September 22, 2006
zombie psychology
Sometimes I think the appeal of zombie type movies is in the simplification of life. Survival is paramount. The situation is clear. There are no hard choices.
It is the antithesis of modern living.
(Yes, this is just one angle on zombies, which make an interesting metaphor in lots of ways, but that’s an essay I’m not going to write today.)
Filed by billy at 6:45 pm under culture,Uncategorized
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In my (considerable) experience, zombie movies are often pessimistic post-apocalypse movies in which the survivors kill each other in territorial squabbles as much as the zombies kill them.
They usually feature scenes where people are forced to kill someone they love or die themselves – kind of the ultimate tough choice. As far back as the original Dawn of the Dead (and as recently as the semi-remake, in totally different circumstances) characters have been killed trying to protect a zombified loved one.
So I’d argue that it often doesn’t come down to “survival is paramount” at all.