This is probably my last zombie post

Hi, it's MOGS, and I think it's about time we thought about "closing out" another topic here at the Pigeon.

Y'all might have noticed that we tend to talk about zombies a lot on this blog, going all the way back to the beginning of it, and well, do a search, I don't think there's been a single month on the blog yet where we haven't at least mentoned zombies, if not linked to gory (or funny, or both) YouTube vid or other media (my Misfits obsession, whether it's Old 'Fits or New 'Fits comes to mind, again).  Yup, we loves us some zombies, heck, I think Pidge, Antitool (to a lesser extent) and I all just enjoy the horror genre in general, for various reasons.

Speaking of various reasons, something I've always wanted to talk about a little bit is the "social commentary" aspect of zombie films, especially George Romero's "Dead" series, for better or worse, considered the granddaddy of them all (though I have a real soft spot - so to speak - for Army of Darkness)

Before we dig in and bite (so to speak) on this topic, I have a big confession to make.  I am NOT a gore hound.  I was like 8 years old the first time I tried to watch "Alien" with my dad, and I don't think I slept for an entire week after the experience.  Ironically, the one thing I really don't watch Zombie flicks for in general are new and creative ways to tear human bodies to pieces, or to see someone go to town on gray matter...unless the poor schlubs involved really had it coming, which happens some times.  I generally want the heroes to survive, hopefully with all or at least a plurality of limbs and appendages intact.  Yeah, I'm kinda a wuss sometimes, so the why the hell would I subject myself to this stuff?  I like a good scare, but I don't enjoy crap like Saw, or Touristas, or Hostel, films which are aptly described as "torture porn" or "snuff film voyeurism" I think.  Even worse, I tend to be a fan of the more tongue-in-rotted-cheek, funnier movies out there, Shaun of the Dead being a particular favorite (a funny British movie about American movies, but it's British, and....never mind).  There's even zombie music, which also is definitely NOT for the faint of heart (or stomach), or the hard of hearing. 

But anyway, getting back to the why I can't help but watch even when someone is having vital portions of their anatomy forcibly removed...it's that 1) I always find myself asking - just how the hell did these idiots manage to get themselves into this situation?  and 2) if these are "classic" or "Romero" zombies we're talking about - all slow, not terribly strong or superpowered or anything, geez man, try running for starters!  for God's sake, DO SOMETHING.

That's really it.  It's the survival aspect I guess.  It's why Antitool, Pigeon, and a large number of friends and families enjoy the hell out of World War Z, and it's predecessor The Zombie Survival Guide, both by Max Brooks.  It's watching groups of human fall completely apart (before they get um, taken completely apart), because it's always a grade-A screwup or three that leads to the group's undoing.   I think it's the historian in me.  We spend our lives reading in complete astonishment how great civilizations fall to pieces, conquests, collapses, etc - as a group I think we're all somewhat pessimistic and cynical, convinced of the inevitable downfall and passing of nearly, well everything, and utterly thrilled when a people, a state, an institution seem to escape or at least stave off the march of time and decay for a few decades, sometimes centuries, or even still, manage the rare, true triumph and ascend to new heights.   

There's that, and the military/survival aspect of it.  The survival aspect, after the schooling and training some of us go through, even the low-fi version, always gets you thinking about how you'd do in a truly messed-up, hopeless situation.  Yes, some people even have "zombie plans" because it really is the ultimate survival scenario (Survivor Season XXIII, "Escape from Zombie City").  The collapse of civilizations, and the collapse of the people in them is just too good to watch, but I don't enjoy it for wanton cruelty for the sake of cruelty itself (re: Saw, etc), no matter how "clever" it is (and really let's be honest, Saw is a one-trick pony)...

All that being said, a lot of critics and academics over the years have spent many reams of paper trying to explain to us that George Romero is a brilliant social critic, not just a slinger of blood and spiller of entrails.  Personally, I can buy it once, with the black hero of the original Night of the Living Dead, I can maybe, maybe that is, buy it twice, with the late-'70s critique of materialism and I can understand the dissatisfaction of seeing shopping malls pop up like weeds all over the landscape, but you know what?  The guy reads his own dang press too much.  His critique is NOT all that sophisticated, or fair, or accurate, and I think it shows a clear sign that American academia (mostly) really ran out of steam, really jumped the shark in terms of the humanities around 1968 when it spends its time trying to justify popular culture as enlightening highbrow.  Sorry people, if it ain't there, then it just ain't there.  Furthermore, if it takes a sophisticate more than two paragraphs (and I think I'm being overly generous) of text or lecture to try to convince audiences of the presence of some such metaphor or meaning or subtext, then I call bullshit, especially if said sophisticate throws up his and hands and mutters something to the effect of "you uncultured phillistines just don't get it."

I'm going to try to keep this spoiler free...but don't hold me to it.

1) The original:  here's what made it brave, and socially relevent - a) black hero b) black hero gets killed at the end by white dude - nevermind that the black hero was the only thing stirring in an area being swept of zombies by the folks who figured out just how to the hell to fight these things and NOT die.  In short, all said and done, hero was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Other than the fact the film came out in 1968 really, what's the big social point being made?  That a black man can be heroic and still get killed for it anyway?  That's actually called "life sucks, here's a helmet," and that cosmic truth could care less about race, gender, or creed.  That the guy spent most of the film trying to tell the dumb white folk locked in the farm house with him how not to die, and gets killed for it anyway is tragic, but it's tragic because it's tragic first, and the racial element comes far second.  Did Romero presume importance because of the MLK assassination?  Like I said, I'll give the benefit of the doubt though, and actually buy it (social commentary) for the first film.

2) Dawn of the Dead (1979) - supposedly more "satirical" than the others - the film's entire reputation stems around a few things, namely a) it's pretty good b) the sight of the blue-skinned denizens of Pittsburgh who each made around $50.00 or so by appearing in the movie stumbling around the Monroeville Mall where today they offer Dawn of the Dead tours:)...the way most people just kind of stumble around malls to begin with...you know, except for the whole cannibalism thing...BUT here in lies the rub:  okay, so there's supposedly some points being made about

1) the underclass

2) illegal immingrants

3) rampant consumerism destroying our society but again, according to who?

- Is Romero's whole point that consumerism is bad because it represents economic prosperity, and bad because wealth is distributed unfairly and therefore American society deserves to be destroyed?  Is your whole point "malls suck?"  Is your point that contrary to popular belief and TV shows starring hottie Mila Kunis, "the '70s actually sucked ?" "America sucks, and to show you I am violently going to kill all these people."  Oooookay.

-  Like most of Romero's artistic contemporaries, he seems to assume prima facia moral superiority...based on what though?  Just a generic '60s-based anti-establishment stance, and he thinks that assumption is so universal that he never has to prove it?  Goerge, you had a clever idea, and you let it go to your head.

3) Day of the Dead (1985) - okay, now he's really read too many of his own gushing critics.  First of all, he presents complete cartoon characters in the form of his military personnel and scientists characters(because that's the secret aim of all of us, to raise UNBEATABLE ARMIES OF THE UNDEAD MWHAHAHA), they're the Saturday morning kids version of the gov't, of military personnel and scientists that seems to be the Woodstock generation's only conception of these people.  That and as a result, EVERY ZOMBIE STORY SINCE USES THIS SAME DAMN PLOT DEVICE, and honestly, it's rotting.

4) Land of the Dead (2004) - dude this was kinda neat, but also kinda bloody awful.  Dennis Hopper?  Dennis Hopper doesn't act, he's still thinks he's the drugged out hippie from Apocalypse Now.  Land was a complete parody, a bad one, like a cliff-notes version of Romero's talking points, and you know it.  Actually, this one is pretty much blatant, overbearing Marxist cheerleading.  Working-class stiffs (literally) "eating the rich" as Aerosmith used to sing about?  Wow man, way to go for subtlety.  George, you were way better at this before you realized that you were supposedly creating social critique.  The second you started trying, your movies started to suck (so, has anyone out there besides misguided Michale Graves fans actually ever seen "Bruiser?"  No?  Didn't think so...).  This was insultingly didactic and self-righteous.  You could argue that it's satire, but I saw more meanspirited contempt in this than "satire", and to be fair, satire is hard to pull off, and the shelf life lasts about as long as Paris Hilton would trying to escape a crowd of zombies while carrying her little yip-yip dropkick doggie.

5) Diary of the Dead - haven't seen it, but the advance reviews have not been too kind.  I think the general consensus is that Romero has post-modern post-structuralist counter-narrative go to his head :) and has really mistaken gruesomely clever deaths and special makeup jobs (re: Tom Savini et al) for cutting edge critique.  If you can find it, there's a National Review Online writeup that basically tore the limbs off this. 

Here's a hint: just because I can film a disgustingly realistic scene of cannibal disembowlment does not inherently qualify me to pontificate on American social policy, mores, and values.