Zombies

Zombies are fictional monsters originating primarily in African mythology and taking their name from the French Creole term zombi, meaning "dead spirit." The modern concept of the zombie has links to the African Vodoun religious family that inspired the Haitian Vodou religion. In traditional Haitian culture the Vodou religious mythology holds that it is possible for powerful sorcerers, called bocor, to revive deceased individuals as slaves. Zombie fiction was first popularized in the West through a small number of horror films, including the highly influential Night of the Living Dead (1968).

In the twenty-first century, zombie fiction became increasingly popular, as evinced by a string of mainstream zombie films and the proliferation of zombie literature. The idea of the zombie plague or zombie holocaust has also become a popular subject in research and scholarship, often used as a metaphor or model for thought experiments that can be applied to realistic environmental or social dangers.

Background

The modern concept of the zombie—a dangerous undead individual with limited capacity for thought and often a drive to consume the flesh or brains of living humans—was inspired by Afro-Caribbean folklore translated through the imaginations of authors and filmmakers. In Vodou, a religion that arose in Haiti out of ancient animist traditions brought over by West African slaves, a zombi (the "e" at the end of the word began to be added in the twentieth century) is a person who is returned from the dead through the magical intervention of a sorcerer known as a bocor. Alternatively, it is believed by some in Haiti that a bocor can transform a living person into a zombi through the administration of a powerful mix of substances.

Author Amy Wilentz’s 2013 article "A Zombie Is a Slave Forever" in the New York Times argued that fear of zombification may have historically been used in Haiti to control slave populations. Many slaves believed their spirits would return to Africa after death, but offending the spirits who controlled the afterlife could lead to resurrection as a zombie, doomed to eternal slavery. This tradition is thought to have helped discourage suicide among the slave population.

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries cultural diffusion gradually led to the zombie’s introduction into US pop culture. The word "zombi" first appeared in a US newspaper in the 1838 story "The Unknown Painter," and for decades was closely tied to depictions of slavery and African mysticism. The 1932 film White Zombie, set in Haiti and starring Bela Lugosi as a Vodou priest, was the first feature film to feature zombies as monster antagonists. The 1968 film Night of the Living Dead by director George A. Romero is considered the forerunner of the modern zombie movie genre. The film introduced the hunger for brains as a key feature of the monsters' behavior, as well as the idea that decapitation is the only means of dispatching a zombie. In addition, the film’s casting of an African American actor, Duane Jones, in the starring role led some critics to interpret the film as a metaphor for the civil rights movement. Since Romero’s pioneering film, zombies have often been used symbolically to represent mass conformism, the risks posed by science and technology, or other themes of social commentary.

Impact

Since the 1960s, zombie horror has remained a consistently popular film genre, with a particular revival of interest in the twenty-first century. The 2002 film 28 Days Later is often credited with beginning a new wave of mainstream acceptance of the monsters. It also popularized the theme of zombification as a result of a virus or other medical pandemic, a concept that has since been explored in further films, books, and other media and frequently includes elements of modern social commentary. This subgenre is known as zombie apocalypse fiction. A notable example of the subgenre is AMC’s award-winning show, The Walking Dead (2010– ), based on Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel series of the same name. The Nielsen Company estimated that the show had a record-setting average audience of 17.3 million viewers for its season 5 premier in October 2014.

In the 2000s and 2010s many films and books emerged to capitalize on the widespread popularity of zombies with new ways of approaching the zombie mythos. The comedy horror films Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Zombieland (2009), for instance, used the zombie apocalypse as a backdrop for romantic comedy. This was done even more explicitly in Warm Bodies (2013), where the zombie affliction became a metaphor for the difficulty of forming emotional bonds. The insertion of zombies into various genres beyond standard horror highlights the creatures’ broader appeal as symbolic representations. As a monster that has lost the essential element of humanity—life—the zombie is an empty shell that can be used to symbolize many other aspects of society or character.

The pervasiveness of zombie media has also led to an increasing tendency for the monsters to be examined in scholarly studies. Research has been conducted on the social impulses that drive and sustain the popular fascination with the undead. In the 2013 book Thinking Dead, for example, social researchers present essays using zombies as a vehicle to explore a variety of subjects including Chinese cultural history, the development of the "savior narrative" in mythology, and representations of African culture in western media. The idea of a zombie apocalypse has even been co-opted by the US government for educational purposes. In 2012 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decided to capitalize on the popularity of zombie fiction in order to help teach disaster preparedness by providing instructions for how to prepare for and survive a zombie attack. Upon its debut, the CDC’s zombie apocalypse survival website proved so popular that it crashed due to the heavy volume of visitors. CDC representatives claimed that the safety and preparedness measures recommended to withstand a zombie apocalypse are similar to those needed to survive a variety of more realistic threats such as outbreaks of disease and natural disasters.

It was also revealed in 2011 that the US military has prepared official guidelines and procedures outlining the military response to a possible zombie attack. The report, known as "CONPLAN 8888-11, ‘Counter-Zombie Dominance,’" was not a parody, but an attempt to use the popularity and familiarity of zombie fiction as a way to shake up thinking about how to strategize and address various types of threats.

Bibliography

Balaji, Murali, ed. Thinking Dead: What the Zombie Apocalypse Means. Lanham: Lexington, 2013. Print.

Barber, Nicholas. "Why Are Zombies Still So Popular?" BBC. BBC, 25 Oct. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2014.

Gandhi, Lakshmi. "Zoinks! Tracing the History of ‘Zombie’ from Haiti to the CDC." NPR. NPR. 15 Dec. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2014.

Kissell, Rick. "AMC’s ‘Walking Dead’ Returns to Record 17.3 Million Viewers." Variety. Variety Media, 2014. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.

Logan, Megan. "A Brief History of Zombies, the Undead, and Our Enduring Obsession with Reanimation." Inverse. Inverse, 16 May. 2016. Web. 18 May. 2016.

Radford, Benjamin. "A History of ‘Real’ Zombies." Discovery News. Discovery Communications. 4 June 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2014.

Smith, Robert. Braaaiiinnnsss! From Academics to Zombies. Ottawa: U of Ottawa P, 2011. Print.

Turner, James. "A Brief History of Zombies." Forbes. Forbes.com, 30 Oct. 2009. Web. 27 Nov. 2014.

Whelan, Andrew, Ruth Walker, and Christopher Moore, eds. Zombies in the Academy: Living Death in Higher Education. Chicago: Intellect, 2013. Print.

Wilentz, Amy. "A Zombie Is a Slave Forever." New York Times. New York Times, 30 Oct. 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2014.