. Murnau’s silent German classic, the “scariest Dracula adaptation ever,” may be as good a starting place as any.