United States of the Living Dead

(Warning: the following essay contains a more than usual amount of revolting imagery, strained prose and amateurish Grand Guignol. Viewer discretion is discouraged.)

By all accounts George Romero's 1967 low-budget landmark Night of the Living Dead was never intended to graphically symbolize America's conversion to a culture of mindless, resource-consuming zombies. It was intended to scare acne-ridden drive-in theatre teens out of their bezitted wits.

And it did.

But it also gave the more philosophically inclined a chance to use the flick as a prescient dramatization of the plague of Western materialism. In later films, Romero seemed to take this interpretation to his juicy, finely marbled heart and placed hordes of the Undead in a large mall, where they shambled aimlessly looking for "stuff" to "consume", much in the way Americans do now (Although between their high protein diet and ambulatory nature, zombies are far leaner. Very few muffin-tops in the bunch.).

This transformed the allegory to the literal, making it no less effective an observation but possibly more effective as horror. In a later installment of the "...of the Living Dead" series, there is even an attempt to domesticate a zombie, who is pretty much chained from rotted head to foot (Can zombies suffer from cradle cap? Not really relevant. I just wanted to type that.) and is kept relatively quiescent by feeding him? it? a steady diet of fingers.

Severed fingers.

"Sit up. Roll over. Play life. Good Bob!"

This kept it? him? content, at least for a time. There were even moments when this literal hunk of man exhibited characteristics suggestive of a vestigial personality beyond gurgling and braying, hinting that if his most basic needs were met he could function in society and become a productive zombie and not just one who, given his? it? oh, fuck it insatiability, could not willingly reduce his carbon footprint. And slipping seamlessly once again into a tangent, has no one ever thought about if, or more importantly, where these legions of reanimated answer nature's call? Ever see a dedicated carnivore's dung? Will Romero ever film "Comfort Station of the Living Dead"? Have I digressed? Perhaps.

Or perhaps...not.

One could quibble with the puerile generality of such a comparison to American society. There are many people, places and things (or "nouns") which stand in stark contrast to the pessimistic assertion that the country has been led by unscrupulous plutocrats bent on feathering their own nests and feeding the population the equivalent of fingers while keeping them chained to increasingly unprofitable jobs, indebted to an increasingly unstable economy and blind to world outside their blinkered, shambling zombidom.

Zombidom-dom. Zombidom-dom-dommmm.

It's far fetched. I mean, the notion of keeping people in a state of perpetual consumerism being the sub rosa goal of a style of governance; that to wage, oh, a "war on terror", for example, as the equivalent of a weeping wound (yum!) that never entirely heals, and have the country's citizens perpetually feeding off of it to the distraction of all else. It's America as a massive, plasma-sucking palimpsest, shambling across the globe, bearing only the vaguest hints of what it once was, freaking out the rest of the world and possibly encouraging them to, in the interest of their own survival, blow the gobbling monster's brains out. It would be the stuff of a low-budget horror movie.

Or perhaps...not.

Comments

[Bluedanube]

A country that is quiesent when torture is committed in their collective name is a nation that is not worthy of calling itself "free" but a nation that is worthy of liberation.

[elbzee]

I LOVED Fido! I've been amazed lately at the number of zombie movies out there lately and wondered why. Thanks Steven for clearing it all up. It makes absolute sense to me!!!
N E E D B R A I N Z Z Z Z

[RobinLandseadel]

Good Post. This reminds me of the Thanatoids in Thomas Pynchon's "Vineland" and that song by the great ol' punk band "The Clash", all of us lost in the supermarket.

A long as you're cookin' up a first class screed on mind-numbed consumerism, consider how the level of violent imagery on "The Tube" has exponentially exploded. Shows like LAWNORDER and the various CSIs inure us to steady devolving levels of civility, all in the name of "homeland security." Part of the pattern comes by always siding with the Police in show after show, it's always "Us vs. them", the moral high ground taken by the Cops. It's part of the ongoing process of getting comfortable with the Police State, which is already in progress

Don't touch that dial . . . .

[jcorrington]

And i believe we continue to wallow in our mindless vacuum. Here we are, even my pick Obama, getting ready to escalate in Afgan! Is anyone paying attention?? This will turn out to be a bigger disaster than Iraq.

We missed our chance to get those bad guys! We need to bring all the troops home and sustain our national security here. Our gov is broken, the infrastructure coming apart, the economy failing (does anybody get that WAR is causing this???) and our efforts and money need to go to fixing all this.

[DJBrunner]

Another great post Steve, if you're still on vacation I hope you're having a wonderful time!

[darker]

yes, a great post! have a good vacation.

Bush-Cheney's PROFITEERING NANNY STATE FOR THE RICH is perfectly described in your post.
Republican corporations advertise and control the media. Their ad men, like Rove, are expert at SELLING DISTORTIONS, LIES, DANGEROUS FAKES like Bush to Americans.

Americans have to DIVORCE FROM THE MEDIA and THINK ON THEIR OWN, use COMMON SENSE and ASK QUESTIONS when the politicians STINK LIKE ROTTEN FISH.

Otherwise we're the cause of our problem.
We can do better!
Elect Senator Obama for president.

[CalvinistHobbesian]

There probably isn't an American alive who remembers not being in a perpetual state of war against something or someone. Most likely can't, or won't, even imagine it. Failure of imagination, failure of will (living on instinct like Steven's zombies) is the saddest failure of all for it precludes any change at all.

[itmaybetoolate]

Take a look at Maslow's hierarchy - the first two levels are meeting basic needs and safety and security. bushco first made us afraid (the big bad terrorist is coming to your house!) and now they are trying to distract us with anxiety about basic needs like food and fuel. According to Maslow, when people are forced to think about these most basic needs they cannot properly focus on, or process, higher level information. It is hard to care about FISA when you don't know if you have enough money to buy gas to get to work to make $$ to buy food. I believe bush suffers from antisocial personality disorder - unable to feel guilt or care about the pain he causes others. He really doesn't care about the price of food, dead soldiers, violation of civil rights. Most people are not ASPD and probably find it hard to believe that bush is as devoid of humanity as he really is.

[paixa3]

Excellent post. Cheers and kudos.

[itmaybetoolate]

Thanks!

[Calinative]

Of course. We can all get behind this war on terror by going shopping.

[holeybuybull]

To all of the "partisans" who infest this site: Why is it that any grocery store offers a veritable multitude of any one product, let's say potato chips as an example, but when it comes to choosing the people who will represent us in government we are basically offered two choices? And we have the nerve to refer to this as "democracy".

[paixa3]

PLEASE do not include me in your definition of """"""WE"""""". The political system in the USA is a shame and sham; both.

[AbstractImp]

Bravo !

[DuPageDem]

Give Romero a little more credit for the first flick, when he cast a young black man as the hero. (Who sadly gets capped in the end.)

John Carpenter's take on this idea, "They Live," is also worth mentioning. The best anti-Regan film of its era. The bad guys comminicate using Rolexes, and their billboards say "OBEY" and "CONSUME." Come to think of it, I wonder if you can really call that fiction ...

[kjdwyer]

Another brilliant piece. I have to admit I had to look up "palimpsest", though. Great word:

"a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text."

A little like our constitution, no?

[mark227]

I find "1984" a more suitable movie to be compared to.

[wayoutleft]

i'm always interested when viewer discretion is discouraged- and never disappointed. how odd that the lumbering tech-addled lummox could be so advanced; yet, in sum, could also be so deeply primitive and atavistic. it's really mysterious.

[letsgetsmart]

I think the republicans watched the Matrix and decided that this was a perfect way to handle the masses. Give them a steady diet of illusion and harvest what them like a crop. Just a little snit from the resident of incubator 1,000,006. I think I would like to wake up now.

[elizaW]

If the masses can't wake up and make intelligent choices then they deserve what they get. That goes for all of you obsessing over Obama as well as the neocon robots.

[nk007]

elizaW

You just can't help finding every excuse to attack Obama. I support Obama because I agree with him on many issues, though not ll the issues. I also believe that he is smart and has ability to inspire the grass-root to take interest in changing their government rather surrendering it to the insiders. So does that I am "obsessing over Obama?" Or is any one who did obsess over Hillary Clinton a robot? Do you people ever look in the mirror when you attack Obama supporters?