American Ate My Brain II

[stoneonstone]

This can make satire commercially viable, because its narrow purpose is compensated by mass appeal, which also disseminates subversion far more broadly.

That's what in part I love about your work Jef...it's always looking on the bright side of life (inside Frankster joke).

Since posting on the blog is so byzantine these days, I'll just note here that I didn't know this was going on in the Marvel heros series.

It is disturbing, and I'd also say soul-destroying. The last bulwarks of our society in Anglo-Saxondom - the myth that we care about individual rights, anonymnity and basic trustworthy stolidness of the WORKING everyman (er, person), magna carta....and, well, riot in the streets until the fuckers are gone...has been effectively hollowed out over the past seven or eight years.

Jeff's comment that we are now effectivley living in an alternate reality feels right. Some sort of sad combination of Ghost Busters, Hell Boy and Sin City.

Hell, I miss the old days of just existential angst of Mr. X.

GH

[brekin]

Very apt post by Jeff.

I think the Marvel Zombies is beyond the pale. Scratching off another point on the ethical compass. Just another way of saying today anything goes in this new social darwin dog eat dog world.

If a cultures most revered symbols of morality and justice, their "super heroes", are lowered to the level of cannibalistic undead marauders, then what can we say for the rest of us?

As Chaucer asked, "That if gold rust, what then will iron do?"

[compared2what?]

I love the meme of the living dead. I was in my formative years when the first Romero foray into this terrain came out, which was when there were wolves in Wales, and it was still merely thrilling (as opposed to also frankly terrifying) to see a subversive allegorical meaning where others didn't. Oh, well. If I had been able then to conceive that I would some day grow as doddering and sentimental as I am being right now, I'm sure I would have been glad that at least it was about zombies. And that (at least with respect to that particular movie, owing to the sequels), by now you'd pretty much have to be double-plus undead NOT to see the allegorical content.

Which doesn't make it any less subversive and barely any less thrilling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP6nYs9Il7c

Brain-eaters! They're bigger than Jesus.

[theeKultleeder]

Scratching off another point on the ethical compass. Just another way of saying today anything goes in this new social darwin dog eat dog world.

That is NOT what it is about! It is not an evil (covert) meme brainwashing the little kiddies. It is a pop-culture "trope" exploring moral avenues, as Marvel has always done.


tKl, "hopelessly optimistic."

[Attack Ships on Fire]

Very apt post by Jeff.

I think the Marvel Zombies is beyond the pale. Scratching off another point on the ethical compass. Just another way of saying today anything goes in this new social darwin dog eat dog world.

I disagree, and I would add that this exact same kind of thing was leveled at Romero when the first "Living Dead" film came out in the late 1960s. Watching reanimated corpses feeding on the flesh of the living was pretty taboo for a film back then. In the 40 ensuing years of cinema has the world of film fallen apart?

If a cultures most revered symbols of morality and justice, their "super heroes", are lowered to the level of cannibalistic undead marauders, then what can we say for the rest of us?

Superman and Batman exist as symbols of morality and justice as long as you keep them living in their make belief worlds. Superman, if he existed in ours, would either be mad, extremely disillusioned or have a bigger ego than Paris Hilton. You are talking about a superbeing that can hear the cries of help from people all around the world, raised to be a decent, caring, thoughtful man. How does he justify spending his time from 9 to 5 writing news stories for the Daily Planet when he can hear people calling out for help? How can he justify spending his free time romancing Lois Lane when he could have prevented an auto accident in the next state over? Superman cannot exist as a real person just as Marvel's X-Men, Spider-Man or any of the rest of these two dimensional superheroes could.

The real superhero got "lowered" to the level playing field that the rest of us live at when writers started thinking about what would make someone want to dress up like a bat for the rest of their lives, or how someone who is supposed to be invulnerable to death, disease and the rest of humanity's frailties would have social/sexual relationships with ordinary mortals. The Marvel Zombies storyline is shocking only because your idealism for what constitutes a superhero remains outdated and the zombie craze caught up with Marvel's desire to make a buck from their fans.

One aspires to be as moralistic as Superman. One can never be Superman.

[Et in Arcadia ego]

I'd posted this elsewhere, but since we have a thread with the blog title, I'll repost for clarity:

Having read your blog post just now, I can see where you're coming from, but I still question whether or not its the author's intention to infect the reader with futility. Having read just about all of them, I agree its grim as fuckall, but as you say, these are grim times. I've noticed for some time now the trend in entertainment to always ratchet up its offerings in what seems an attempt to obscure the ugliness of reality. This just seems to be more of the same, but if it was something deliberate, I think there's a good chance its going to sail over the majority of heads that come in contact with it.

As far as zombies go, there's been a major surge of growth in it as an definitive counter-cultural medium. The tattoo world has seen an enormous surge(where before there was virtually none at all) of zombie tattoo demand, the porn industry soft and hard have a substantial zombie sub-genre now. If you go over to myspace (Razz) you'll see several membership groups featuring woman(most popularly, the Suicide Girls) who pose nude, and there's a growing number of them that incorporate the zombie meme into what they're doing, some explicitly so.

The Zombie thing has surged into a genuine phenomenon that's surprised me to witness, I don't assign it a guiding hand; some things society can steer on its own. Why American society(not exclusively so, to be sure) has chosen this time to amplify the zombie meme would definitely be a good question to ponder, but I think all of us here have good enough ideas on why that would be taking place.

I too am a Son of Romero. I saw Dawn of the Dead in a drive-in theater when I was 7 years old and it had a permanent effect on me. Can't say if that's a good or bad effect, but its there..

[Uncle $cam]

" to articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was' (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger. ", Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses - Page 39 by Michael T. Taussig - 1993

Jeff, sometimes your writing terrifies me,even more so than things such as this:
http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=205

(the news is daily becoming more horrifying - the Americans deserve their Stalingrad - militarily, tactically or morally)

Sir Rodric Braithwaite, a former senior adviser to Blair, writing in the Financial Times on 2, August, 2006:

"A spectre is stalking British television, a frayed and waxy zombie straight from Madame Tussaud's. This one, unusually, seems to live and breathe. Perhaps it comes from the Central Intelligence Agency's box of technical tricks, programmed to spout the language of the White House in an artificial English accent...

Mr Blair has done more damage to British interests in the Middle East than Anthony Eden, who led the UK to disaster in Suez 50 years ago. In the past 100 years--to take the highlights--we have bombed and occupied Egypt and Iraq, put down an Arab uprising in Palestine and overthrown governments in Iran, Iraq and the Gulf. We can no longer do these things on our own, so we do them with the Americans. Mr Blair's total identification with the White House has destroyed his influence in Washington, Europe and the Middle East itself: who bothers with the monkey if he can go straight to the organ-grinder?..."

quoted by Tariq Ali in Adieu, Blair, Adieu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Tussauds

Are not the neocons like the post mortem vulgarity of Iran/Contra? They keep rising from the grave over and over, reanimation. like the brain that wouldn't die.
http://home.paonline.com/mikehoov/HOBBI ... nt_Die.htm

[Et in Arcadia ego]

The Marvel Zombies storyline is shocking only because your idealism for what constitutes a superhero remains outdated and the zombie craze caught up with Marvel's desire to make a buck from their fans.

I agree. The zombie craze has been in full effect now for at least 2-3 years, and has really built up steam in this past year. It should be pointed out that zombies will reflect the intent of whoever breathes life into them. In Dawn of the Dead, Romero dealt a crushing blow to Consumerism. In Day of the Dead he focused on the Military/Industrial Complex.

Zombies carry out the context of their masters flawlessly. Just ask your average American.

[Attack Ships on Fire]

I too am a Son of Romero. I saw Dawn of the Dead in a drive-in theater when I was 7 years old and it had a permanent effect on me. Can't say if that's a good or bad effect, but its there..

I saw "Jaws" in a drive-in when I was 5. Loved it.

When "Alien" came out I begged my father to take me to see it. God bless my father he did and on a Sunday night when I had school the next day. I was 9. By the time that Dallas got wasted by the Alien I was in nightmare territory; doesn't the captain always live in these kind of movies?

To a little kid that grew up reading Famous Monsters of Filmland and devoured every fantasy / sci-fi / horror movie/tv/book that I could get my hands on, experiencing "Alien" was probably the finest cinema experience in my entire life.

Couldn't find a place in town that was running "Dawn of the Dead" when it came out. Would loved to have experienced that in a movie theater. It's not the same when you're at home watching it on the VCR.

You and me need to hang out or, better yet, babysit some kids on video night.

[Et in Arcadia ego]

You and me need to hang out or, better yet, babysit some kids on video night.

Anytime, man!

[compared2what?]

The first movie I ever saw was "A Hard Day's Night," actually, which also has its subversive improv moments -- not that I was even plain-old-versive enough vis-a-vis the referents to distinguish sub- from super- at the time.

Hey, TKL, please forgive me in advance for having grown up to love not just zombies, but fine distinctions, too! I can't tell if the implicit opposition between trope and meme in your post is intentional or not. But strictly (and as far as I'm aware, colloquially) speaking, neither is inherently good or evil, or value-laden in any way. Nor are they necessarily mutually exclusive.

And in this case, I don't see a trope. I admit that I can only remember four (metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche.) What trope do you see? I ask because I sincerely believe that precision is fundamental to keeping it gangsta in the world-changing arena. And I fully pre-concede that the vagueness might be in my understanding rather than your writing. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

But where is the trope?

[FourthBase]

I'd posted this elsewhere, but since we have a thread with the blog title, I'll repost for clarity:

Having read your blog post just now, I can see where you're coming from, but I still question whether or not its the author's intention to infect the reader with futility. Having read just about all of them, I agree its grim as fuckall, but as you say, these are grim times. I've noticed for some time now the trend in entertainment to always ratchet up its offerings in what seems an attempt to obscure the ugliness of reality. This just seems to be more of the same, but if it was something deliberate, I think there's a good chance its going to sail over the majority of heads that come in contact with it.

As far as zombies go, there's been a major surge of growth in it as an definitive counter-cultural medium. The tattoo world has seen an enormous surge(where before there was virtually none at all) of zombie tattoo demand, the porn industry soft and hard have a substantial zombie sub-genre now. If you go over to myspace (Razz) you'll see several membership groups featuring woman(most popularly, the Suicide Girls) who pose nude, and there's a growing number of them that incorporate the zombie meme into what they're doing, some explicitly so.

The Zombie thing has surged into a genuine phenomenon that's surprised me to witness, I don't assign it a guiding hand; some things society can steer on its own. Why American society(not exclusively so, to be sure) has chosen this time to amplify the zombie meme would definitely be a good question to ponder, but I think all of us here have good enough ideas on why that would be taking place.

I too am a Son of Romero. I saw Dawn of the Dead in a drive-in theater when I was 7 years old and it had a permanent effect on me. Can't say if that's a good or bad effect, but its there..

I'd say the worst thing I ever saw that young (about 8 or 9) was Pink Floyd's The Wall, the scene where the children are ground into hamburger. You may not assign the meme a guiding hand, but I bet you can imagine some candidates. And why the meme might have been amplified lately? Whether it's guided pre-conditioning (decades-long maybe) or just the collective ESP of the masses, my sickening hunch is it's because we're on the verge (in our lifetime) of a worldwide food shortage that will turn human beings into food.

And allow me to vomit, I have never been a comics fan and had no fucking idea this "story arc" existed. Jesus motherfucking christ. Seriously. JESUS.MOTHERFUCKING.CHRIST. I've had daymares about that kind of shit for two years now. I stopped eating meat because of it, because (note the lack of "IMO") meat-eating is semi-cannibalism. If humanity persisted for another couple hundred years in a halfway normal state, future generations would look back on our meat-eating today (and of course, throughout all of history but especially today) and fucking BARF. MMMM-mmmmm, look at all that flesh being peddled on TV!!! Look at that steak!!! Look at that juicy hamburger!!! Look at that roast beef sub!!! Now take a moment and realize that if it were human flesh in those advertised steaks, hamburgers, and sandwiches YOU PROBABLY WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE.

Those comics are subversive satire? For what...5-10% of the comics-loving anti-war intellectuals who happen to be reading them? How about the other, you know, 90-95%? What are those zombie comics to THEM? If not satire, then not allegorical/metaphorical. What, then?

Attacks Ships mentioned in another thread the movie The Mist. I recently saw No Country for Old Men. It was as nihilistic as The Mist and these zombie comics. Sigurh is basically a zombie. Almost literally, in fact. The living undead. And as generally creepy as the cattle gun is to critics and audiences...I wonder if there is a more specific reason that we here, in the vein of this thread, should be creeped out by it.

Do you explain yourself to your breakfast?

Ahem. Perhaps you should?

[Jeff]

Thanks for the dialogue and the good observations.

I think I need to whip off a part three, because as long as it took me to post I feel like I still didn't get to the point.

Zombies are perfectly nihilistic, but zombie stories needn't be. If they're parables then they're certainly not. And if that's what Marvel Zombies is, then its apparent nihilism is something else: a Twilight of the Gods. (Nietzsche gets the rap of nihilism too, but he's exhilaratingly not.)

Heroes have to die if we're ever to do anything ourselves, and they can't die heroically if we're ever to be free of them.

[judasdisney]

et in arcadia ego wrote:

The zombie craze has been in full effect now for at least 2-3 years, and has really built up steam in this past year. It should be pointed out that zombies will reflect the intent of whoever breathes life into them.

Yes, and so it is with great dread that I see the quasi-fascist Eli Roth is undertaking Stephen King's zombie novel Cell.

How fragile and sacred and corruptible art is, particularly commercially-viable, politically-metaphoric art.

I can cite three movies of my late childhood/early teens that forever shaped me: The Deer Hunter, A Nightmare on Elm Street (utterly political), and Dawn of the Dead.

I remember the television advertisements for Dawn of the Dead when I was ten years old. They were transgressive beyond anything I've seen before or since. They were political: because they signalled and expressed utter apostasy and faithlessness in society, but not humanity. Most of all, because I was too young (they were "X-Rated" in 1979, "No One Under 18 Admitted") DOTD was both a secret world to which only adults could be admitted, and an adventure of ultrarealism which only my imagination would be allowed to feed and nurture for five more years, until I finally paid $80 in 1984 for a VHS copy of it.

To paraphrase Wim Wenders, George Romero colonized my subconscious.

[chillin]

Hunter S. Thompson called Bush a golem. That's sorta like a zombie.



No Steve, it sure isn't.

To paraphrase Wim Wenders, George Romero colonized my subconscious.

annd John Carpenter... Ultraviolent link NSF Sleeping