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-Short Attention Span Theater-
The Lessons of Zombie-Mania
2013-04-07
[ONLINE.WSJ] By any observable metric, zombies are totally hot right now. Look at movies like "Warm Bodies" and the coming "World War Z," the ratings for AMC's hit series "The Walking Dead" (12.9 million viewers for its recent season finale) and $2.5 billion in annual sales for zombie videogames. Over the past decade, between a third and a half of all zombie movies ever made have been released. A glance at Google Trends reveals that in the past few years, interest in flesh-eating ghouls has far outstripped popular enthusiasm for vampires, wizards and hobbits.
I have a hard time getting fired up over zombies.

Since the average life expectancy in the US is almost 78 years, wouldn't that make the average age of zombies at "birth" 78 as well? Japanese or Swiss zombies would average 82.

Even having another dozen years to go before I achieve potential zombihood, I can assure you that the lurching gait of the zombie comes, not from being dead, but from arthritis. They tell me you don't get more limber the older you get, and I'm starting to think they aren't lying.

Zombies can't be very good at picking their victims from a distance because their eyes went the way of all flesh before the flesh did. You never see a zombie peering at the world through bifocals, do you?

Another point: approximately half of all dead people are women. Therefore approximately half of all zombies are women. Not only are they women, but they actually outlive men by a few years, so they're even older than 78. If I saw a lurching, undead little old zombie lady, I'd actually be paying more attention to helping her cross the street than I would be worrying about her eating my brain. I guess it could be a danger, assuming her dentures had been buried with her. Otherwise I guess she'd have to suck the brain out through my ear hole or something.

Can zombies actually suck? Doesn't it take air? But they've stopped using their lungs for good. Smoking is also out, I guess. And playing the bassoon. And that'd be the reason they don't talk much, and they don't sing at all. I don't know why they don't go bowling.
Posted by:Fred

#15   the zombie fad actually desensitizes those who would feel themselves chosen survivers to, well, actively defend themselves from

Something I hadn't thought too much about, but makes sense. After all, you can't shoot the moron who took your parking place, and blasting those religious nuts is still illegal. So you vicariously live it out via destroying zombies in the media.
Posted by: Pappy   2013-04-07 22:52  

#14  yep. In 28 Days - they're not slow, shambling. They're like rabid Carl Lewises
Posted by: Frank G   2013-04-07 18:35  

#13  I wish I didn't look that up, but it seems to be the case movie wise, 28 Days (2002). I do not venture into comic book land without a guide and a safety rope.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2013-04-07 17:50  

#12  *off topic
Besoeker, that is a nice menu and setting. Its funny when even domestic food critics of the States point and laugh, they choose the fast boxes rather than places like that.

*On topic
Fast vs. Slow - I'm trying to think of the first fast zombie movie, was it 28 days? Personally, I'm against the designated hitter.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2013-04-07 17:44  

#11  fast are the worst. See 28 Days Later
Posted by: Frank G   2013-04-07 17:17  

#10  I find it odd that there's a Fast v. Slow Zombie argument.

I blame comic books.
Posted by: Shipman   2013-04-07 17:09  

#9  I agree with Pappy, its about the only bogeyman left which is okiedokie to destroy; robots and aliens rounding out the majority of the rest.

To go a bit further, a service friend and I were discussing age olde nerdscussion on fast vs slow zombies and how they translate into the real world scenario. We concluded the slow ones would be the result of sickness, advanced starvation, any condition which would result in the weaking of the body and mind. The fast zombie would be something of mass uncontrolled rioting or fleeing. Both of which would involve large unarmed stampeding masses. We found it interesting because we figured both of us in one way or another would be on the front line of such a deal, and would either have to fight the zombies or basically become one of the mob of zombies (especially if a biological or even chemical slow zombie).

What is left out is the coordinated riot which would include armed and planning humans; we decided that is more of a war battle than fending off stampeding yet otherwise docile turned flipped out dangerous humans - which the zombie fad actually desensitizes those who would feel themselves chosen survivers to, well, actively defend themselves from.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2013-04-07 16:30  

#8  You can't blame the Republicans, because you don't really know any and anyway the media sez they're dying

So THAT'S where the zombies are coming from!
Posted by: Glenmore   2013-04-07 15:04  

#7  "Can zombies actually suck? Doesn't it take air? But they've stopped using their lungs for good. Smoking is also out, I guess. And playing the bassoon. And that'd be the reason they don't talk much, and they don't sing at all. I don't know why they don't go bowling."

Fred, you are a national treasure beyond price. :-D
Posted by: Barbara   2013-04-07 14:00  

#6  I'm not surprised "zombies are totally hot right now". When there's a pervasive feeling that something quite ain't right or things are going to hades in a handbasket.

The country is a mass of demographics: fragmented socially, politically, and economically. The others not in your sphere are merely bodies walking about. They talk, they stand in line with you, they take your parking space, but they aren't "your people". A disaster on the opposite coast or the next state over might as well have happened on Mars. And Middle America is Mars.

Something is wrong, but there's no clear enemy to blame. The Soviets are gone. Nobody thinks about the Chinese as anything but producers of schtuff you buy.

You can't blame the Republicans, because you don't really know any and anyway the media sez they're dying.

You can't blame corporations (much) because there's no specific corporation or CEO to blame. All the CEOs you hear of are sucking up to the White House. The ex-tycoons have foundations trying to find cures for diseases.

You can't blame terrorists because, like corporations, they're essentially anonymous. It's impolite and lawsuit-worthy to mention 'muslims' anyway and besides, Osama bin Ladin is dead.

You can't blame the government 'cause you elected it and it's taking care of "the poor".

So you take your vague, or not-so-vague unease, and channel it into a fantasy where you have little or no control over events. Nuclear war is so 1950s and 'Armageddon' is a term those religious wackos use. Hence a mass of not-people zombies.
Posted by: Pappy   2013-04-07 13:48  

#5  Zombie's or no, it upsets me when parking is blocked due to filming and I can't reach one of my favorite restaurants.
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-04-07 11:20  

#4  P2K: I guess if that's what it takes for the rich "creative" artistic types to avoid the tax system.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2013-04-07 11:10  

#3  For your reference. The dead still vote. Next zombie marriage.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2013-04-07 09:26  

#2  Getting old sux, but the alternative is so much worse, or so I'm told...
Posted by: badanov   2013-04-07 07:23  

#1  interest in flesh-eating ghouls has far outstripped popular enthusiasm for vampires, wizards and hobbits

Cognitive elites (and their wannabees) subconscious self-identification?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2013-04-07 07:14  

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