Zombies are a metaphor for the decadence of humanity
Ever wondered why there seems to be an unstoppable army of the undead marching through popular culture? Zombies are everywhere from television shows, to movies to computer games, to online pop-up ads, to shopping malls – never before have the undead risen in such numbers. But why has this become the great age of the loving dead? Well it could be because zombie stories are a great vehicle for exploring social issues both literal and metaphorical. More on the metaphorical later, but first the literal…
On their most basic level, zombies represent humanity’s greatest primal fear: that a viral plague could one day spread and decimate our numbers in very little time. Looking back through history, there is plenty of evidence to show that this is not an irrational fear, the Black Death being the most horrifying chapter representing what disease can do to humanity.
Globalisation has intensified the fear of viral disease since easy airplane travel has almost assured us that if there were to be a deadly viral outbreak, it would ravage humanity worldwide in a shorter time period than at any point in history. This dark fear has once again raised its ugly head in the form of the recent Ebola pandemic.
But there is more to zombie stories than the literal fear of disease. Zombie films are an excuse to indulge in a level of violence that you just couldn’t get away with in a film not about the undead. In a zombie film, it is perfectly acceptable for the protagonist to dispose of the undead by any means necessary. Loping off a limb with an axe, ramming a sword to the gut, depositing a shotgun bullet in the temple these are all acceptable methods of killing the undead.
It would be less acceptable to use these methods on say, a bus load of tourists. If your protagonist did that you would have a very different film on your hands, so zombie films are a way of framing violent dangerous men as heroic. The modern world has very little outlet for such ‘heroism’ as unbridled violent conduct outside of the army is likely to land you with a lengthy jail term. Such brutish masculinity has no place in the modern world. Zombie films are a bit like revenge fantasies as they give us a chance to experience death and destruction without any consequences.
Zombie films are full of people who can simply resolve their problems with guns and violence. With frustration and tension mounting from rising pressure in the cut-throat modern world, due to everyone living such complex lives full of problems that you cannot solve with a double barrel shotgun, the zombie film provides a form of violent wish fulfillment. This is one of the many reasons, why you should be suspicious of any individual who is yearning for a zombie apocalypse.
This is all surface level though as there is far more to zombie films than a way of exploring viral disease and extreme violence. Zombie films have often been used as a form of social satire. They represent a view that humanity could collectively descend to such a level of stupidity that we could devolve the species. ‘Brains, Brains, Brains’ have been the traditional food that a zombie craves. It is tellingly symbolic that they want and therefore feed on the brains of the living, since the stories are metaphors for a collective absence of intelligence sweeping across society like an ignorance epidemic.
The Godfather of the modern zombie filmmaker George Romero used his zombie films to pass social judgement on the issues of the day. His first film Night of the Living Dead was really about racial tensions, playing on what dangers lurk in a society that allows violent redneck arseholes to stock pile weapons. His second film Dawn of the Dead used the zombie format to express concerns that consumerism was deadening humanity, turning people into mindless shopping zombies. Perhaps, they should keep remaking it to stop people being further deadened by mindless purchasing.
The scenes of shopping mall mayhem that have once again amused us in the aftermath of Black Friday, are a disturbing reminder of how hopelessly hypnotized people are by the spell of consumerism.
If you are one of the many who argues that generally people are becoming more stupid, you couldn’t find a better case to illustrate your point than the scenes that take place on Black Friday. It’s is not by accident that people turn into frenzied shopping zombies on Black Friday. Advertising and the media are moving into ever more powerful forms of mind control, convincing the masses that crushing your fellow man in pursuit of cheap material goods is a necessity. The ultimate goal of society is to turn people into the kind of crazed shopaholics you see on Black Friday. This kind of behaviour is not condemned but encouraged. Right now some pencil pushing bean counter is probably busy calculating how much the injection of cash from Black Friday sales boosted the American economy. People fight to the death for discounted technological goods because they entirely buy into the misleading message that society sends: that material goods bring personal happiness. The results are scenes that could be used by Romero in his next zombie movie.
Anyone who has ever worked with the general public will no doubt be nodding emphatically about the idea that collectively people are degenerating. A quick scan of what constitutes the most popular television shows, and what trends online proves that what is considered cool and what is considered stupid are often interchangeable. Popular culture and the media send us messages that shape society. The underlying message being what you really need to do to get into the cult of cool is to follow whatever trend your told to and to mirror the zombie by having no working brain of your own and never, never think for yourself.
People are being dehumanized at an alarming rate – the zombie film is on the rise as a satirical wake up call to remind humanity that we have lost our way. Our communities are gone, more and more people are living in concrete jungles, slaves to the dollar, people think that social media actually means socializing. People are also dangerously detached from their fellow man and empathy is not being grown and cultivated in society but actively reduced. The other day I saw a person point a phone camera at a person seriously hurt in a traffic accident. If you think it is ok to point a recording device at a stranger in pain or distress, or someone experiencing a crisis, you may want to do a bit of soul searching as you are only about three or four steps away from running up and gnawing on the injured.
We are also so hopelessly addicted to technology, staring for hours into screens in a manner that justifies the use of ‘zombified’ as an actual verb. Don’t know how to overcome that awkward moment in a conversation? Don’t worry – switch off your brain and click through articles on your phone. People are losing the art of conversation and may one day become so socially inept that they will share about the same level of ability to express themselves as a zombie.
Shaun of the Dead was a really clever zombie movie and the joke was that people had become so uncivilized that if there was a zombie outbreak, no one would be able to tell the difference from regular life. You could do a sequel to Shaun of the Dead now and all the people would be clutching their phones whilst the rising undead would be feeding on people with vacant expressions, apathetically staring into a tiny box. You could have one character try to defend himself by using his thumb and finger to reduce the size of the zombie as his only means of defense.
Passively watching mindless entertainment is devouring our souls, like a rabid zombie consuming a fresh kill. If you spend hours and hours in some online realm pumping pixel lead into the shuffling undead on a computer game – then perhaps you’ve missed the irony: that you are a zombie too and you are really shooting your kin.
The zombie film also offers screen-writers and directors a chance to explore what may happen in a post capitalist world. The world economy has been on life support since the 2008 economic crisis and although it has shown signs of life and resuscitation, it has reminded the world that the stability we have had may not go on forever. It’s interesting to consider just how many zombie films and television shows have emerged since then. At some point the capitalist system will come to an end, whether it’s next year or in a hundred years, humanity will face a time when the value of currency matters little, then the gun will protect them more than the dollar.
How humanity handles this after decades and decades of being dumbed down and detached from fellow human beings remains to be seen, but it could mean that the world will descend back into tribalism and the fate of humanity will rest in hands of the gun hording trigger happy. There Is often a subtext to zombie films implying that the living will become as blood-thirsty and dangerous a threat as a zombie. Whether that is what awaits humanity remains to be seen. In the meantime, we can explore what will happen in a post-capitalist world through the ever popular zombie movie, but remember, like all the other monsters I’ve covered in this series, zombies carry messages.
Blog Day Afternoon 
I think your insight is right, especially the zombie can be a symbol to present the modern people as walking dead. And the figure of zombie might come from the black death.
In china we call zombie as Jiangshi. They don’t have the kind of features as black death. Contrast to zombie, Jiangshi is stronger and even does fly in the sky, but control by wizard. The same features are eating fresh meat(supping blood), no affection, dementia status, and often acting in the night. So we can say the differences between them only the appearance. I think the zombie status is a primogenial behavior of human. In west, it’s provoked by the fear of black death, but in east was most by evil wizard. So that we can see in the history were existed some likely zombie events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangshi