Part the Twenty-Fourth: The Year of the Zombie OR I Get A Little More Help
In 2002, a little film entitled “28 Days Later” came out. A British release, the movie featured a main character who wakes up from a coma to find that the world has ended. Everyone but a handful of survivors, it seems, has been infected with the “rage” virus. While this movie drew some criticism from hardcore zombie aficionados, there can be no doubt that “28 Days Later” re-ignited the zombie craze in Hollywood. Ironically, the movie, directed by Oscar-winner Danny Boyle, still remains under the radar of many movie goers.
To understand how groundbreaking this movie was, you have to understand until 2002, zombies had become the objects of ridicule and scorn in pop culture. Numerous parodies depicted zombies as utterly brainless and slow, something easily outrun, outmaneuvered, and outsmarted. The idea of making a zombie movie that was scary was ludicrous. But Boyle made his own zombies threatening by changing a few of the rules in zombie mythology. First, he made them capable of running. Second, he made them highly infectious.
These two new tropes started off a craze that swept across the pop culture landscape. When the highly commercial “Dawn of the Dead” remake hit in 2004, just two years later, it fanned the fire initially started by “28 Days Later”.
Suddenly, zombies were everywhere. They were featured in video games, comics, books, magazines, and even used in slang parlance. Today, with the highly acclaimed comic “The Walking Dead” about to be put into production as a TV series, there is no pop outlet that these creatures have not infected.
Which brings up the question – why? Why have zombies caught on like wildfire? And why now? One possible reason the very world we live in. Our modern society is one of immense and rapid change. As it does, society’s rules change, making our place in the world feel uncertain. Some fear the rapid change so much that to them, it seems like society is breaking down. This is especially true today’s information age.
The zombie apocalypse, then, is a massive catharsis of these terrible fears. It represents the culmination of the ultimate cultural anxiety – that our the very fabric of our society will rip apart, and chaos will reign. Viewed this way, we can see why the zombie apocalypse was so popular an idea in 1968, when “Night of the Living Dead” was released. In that decade, there was tremendous societal upheaval as well, with segregation being outlawed and the sexual revolution in full swing.
Another possible reason that zombie fever has hit our culture may be far more simple than that. It may simply be that it’s a great template for a story. The typical zombie apocalypse narrative is virtually identical to a disaster story. A disparate group of people are thrown into an extraordinary circumstance and must work together to survive. This basic plot structure makes for a great story because it allows characters who normally would never be with each other to interact meaningfully.
Another good example of the same template.
Also, as a horror story, the zombie movie solves one of the fundamental problems that most monster tales have – the big reveal.
Most monster stories feature a build up to the creature at hand, only revealing the object of fear towards the end. However, the creature we see is often never quite as scary as the one depicted on the screen or page. So the final big scare can be disappointing.
Meh.
The zombie story, however, solves this problem right up front by showing you the monster early on. Indeed, it is rare that zombies do not show up in the first act of the narrative. This is because the horror in a zombie story does not come from the monsters themselves, but instead what their very existence means in the greater scheme. Zombies represent the fundamental breakdown of all order in our society. They are the reaping of laws, shelter, food, clothing, and even camaraderie with fellow humans. To live in a zombie apocalypse is to truly be alone in the universe – a horrifying fear to be sure.
Which finally brings us to zombies at Dragon Con. As you might suspect, there tends to be more than one geek in zombie make up at Dragon Con. Zombies are everywhere there. After all, it’s not so hard a costume to develop. You can wear your own clothes. Throw on a little make up and you’re done.
Of course, in an eternal spiral of one-upmanship, many of the zombie costumers at Dragon Con will often try to outdo one another. Some go for extremely “realistic” or gory make up. Others will cleverly blend their zombie guise with another. In past conventions, I’ve seen Zombie Princess Leia, Zombie Iron Man, and Zombie Laura Croft. I have not yet seen a steampunk zombie.
The zombie costumes are a staple now at Dragon Con, and it is simply a sign of the times of these monsters enduring popularity.
