What's with All the Zombies?
I saw World War Z on Sunday. Great movie; highly recommended. But it got me thinking: What's with all the zombie flicks? I read E. Michael Jones' Monsters from the Id when it first came out over ten years ago, and I've always thought its central message didn't get nearly enough Catholic press. The message: horror movies reflect society's fears. Frankenstein reflected early nineteen-century society's discomfort with electricity; vampirism reflected later nineteenth century (and early twentieth century's) society's fear of syphilis.
And all horror reflects fear of sexual deviancy.
"Horror is morality written backwards."
"[E]lectricty . . . suggested revolution in the moral and political spheres in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."
"Vampirism and disease are ultimately metaphors for lust, which is a perversion of sexuality into something not life-giving but life-draining."
"The history of syphilis is in so many ways congruent with the history of horror that what needs explanation is why it took so long for the two traditions to coalesce, as they did in Dracula."
"Lust . . . is parasitic, and as such, there exists between it and the blood parasite syphilis a natural affinity. This is expressed through a symbolic figure like the vampire, who infects his host and drains him of vitality--of blood."
So what fear do all these zombie movies reflect? My guess: a fear of the increasing unproductive (undead) underclass (the bridge card and Obamaphone recipients) that feed off the productive (living) members of society.
I also wouldn't be surprised if our renaissance interest in vampires reflects an innate fear of the ruling class that sucks the life blood out of middle America.
