Thursday, September 25, 2014

If a Vampire Bites a Zombie, Does a Vampire Become a Zombie, or, Does a Zombie Become a Vampire?


Before reading this article, if someone were to have asked me to highlight the differences between Zombies and Vampires, my response would be awarded no points, and may God have mercy on my soul. However, after reading Tenga & Zimmerman’s interesting article regarding the subject, the distinction between the two is extremely evident. Both Zombie and Vampire narratives are evolving versions of the tale of conflict between the living and the undead. However, the two species engage audiences quite differently.
            The basis of their argument rests with the statement “Zombies incite fear, Vampires incite desire”. In the modern world, Vampires are no longer scary, horrendous creatures, but much more humanized beings that obey human laws, respect Western societal norms, and share its values.  As they have slowly become upholders of social norms, their hard, muscular form has come to connote social and political power. They are ‘more Greek god than revivified corpse’, which is a response to the spread of poor body image and an obsessive fear of aging that permeates Western culture, particularly the target audience for Vampire fiction. They uphold human notions of Self and offer a romanticized view on monstrosity. The Vampire makes death seem “pretty”.
            Zombies, however, reveal the ugliest human truth: we are piles of matter that consume and excrete other piles of matter. Zombies are “abject”, defined as: “the corpse…is death infecting life, from which one does not protect oneself from an object”. Zombies remind us that we, too, will shortly be decaying flesh without thought or control. We dread this idea, but it also intrigues us-a key basis for the appeal of horror. Zombies threaten stability and security in our world. They dismantle individuality, and are horrifying based on sheer numbers. The denial of unique human identities is what makes zombies terrifying.
            The most thought-provoking point of Tenga & Zimmerman was the notion that Zombies and Vampires are fitting metaphors for capitalism. When I first read this, I had no clue how these two unrelated subjects tied together. However, their explanation makes total sense. Modern vampires live the consumer dream promoted in Western capitalist society. They glorify reward without work. It’s Zombie counterpart, however, shows work without reward to reveal the harsh reality of capitalism and to denounce the capitalist-master role that many vampire narratives endorse. Zombies do no work toward any goal beyond fulfillment of a simple drive. The zombie ‘work’ is to endlessly chase and feed on humans; there is never any satiety, nor any sense of living well. ‘They are the poor, who toil ceaselessly but never have enough’. The many distinctions between these two types of undead creatures are perfectly designated in this article.

1)   What type of creature do you think will take over the Zombie’s role once they become characterized as sentient, sympathetic creatures?
2)   Will the Ebola virus ultimately start the Zombie apocalypse in the next 10 years?

No comments:

Post a Comment