[social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby sunny » Tue Dec 07, 2010 1:44 pm

Survival porn in the age of Apocalypse.
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Tue Dec 07, 2010 1:52 pm

.
Sounds a bit like being "ridden by the loa" in Voodoo. You are suddenly free from all the strictures placed on you by poverty and low social standing, and can do pretty much anything you want, because it's not you doing it - you can slap your boss around the head if he/she is in attendance, scream and writhe and dance, have a bit of a wee fiddle with yourself in public - and none of it matters the next day. It's sanctioned insanity, an acceptance of the animalistic side - the Pentecostal churches do it too, to an extent. Of course, it is all rigidly controlled by the priest/Minister/Shaman. You still can't slap them around. But the illusion of freedom and escape is there, and that's enough for nearly everybody, even if it only lasts a couple of hours.

Actually, it's pretty common to all cultures I think, this safety valve. Halloween, the Mexican Day of the Dead, various Shamanic rites - you can become the monster, and surrender all responsibility, but only for a day, under close supervision and with rules.

What are those guys in India called, the ones who live in graveyards, eat glass and feces, walk around naked challenging people, and are generally allowed to break all the strict social taboos of caste and public decency? The Aghori? Eaters of the Dead. I'm not sure the Aghori are who I mean, though they fit the bill. There is another name, I think, another sect, who more closely (deliberately) resemble our idea of zombies, and who are feared but tolerated (and often honoured) by the community around them... of which they are not a part.

I suppose one good thing about being a zombie is that, like the Aghori, you need no longer fear death. You already live in it. You've swallowed it clean. The worst, most final thing has already happened to you - and you're still walking! That must be a relaxing thought, in a way.
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:22 pm

.

Superheroes and gods are the other end of the same pole. Total will, total power with immunity. We may be weak and underpaid and cowardly and overwhelmed, even sick or undernourished or lonely or nuts, and we may soon be subject arbitrarily to imprisonment for "possession" (on your hard disk, or as evidenced by an ISP record) of documents already published in The New York Times, and never mind thinking about a revolution, but Superman could wrap up the Pentagon, CIA/NSA, Goldman, AND the Chinese government AND throw all the nukes into the sun in just a few hours, without even having to harm anyone.

Anyway, the problem with most of these movies is that they're just like most movies, which is to say, boring, or repulsive, or both.

.
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby MacCruiskeen » Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:31 pm

Surely the main attraction of zombie movies is the simple pleasure they provide in allowing you to imagine not only committing mass murder with impunity, but actually having a positive moral obligation to do so.

Image

Hey, where's the problem? They're dead already! And besides, they're inferior!
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby justdrew » Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:39 pm

in Ugly Americans Mark's roommate made the decision to "go zombie" - fairly damn funny show

Image

interesting ideas everyone.

I'd forgotten about the "dress up as and act like a zombie" fad
Last edited by justdrew on Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby norton ash » Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:49 pm

Kids in the Hall made the best zombie film. This all ye need ever know about zombies, in 2 minutes.



Meanwhile, everything about Ugly Americans just makes me want to throw up.
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby Twyla LaSarc » Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:56 pm

When I encounter the modern obsession with zombies, I am always reminded of Stephen King's mention of them in his non-fiction "Danse Macabre".
A bit of a paraphrase here, but he says that the horrors which make a particular generation squirm are often the result of their society and culture at the time. He then points out that the 'Excorcist' was huge here in the early '70's partly because what was scary to folk were foul-talking young people...all of a sudden your son or daughter, whom you percieved to be an innocent would act as if something foreign had taken over. However, in Germany at the time (which was undergoing the Baader-Meinhoff stuff as well as the '72 olympics, etc) Romero's zombie films were going thru the roof as a response to terrorism fears.

What is now our (I mean as a society, not you guys personally) biggest 'fear'? Terrorists. And what is the most popular terror? Yup, Zombies.
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social studies

Postby IanEye » Tue Dec 07, 2010 5:32 pm

.


Socialist Zombies
.
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby §ê¢rꆧ » Tue Dec 07, 2010 9:44 pm



Unter Null - Zombieboy Lyric...

i want to be your zombiegirl
and you can be my zombieboy
you have my heart, now give me yours
let's play dead before we die

i want to be your zombiegirl
and you can be my zombieboy
you have my heart, now give me yours
let's play dead while we're alive

i want to be your zombiegirl
and you can be my zombieboy
you have my heart now give me yours
let's play dead before we die

i want to be your zombiegirl
and you can be my zombieboy
i have your heard right in my hands
let's play dead before we die

can you be my zombieboy?
can i be your zombietoy
can you be my zombieboy?
i will be your zombietoy

let's play dead, let's play dead
let's play dead
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby elfismiles » Thu May 31, 2012 5:23 pm

Since the zombie meme seems to have ressurected ...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcwsfns7KPQ

We Are The Monsters We've Been Waiting For
http://rigint.blogspot.com/2011/09/we-a ... g-for.html

America Ate My Brain (Part One)
http://rigint.blogspot.com/2007/11/amer ... brain.html
Image

America Ate My Brain (Part Two)
http://rigint.blogspot.com/2007/11/amer ... t-two.html
Image

search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=topics&keywords=zombie

"End of Wall Street Boom" - Must-read history (Zombie Banks)
How To Cripple the Real Estate Market in Five Easy Steps
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/view ... 33#p453533

Zombie ants controlled by parasitic fungus for 48m years
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29222

Zombie ants controlled by fungus
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24813

Zombie Restaurants
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=33799

Pentagon working on zombies
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26207

Mathematicians create model for fighting off zombies or flu
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24833

Zombie - dissecting organised religion
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18010

5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Happen
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16025

'World War Z' - ('Z' for Zombie) Great read. Recommended.
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=8842

Zombies and Ewan Cameron
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1291

Bringing out the zombie vote
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1584


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoXgRtDysLY


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDyt9dme23Y
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby elfismiles » Thu May 31, 2012 5:38 pm

... now its "zombie jobs" ...


The Daily Reckoning
New signs of global slowdown darken analyst's economic outlook


Data released this week may show new signs of a global slowdown. But one analyst isn't surprised. From the tech bubble burst to the housing collapse to the resurgence of gold, he's been (mostly) right. Not that he's saying 'I told you so.'

By Bill Bonner, Guest blogger / May 30, 2012

....

And what’s this…? A headline that caught our eye:

100 Million Americans Without Jobs…

Business Insider reports:

The national unemployment rate gets lots of attention, and lately more attention has been paid to the workforce participation rate since more Americans have given up looking for a job, but we can also see that an astounding 100 million Americans don’t have jobs… According to the April jobs report, the number of jobless American stood at 100.9 million.


Let’s see…that’s about one in three Americans actually working. And how many of them have productive jobs? It depends on what you mean.

Do you mean jobs that actually increase the supply of goods and services that make up our real wealth? If so, you have to take out all the people who are doing zombie jobs…

You may be thinking of people working for the government…paper pushers whose contribution to national prosperity is marginal, or even negative. What about all the TSA agents who are feeling up nuns and radiating grandmothers? And what about people who work for the zombie industries — like “Government Motors”…funded by the feds…or Solyndra, which got a $535 million loan, guaranteed by the feds…or the Bank of America, kept in business by Fed bailouts…or any one of dozens of companies whose revenues come almost entirely from the feds? Do any of them add to the nation’s wealth? Net? Probably not.

So, out of a population of 311,000,000 how many are carrying the load?

Maybe 50 million. One in 6. The rest are zombies. Or retired. In school. Disabled. Or just goofing off.

Land of the free? RIP.

READ REST HERE:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-D ... ic-outlook
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby justdrew » Thu May 31, 2012 7:55 pm

5 Reasons the Zombie Apocalypse is the Prevailing Metaphor for Our Times

Image
Dylan Charles, Contributor
Activist Post

Myth and metaphor play an important role in constructing our culture and creating purpose in our lives. They are tools that help the subconscious mind to digest the happenings of a world that is too complex for our five senses alone. The poet uses these tools to arouse you. The screenwriter uses them to amuse you.

When we hear tales of Homer and his Odyssey we also receive cues we need to uncover the strength and perseverance required to face personal challenges. When we follow Ahab on his journey against the white whale, we are shown, in metaphor, the perils of our own intensely burning fires of vengeance and obsession, and thus warned on a deep level of the folly of allowing one’s lowest nature to dominate the higher self.

But, well beyond the tales of Ahab and Homer, we have today the widespread proliferation of the modern Zombie tale, the prevailing metaphor for our times.

A Zombie is an animated corpse. A walking, un-dead lunatic. A former person, now devoid of the qualities we all know as explicitly human, such as compassion, logic, love, awareness, self-preservation and so on. The Zombie is a soulless animated human cadaver inhabited only by some of our lowest capacities and cravings. A Zombie drools and spits, mindlessly walking into peril with absolute disregard. Robotically driven to cannibalize and feast on the living, the Zombie is only capable of committing acts of violence or acts of stupidity. The Zombie is born of witchcraft, chemistry or disease and is hopelessly beyond reform. A Zombie is nearly unconscious. Hypnotized. Dumb. Deadly.

But the hero has his ways as well. As the myth of the Zombie goes, there is always some unsuspecting survivor watching the world spiral from civility to Zombie apocalypse in a short period of time. For the remainder of the tale, an orgy of entertaining and righteous violence ensues, until a king of the slaughterhouse is crowned and our half-wit hero stands proud atop the pile of gore that once was his community, neighbors, family, fellow man and so on. Total insanity.

Insanity Resonates

So what is it about this myth that makes it so resonant in today’s world? Why do more people show up for Zombie make-believe night in the local park than show up to an anti-war rally? What does the myth of the mindlessly violent zombie invasion tell us about ourselves?

1. Nearly Unconscious Plebs on the Loose

Human consciousness is variable. A child is aware only of his immediate needs and surroundings, and a wise old sage is considerate of the self, plant and animal life, and even the cosmos above. But the majority of so-called adults operate within a state of awareness that rarely breaches the boundaries of their personal worlds.

Image
We witness today a massive disconnect between our desires and the effects of those desires. On a micro level, most are wholly engrossed in personal dramas, portable devices and the satiation of cravings. For the greater world, carved up by tribalism and nationalism, and managed by conflicting interests, it is clear that, en masse, people are wildly unaware of the interdependence and interconnectedness of all life on planet Earth.

2. An Army of the Undead

Record numbers of people, including children, regularly take medications and mind-altering pharmaceuticals for one reason or another. And if you don’t have a prescription, you still receive hefty doses of this garbage from our contaminated water supplies and from food produced with contaminated ingredients. These drugs pollute the natural faculties of the mind and alter one’s personality, often making one numb to the emotional realities of life.

Television, for many, is an all day/all night affair. It doesn’t matter if you watch The Discovery Channel or Jerry Springer, the brain reacts the same; by slipping into a low alpha state, growing groggy and slow, mushy, suggestible and reptilian. The effects of watching programming on the boob tube are dastardly mind numbing.

We are also a heavily poisoned society and there seems to be no reprieve in sight for the degradation of our environment. GMO’s, nuclear power, vaccines, water fluoridation, depleted uranium, chemtrails, arrogant oil barons and a grotesque addiction to plastics, are all signs that our respect for life is near zilch. Living in a world so stressed out by toxicity can feel like being dead already. And this course is a guaranteed death sentence for all, given sufficient time.

3. Hypnotized Automatons

Individuality is being erased as more and more people succumb to the hypnotic indulgences of a poisoned, consumer-driven, media-controlled way of life. Group think is at an all-time high in America, and watching people cheer and whinny by the thousands over a political campaign or a sporting match is like nervously watching the advance of a drooling Zombie army.

Hypnotic and entranced, far too many people follow orders and obey ridiculous rules, laws and regulations. Observing an airport security line is a fine example. Does Grandma really need to be felt up to ensure a safe flight? Of course not, but the TSA agent was told to do so, and the people witnessing were told to do nothing about it and so a passerby from a sane universe might have to wonder what nefarious witch’s spell is making all these people carry on mindlessly with such humiliating affairs.

Even the means by which most of us earn our daily bread has become so mundane and automatic that we might as well be Zombies. The trek to the office, spending most of the day and most of the week performing tasks and tricks for someone else. The neck-ties, the 401k’s, 4% annual raises, company handbooks, pee-in-a-cup exams and all that.

We have been trained, or be-crooked, into defining ourselves and self-worth by our jobs, belying our natural human tendency to desire freedom and individualism.

Image4. Violence, Violence, and More Bloody Violence

From the top down, our society is trained to resolve issues with violence. The government leads the way and sets the tone by forcing upon us a punitive system where all infractions are punishable by fines, imprisonment, death, or worse. Even something as benign as selling raw milk can result in an armed police raid. And with the modernization of warfare and a bottomless public budget for fancy tools of death, there really is no end to the government’s capacity to kill and destroy. We are all in the crosshairs now.

And as above, so below, as the populous is whipped into a frenzy of cage fights, random street beatings, school massacres, drug wars and road rages. Our preferred sources of entertainment masterfully and ceaselessly plant these powerful auto-suggestions into our minds. Creativity in violence is the order of the day.

5. Every Cannibal for Himself

It is evident that millions upon millions of Americans are stocking up in preparation of a societal collapse scenario. Fine enough, but sadly the emphasis is broadly on self-defense rather than community defense, or better yet, community prosperity. People have somehow concluded that if everyone else is dead, things will be all right.

Even pre-collapse, we see how citizens are already turning against each other in thought and deed. People are falling victim to the fearful suggestions of a police state, submitting more and more readily to the notion that to be safe one must do harm to others. Now we are being prodded to report suspicious things to uniformed ‘authorities’ and obey every dehumanizing order given from the dropout, riot-cop enforcement class, no matter how degrading.

Most significantly, though, people willingly turn a blind eye to the injustices perpetrated by government. The prison population balloons with non-violent ‘criminals’ while the wars, ‘collateral damage’ and ‘civilian casualties’ continue unabated after a good ten-plus-year orgy of death from above. With no effective protest movement for any cause, the Zombified masses don’t seem to really care what happens to their fellow man.

In The End

Societal reinforcement of a popular myth is an indication that said story strikes a resonant chord with the many, containing widely felt truths. In this way, our greatest and most told legends and myths reveal to us the contents of our collective subconscious mind, the things that otherwise may be too awkward, too misunderstood or too obvious to express literally.

So by looking at the ugliest qualities in our world with an eye for awareness and conscious resolution, while remaining open to the warnings contained in our popular myths and metaphors, we give ourselves the crucial opportunity to improve.

Art imitates life. And sometimes life imitates art.

About the author: Dylan Charles is the editor of WakingTimes.com and the proprietor of Pura Vida Yoga Vacations and [url=http://stores.ebay.com/offgridauctions]Offgrid Outpost.
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby 8bitagent » Thu May 31, 2012 10:05 pm

justdrew wrote:So is it just that zombies are now the only acceptable target for vicarious violence? Shooting terrorists is so déclassé and generally racist. You can only have nazi's in so many story-lines before it get's too uncomfortable for the PTB, and it's so "been done" - to death. So we're left with nothing to shoot but the already dead. In stories. In reality, our boys go on shooting anyone they care to deem a terrorist. Even so, our proud trigger pullers are apparently well into zombie fiction. If you were around for Katrina, and of the wrong completion, the zombie could be you.

so, what's it all about?

Did the Hutu's imagine/pretend the Tutsi's were zombies when it came time to kill?



I know this is an older thread, but I just saw it. And let me tell you, the zombie meme is RED HOT. At the freaking newstand magazines WITH the hunting/fishing magazines I see "Zombie Survivalist" guides. The zombie fighting theme is absolutely over saturated within the pop culture landscape. From mega popular tv shows like The Walking Dead to any number of big budget and no budget zombie themed films.

However, I have often thought it was possible for an "outbreak" sort of event...and thats what a lot of zombie movies are often about. some sort of virus or drug or something that makes people en masse go psychotic.
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby MacCruiskeen » Thu May 31, 2012 10:55 pm

When millions of people are deeply alienated, hopelessly in debt, horribly overworked at crap jobs, constantly submerged in crap entertainment, and increasingly resigned to more of the same and worse, is it any wonder that their thoughts start turning to the Living Dead? I mean, soul-destroying is not just a metaphor. Nor is working stiff.

Zombies are ridiculously and inexplicably slow* and stupid, but! they have the great advantage of feeling absolutely nothing. No wonder people identify with them (in droves), rather than with the tiny self-satisfied elite of ruthless zombie-killers, who always win easily. (How could they not?)

*I'm working on a screenplay called Fast Zombies, but I fear the CIA will kill me before I complete it. It's a revolutionary new idea, and it might give those zombies ideas above their station. ("Just move more quickly, you fools!")
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Re: [social studies] The Zombie fascination in century 20.1

Postby Twyla LaSarc » Thu May 31, 2012 11:12 pm

AhabsOtherLeg wrote:
justdrew wrote: I can't think of any zombie fiction where the zombie retains sentience. It's hinted at toward the end of I am Legend.


Those vampires were sentient, or at least cunning on an animal level, all the way through... or do you mean the film? Haven't seen the film 'cos Will Smith stars in it.



IIRC, in the Matheson original (novel), the vampires were quite intelligent, coming around and whispering to the protagonist thru his doors and windows, trying to convince him to come out. His wife was one of them. Part of the irony of that story was that in a sense the 'survivor', by retaining what we consider human, had missed out on the evolution (whether bad or good) that all the other humans had gone thru and thus was the inhuman killer that strikes from the outside, the terrorist of the story, if you will. In the Vincent Price adaptation, they were portrayed as intelligent and it seems that with every adaptation they have become more primitive, more 'other' and less recognizably human.

You're not missing out on the Will Smith version. Hollywood CGI doo-doo.
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