Yesterday night, after a long day at my unpaid internship, I decided to take a trip to Chinatown with a friend (from my previous unpaid internship) to see Zombieland. Zombieland is the zombie-comedy, where the world has been taken over by the living dead. It stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin (yup, the same little, innocent Abigail Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine). Director Ruben Fleisher puts a fresh, fun spin on the zombie genre, the likes I have only seen from Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead. It puts you right into the fray and never lets you go. It is filled with gory, zombie "kills of the week" as well as non-stop comedy that can sometimes make you feel bad that you're laughing...uncontrollably. It really is that good. Stir up the buddy-cop element, mixed with a little stoner humor, a twinkie fetish and zombies (and lots of big guns) and you have...Zombieland. Enjoy!
(There is also a extremely funny guest star in the movie...don't look at the IMDB page if you want to be pleasantly surprised.)
ZOMBIES
Zombieland brought back my interest in the Zombie genre, moreso than most recent zombie movies have. While the reasoning behind zombification remains constant in the last couple decades (Viruses), the zombie, and the setting surrounding the zombie have changed to fit the times. I have invested a lot of time and intellectual power into researching the zombie genre, including teaching two undergraduate lectures at UCLA about zombies. So, I am going to take you, the reader, down a historical trip through the zombie genre, starting with the prolific, midnight movie extravaganza Night of the Living Dead in 1968, all the way up to Zombieland. Mostly, I will consider the master of the zombie, George A Romero, and the indelible impact he has made on the genre.
Night of the Living Dead (NOTLD) was shot on a shoestring budget, in the woods of Pennsylvania by rookie filmmaker George A Romero. Originally to be called Night of Anubis, Romero did not even consider his new creations any kind of "Zombie." The zombies before Romero were fantastical voodoo creations from the Bela Lagosi age, where horror and science fiction were more of an outer space/castle in Transylvania type genre. The zombie was exotic, scary and usually arrived in small numbers. Romero turned this characterization into the modern zombies we see today. Night of the Living dead, shot on 16mm looked more like a 90 minute news report than a serious movie. But, it was the content that surpassed the medium with NOTLD; the same content that shocked midnight movie goers at the violent end of the 1960s. Romero used shocking B-roll of zombies munching down on the flesh, innards and bones of their victims while mindlessly surrounding the small house that the survivors lay barricaded in. This B-roll is mixed in with news reports of radiation from Venus, the dead coming to life and instructions on how to dispatch of walking corpses.
What is so significant about NOTLD is that it is the first modern zombie film to reach the taboos of society and reflect the chaos of the end of the 1960s. NOTLD was shot like a news story because of the low budget, but its texture reminded Romero, and moviegoers of the same pictures they had seen on TV. 1967-1968 Tet offensive was being televised in all its bloody glory, and the American people finally got to see the carnage of Vietnam, including the famous shot of a ARVN general executing a suspected Vietcong rebel. They had also seen the televised beatings and killings of civil rights leaders, whose nonviolence was met with "southern hospitality." This kind of American on American, human on human violence was not new. NOTLD reminded us that zombies are just like us. Zombies maybe dead, but they were once people too. NOTLD also put one simple element into the zombie genre: Zombies don't succeed without human error. Most of the conflicts in NOTLD, and in later Romero, and non-Romero films, are as a result of the elements of human nature: panic, competition and survival. The conflicts that arise between survivors end up dooming their survival. The zombies are just a medium through which the story progresses, but they are definitely not the main conflict vehicle. The end of the movie (which I won't reveal to you) reminds of the ultimate chaotic ending to a lot of the idealistic, nonviolent movements of the 1960s. Like the end of the movie, they were met with internal struggle that led to a violent conclusion.
In my lecture, They're Coming To Get You Barbara: Night of the Living Dead and the Violent End to the 1960s" I chronicled the events of 1968 that could have reflected NOTLD. Lets take a look:
Vietnam
-Troop levels reach 500,000
-Johnson backs down from 1968 nomination because of Vietnam
-Negotiations deadlock
-Westmoreland's "light at the end of the tunnel" speech is disregarded after the Tet Offensive
-Mai Lai massacre
-Walter Conkite calls the war "unwinnable"
Civil Right
-Assassination of MLK, Jr.
-Rise of the Black Panthers: beginning of violent non-integration in civil rights, which replaced nonviolent protest
-Race Riots
-Purging of whites from SNCC
-Rise of the Weathermen
Politics and Education
-RFK assassinated
-Nixon elected
-Prague Spring crushed
-Riots in Chicago at Dem. National Convention
-Student revolt at Columbia University
-Students killed in protest in Mexico
-Student riots in France
The next movie I want to consider is Dawn of the Dead (1978)/(2003). Dawn of the Dead was Romero's attack on the excesses of the 1970s, and consumerism in general. What can be more of the a symbol of American consumerism than the shopping mall? Dawn of the Dead puts us right in the middle of the beginning of a zombie apocalypse where a group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall. Once they arrive the male characters are immediately lured by luxury items that are available without constraints. Ignoring the fact that consumer items beyond food are useless, these characters indulge in the amenities of the mall. One very poignant scene in the movie shows a montage of characters enjoying nice clothes, trying out golf clubs and having a super-market spree of items in the mall. This scene shows, that regardless of the valueless nature of the items, the characters vie for that consumer, middle class lifestyle that they once had, before the zombie outbreak. It also shows that the mall offers a quick fix, short term stimulation that can be complimented by constant indulgence. The mall is also a place of constant contact and fluid relationships. The people you see at the mall are anonymous consumers who have no special connection to each other, except for the need to consume. This constantly changing environment leads to instability in the constructed social hierarchy. Or, in other word, everyone is equal...at the mall. The mall is two systems that work simultaneously, but are traditionally in conflict with each other. The safe haven of capitalism while living in an unstable world, as the goods that are consumed only provide short term satisfaction. In Dawn, the survivors see that guns are a good deterrent, but it is the mall goods that provide their ultimate comfort, even if that comfort is useless and exists in a unstable, zombie filled world.
Dawn of the Dead redefines the zombies in a new light. Zombies in Night of the Living Dead was a problem that exacerbated the human conflicts between living characters (something that is not abandoned in Dawn). In Dawn, zombies are us. Zombies pour into the outskirts of the mall dressed in the clothing they had on before went to work. There are nurses, baseball players, doctors, plumbers, garbage men, etc. They are reduced to their base institutional characterization: defined by their job. But, they are all the same when they come to window shop for flesh at the mall. They are just like the living consumers who come to the mall before it opens to grab those lucrative sale items before everybody else. They, like the characters in the mall, look to consume without restraint. Even the blood looks like ketchup, a favorite consumer condiment. In one scene, Peter, a main character observes the zombies at the door, and says to Fran (female lead) that "they're us." She shivers, then grabs an expensive fur coat. Near the end of the movie, Fran is confronted by Zombie Roger (another character, now zombified), whose face is half gone, presenting us with the conundrum of half dead, half-human looking. Lastly, we are presented with criticisms by the media during the movie that we have to contain our waste by feeding the zombies (an idea that was put in the original Dawn script). This is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's satire "A Modest Proposal" where he suggests that impoverished Irish eat their babies, in response to Thomas Malthus' proposal on population and food supplies. Dawn certainly presents a likely result of that satire.
Reactions to Dawn of the Dead were as contradictory as the movie themes. The experience was lauded heavily by the same culture that the movie set out to satirize. In my lecture "Dawn of the Dead: Consumer Culture and the 70s" I emphasized audience reactions, and the reasons Dawn became the highest grossing horror flick that year. The attractiveness comes from the familiarity that the moviegoers saw in Dawn. In Night, the setting was an rural farmhouse, which most of the urban moviegoers could not identify with. But, a shopping mall was a mainstay in American culture at the end of the 70s. This consuming, whether its by happy-go-lucky survivors or flesh-eating zombies, is a routine experience for the average moviegoer in 1978. The "happy shopper" mentality was ripped to shreds...literally. Whether or not this caused shoppers to realize some of their contradictory consuming habits is to be seen, but it certainly shows that the critique of consumer habits is not exclusive to Marxist theorists, but can be realized through the everyday experiences of your regular shopper...or zombie.
Lastly, I want to go through the modern day zombie with consideration of Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007), 28 Days Later (2002) and Zombieland (2009). All of these movies contain an element that puts them in the same light at Night and Dawn of the Dead. They blatantly, moreso that Night and Dawn, reflect an opinion about a overarching cultural theme in society, or they present a total apocalypse. 28 Days Later gives the audience the perspective of someone with a "blank slate" who wakes up after a biking accident to find that London is empty, and inhabited by zombies infected with "rage." This Danny Boyle directed, Digital Video zombie flick is a reference to the hype over super viruses. Diary of the Dead (2007) is supposedly set at the beginning of the infection, coinciding with Night of the Living dead. College students, shooting a student film are caught up in the Zombie apocalypse and face the consequences. This movie is interspersed with production of the student film, which is shot on amateurish consumer grade cameras for a viral audience. This film reflects the youtube culture of viral videos, as well as the media bias. The film blurs the line between a film-within-a-film by employing the use of digital film making to keep the viewer questioning whether they are watching the product of the students' film, or the film itself.
Lastly, Land of the Dead and Zombieland deal with the concept of total zombie apocalypse. Land of the Dead is Romero's critique of the corporate culture, or a bloody, zombie Frank Capra movie, with a less-than-desirable ending. It is an oppressed against the oppressor, with zombies as a sideshow. In the movie, one corporation controls the last vestige of human existence in a well fortified city. This corporation controls the lives of all in the city, whose only alternative is to take their chances with the zombiefied outside. In times of crises, like in Rome, the empire must provide entertainment to get the masses to not think about the zombie majority, so they put on gladiator shows, which put zombies against humans. Eventually, a band of soldiers are fed up and they decide to unleash the horde on the city. It solves their short term goals, but alas, dooms the rest of humanity. Zombieland offers the same apocalyptic message, but instead gives us the smaller picture. It is about personal relationships and the acceptance of the zombie world. It is even instructional, telling the viewers how they can survive, once a zombie apocalypse happens. In times where people have accepted giving up luxuries and pinching pennies in a recession, and with instructional mediums helping those in trouble survive, this movie is appropriate. Just like Harrelson's and Eisenberg's character have accepted the zombie apocalypse, and find ways to survive from moment to moment, conflict to conflict, those who have weathered the recession have found, as Eisenberg's character says "to appreciate the little things."
Zombies are us. They are the reflection of our fears and our mistakes. But, more importantly they bring out the true nature, just like a long night of drinking would do to someone's personality. The riding message in zombie films is that any kind of cultural medium is a reflection of its times and that regardless of the supernatural element of the living dead, there are areas that evoke familiarity and realism that make zombies scary. The settings, whether its a barn in Pennsylvania, a Mall or Sunset Blvd. are realistic places familiar to the audience, which puts them in an uneasy position questioning the reality of zombies, and the reality of their own habits. Dawn showed us that consumerism can be self defeating (or self-gorging) and Zombieland put those elements of wonder and fun (Beverly Hills, Texas and a Fair) in a light of pure terror. All of the movies prove that zombies, while a conflict medium, do not produce most elements of the plot. It is the conflict between living characters that determine whether or not they will survive the zombie apocalypse.
No comments:
Post a Comment