I just didn’t get it! I’m referring to zombies and America’s fascination with them.
I recently posed the question to some young people who have their finger on the pulse of those kinds of things. While they conversed about the new season premiere of “The Walking Dead”, I couldn’t imagine the appeal.
Me: What is the deal with all the zombie crap? Why can you put them in any movie or a book and people flock to it like something being sucked into a black hole?
Young Person: It’s total social commentary. It’s related to how people feel about things.
Me: What things?
Young Person: Fear of government, terrorism, the economy, disease, consumerism.
Me: Ahhhhhh! (see light bulb slowly brighten, but at a low wattage) So, what does all of this mean?
There is actually an English professor zombie scholar at Clemson University. How would you like to be THAT person? The good thing about her job is that she gets as much information from her hairdresser as she does a colleague at Yale. Probably more.
To quote the expert, Sarah Juliet Lauro, a beautiful lady, who looks amazingly normal, “The terror of the zombie was that you’d be attacked and consumed by one. But now people really seem to find catharsis in this survivalist narrative. Would I be able to survive a civilization-ending catastrophe?”.
So…….now I understand. It’s just thinly veiled fear of not being in control, an age old story, just told by a cast of the undead.
And it also brings one to the logical conclusion of why we are also becoming a nation of Apocalyptic Preppers! It’s simply a fear of metaphorical Zombies!!!
It’s a whole new vicious cycle.
Just for pure fun, I’ll be at the zombie apocalypse walk on the waterfront this afternoon. One needs to bring canned goods for the food bank. Go figure!!
Read more: Zombie Scholar Quotes – Esquire
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