There are two subjects I never get tired of discussing: zombies and monsters. I know, you're probably thinking to yourself, "But Chris, aren't they the same?" Good thing you asked, fictional reader. I wouldn't say that the monster in any zombie film or comic has to necessarily be the monster. There are plenty of examples where the bad guy turns out not to be the source of the damage he causes in classic literature and film. The Zombie is know different. First, we should define the roles of monsters and heroes.
When I
think about the monster and hero roles being flipped on their collective heads, I tend to think of my favorite monster story: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The doctor pushes
the limits of scientific knowledge by doing something that only a supernatural
being could do, and as a result, he creates pain and destruction for his family
and loved ones. His hubris leads to his downfall. What is left up for
interpretation in the novel if the doctor's creation was “The Creature” or “The
Monster." In the final scene of the novel, is
the monster weeping over the death of his father, or gloating at his own
victory to outlive him. I prefer the former. Either way, the tragic hero of the
story is only where he is because of his overreaching aspirations.
In Bram Stoker’s Dracula we see a monster that wasn’t
created directly by the hero, but he is assisted at first by one of the heroes,
and more so, what the heroes represent. From a Marxist critique, Dracula is
moving into the land of industrialization, and through the industrialist
selling of property for profit, he is able to achieve that goal. The monster is
not created through the hero, but is aided and abetted by him as Jonathan
Harker goes to broker the deal for Carfax Abbey to Count Dracula.
In popular literature
we can draw this common theme that, in some way or another, we are responsible
for our “monsters” or problems. This is often a theme we see in horror
and science fiction. In the early 1950’s, there was a rash of movies involving
the mutations of the “Atomic Age,” such as the movie about giant, radioactive ants called THEM! There were many movies that questioned the unknown side effects of the atomic age which could only be blamed on human interference. In each of these examples the hero acts as his own villain to some degree.
Typically, there are two
main causes for initial Zombie rejuvenation: Radiation on the ground or Radiation from
above (as with a comet). In the movie Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero) we have our
first American horror film where the dead rise because of a
passing comet. There is a viral element to the newly raised undead, as they
are infectious to the living whom are bitten, but the virus aspect of the zombie is a whole other blog post.
In this story, we can view the zombies as humans who have had their humanity
removed. Effectively, this makes them almost animals and the first step to vilifying any person or group is dehumanization. Now, we could look at a hoard of
animals that attack people en masse as the villain, but I think the story
suggests a different villain (SPOILER ALERT AHEAD!!!). We can very easily see
the monsters as the zombies in this story, because they are our antagonist, but
the true monster doesn’t come until the end of the original and the remake
respectively.
In Romero’s original
movie we are left with the only African-American character as the survivor. He
approaches the front porch of the house, after surviving a night with the
undead, to see humans hunting the zombies. He reaches to wave out for help, and
he is shot dead. We are left to ask ourselves if this man’s death was at all
related to his race. His killers were white but were they just shooting at
anything that moved for the hell of it? If the zombies were acting on impulse,
what were these men reacting on? Do we not forgive the zombies for acting on
impulse and forgive the hunters for doing the same? Now this is just a very
depressing ending, but it raises good questions, though the same can be said
for the remake.
The ending of the
remake, Barbara survives, she shoots the African-American
character, who is now a zombie, in the head. She then kills the man who brought his
wife and infected daughter into the house who was had double crossed everyone. Her final lines of the film come
when she gets to a camp of zombie hunters who are having a lot of fun shooting
tied up zombies (by their feet, from a tree) and she says, “We’re them. We’re
them and they’re us.” A suggestion that there really is little difference between us and them after all.
Is it a fair
assumption to say that we either make our own monsters, or we become them? Do
we see that in our favorite zombie related shows, or movies, and do we
recognize when it happens? Are we also, almost always the same villain, or are
we always the bad guys? If we are, can we change that, or is that part of human
nature?
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