I've had a really crappy week, so I would like to take some time out and discuss something completely irrelevant: zombies!

No, I don't believe in zombies. However, they are a perennial pop culture favorite. In recent years through movies and video games the zombie archetype has evolved from shambling living dead to hyper-athletic plague infester. Which is interesting, because even before the mindless shamblers, zombies (and revenants from European mythology) were simply the undead come back to life, usually soulless and sometimes controlled by some evildoer. It was a reflection on the meaningless of death, and in perhaps an oblique way, a questioning of predominant religious tenets of life after death, the existence of souls and the power or impotence of god(s).

The current zombie, um, incarnation, I think has a lot to do with where culture is now subconsciously. The past decades have seen the emergence of AIDS, ebola, bird-flu, the rapid evolution of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, and with increased contact and travel, the threat of uncontrolled pandemic. So then, zombies are our outlet for our fears about these problems.

Most zombie storylines focus on an ordinary person (subbing for the viewer/player) who becomes the leader of a small band of survivors, finding a way to battle against the overwhelming hordes, usually by barricading in a public building, fashioning weapons out of pretty much anything, and trying to wait out the plague while everyone else in the band slowly gets picked off, starves, and starts going crazy with cabin fever. This resourcefulness in the face of bad odds is a reflection on each of us. We don't ever see ourselves as the poor sap who could get eaten, we see ourselves as taking control and fighting back, and as being the leader, not the follower, even if we've never led anything before (usually the character who is the prototypical leader -- the policeman, soldier, or security guard, is the one that gets eaten pretty quickly, and this is of course so that the ordinary, unlikely fellow can step up to the plate).

Another theme of the zombie story is the rapid breakdown of civic order (often happening overnight while the ordinary hero rests up for what is to come). Once lusted after consumer objects and citified affectations are rendered highly ironic. This means that everything taken for granted in the past is now inaccessible -- transportation, food, shelter, and of course personal safety. In this, the theme resembles the all-to-real natural disasters we are so often exposed to in the media. Whereas in decades and centuries past we were blissfully unaware of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and wars (sort of a natural disaster) as long as these events took place far away, we now are exposed to all of it, as it happens, and in high definition. We are both desensitized to mass suffering and hyper-aware of it. Since for most people natural disasters take place far away, we're not sure what do to about these problems, or how it affects us. That meme is big and lies in the back of the brain, unresolved, unsorted.

The last theme I'll discuss is that of brain-eating. I think this is slowly falling out of favor for just general cannibalism, but it is a reflection on two things: the fragility of the human body and increased awareness of anatomy and medicine.

I don't think most people like to think about their brains, physically. We prefer to think about our mind, not the wet mass of fatty tissue, enervated by blood and other fluids inside our skulls. We are okay with our heart beating -- it's just another muscle flexing, but the brain is mysterious even to the people who study it. And going back to the concept of a soul, thinking too much about the physical brain leads us to questions about how souls could exist, and if souls could exist, and where they might exist, and all of that is overwhelming for most people. That very questioning threatens to bring down a significant chunk of culture. A soulless being creeping after the brain, the supposed seat of the soul, is that threat realized.

Perhaps the shift from brain-eating to rabid cannibalism is indicative that as a culture we are coming to terms with the idea that our humanity is not based on an ephemeral being temporarily inhabiting the body, but rather the healthy body gives rise to humanity.

Even though most zombie stories end up with everyone dying, there is still hope. There is still the idea that if you are resourceful enough, you can survive such a bleak outlook. I think that's why we keep coming back to these stories, to see if we can make it out of anything.