When Oxford University Press sent me a review copy of Greg Garrett's book, Living With The Living Dead, which claims amongst other things to demonstrate the cultural and theological importance of the Zombie Movie genre; I was sceptical. In the course of over two-hundred pages of analysis, Garrett removed some - but not all of my initial prejudice against his project!
Garrett writes from a broadly Christian perspective, and yet is an enormous fan of Zombie movies, which he seems to remember in dreadful detail. This will be a struggle for many Christians from the outset. I once knew a man who literally had the words of Philippians 4:8 stuck across the top of his television. Anything which failed to pass 'St' Paul's injunction to restrict ones' thought-life to "whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy"; would be summarily switched off. The Zombies would be stopped in their tracks.. While few Christians would be that overt in their self-censorship, millions would quietly avoid (18) certificate films in general, and horror in particular. When we read that one film in Garrett's analysis is "like taking a bath in every monstrous thing humans could do if they could" (p196); it's not hard to see why that would be the case. While the opposite error might be to simply glory in the naive, the trite, the banal and the kitsch; what are we to do with a book that asks us to take seriously, and learn from the foul, gross, menacing and repulsive? Perhaps we should initially be concerned that in order to watch as many of these films as this author has done; a degree of desensitisation must have occurred, simply to cope with the repulsion, and distance himself from it. That alone might be cause enough problems to offset the positives which Garrett is keen to examine in these movies.
Garrett argues that the Zombie Apocalypse movie isn't simply gratuitous in its horror, but clever in that it is an extrapolation from genuine fears and worries in an insecure world. As such, it might be over the top in comparison with real life - but yet resonates with its audience in a deeper way than simply scaring them like a celluloid roller-coaster. As such, he seems to speak in terms of the almost cathartic nature of watching films which expose our deepest fears and process them; the best of which (he says), do so with nobility, hope, goodness, community and triumph. In an enormous number of case-studies (and frankly the book was too long!), Garrett shows the way in which the surviving characters have to make moral choices in the face of impending doom at the hands of Zombies, Night-Walkers or Rampaging Viruses - all of which are physical embodiments of evil. Many are faced with dilemmas which play the need for personal survival against caring for and preserving others - and are therefore explorations of the basic moral dilemma; against the most extreme of backdrops. Likewise, bands of non-Zombies, whose humanity remains intact, in many movies struggle to work together, but yet find identity and meaning in their community - themes which have obvious resonance with Christian anthropology. Indeed Garrett spends a good amount of time in a major diversion into discussing the Christian understanding of community stretching back to the monastic tradition. Some Zombie movies go even further, he argues, and demonstrate the essence of love, to give 'ones life for ones friends', and that even in the face of monstrous evil and complete breakdown of society. This is all reasonable enough, well argued, and painstakingly illustrated from Zombie (and other apocalyptic) films, books, TV series and comics.
What is less persuasive is his tentative efforts to draw parallels between the apocalyptic nature of these contemporary cultural phenomena and the biblical apocalyptic texts. Some of the alarming apocalyptic writings in the prophets, the gospels and of course in The Revelation, make us see the world as we know it as rather fragile, transient even. That this has a secular parallel in the zombie apocalypse, is a point well made. Likewise his point that a contemporary youth on Netflicks, imagining a dehumanising viral plague sweeping across Europe; is not a world away from a youngster of a previous era quaking while trying to imagine what the 'abomination that causes desolation', or the 'great beast' might mean; is well put. So too, are there parallels between the post-apocalyptic re-birth of the world in some of the more hopeful Zombie stories, and some forms of end-times tribulation theories. However the links drawn here are only suggested, not fully explored; and troublingly, I suspect for Garrett, would work better if he subscribed to the more extreme 'end-timer' dispensationalist theology. 'Left Behind' might be theologically suspect, but it might suggest some further cultural links to explore around his subject.
What I found most interesting about the book through, and most persuasive, was the opening section. Here, Garrett examines the explosion of Zombie Apocalyptic products, and their consumption in contemporary Western Society. He states, for example, that the 'Zombie Apocalypse has become the dominant nightmare image of our day', (p16), with unimaginable numbers of film purchases every day, and tens of thousands of separate Zombie related product lines on Amazon alone. He presents a battery of evidence to support his claim too. What's interesting is why he thinks there is such a widespread, and deep fascination with something as horrible as the everyday story of your friends, neighbours and loved ones becoming deranged monsters intent upon the consumption of human flesh!
His answers are many, and nuanced, but well worth a read. He notes, for example, that after 9/11 there was a huge surge in the consumption of Zombie related stories and products. Zombie narratives then feed, on insecurity, social upheaval and threats to the social order. In fact, they are a good barometer of insecurity, and fear. Consumption of Zombie narratives also - and this is rather troubling - seem to spike when a population receives significant numbers of incoming migrants. The incessant march of the Zombie, the wave after wave of the living dead, wrecking all in their path, must reveal (albeit in exaggerated form) a deep level of fear about the cultural threat of 'foreigners', Foreigners, or 'aliens' are of course, human - but not like us. They don't speak like 'us', dress like 'us', or share our cultural norms. To some, they apparently arrive in waves of faceless invaders; and a loss of power, control and security to the native population.
Likewise, the Zombie narrative asks us to question what it means to truly be human. Can the essence of humanity be lost, or is it inherent to anyone carrying human DNA? Can a robot ever be considered to be part human, if it is programmed to look, feel and sound like a human - or might it march Zombie like through our culture? The dilemma of whether the surviving human can legitimately kill the Zombified loved-one, who is recognisable but not what they were, opens up all kinds of fascinating ethical debates from the history of slavery in the USA where slaves at one time counted as 'three-fifths of a person' in population census's; to the status of a person with advanced dementia who looks the same, but yet is not what they were. It doesn't give answers to these questions, and doesn't actually offer much of a framework for getting to an answer - but the questions raised are important nevertheless.
Most profoundly of all however, there is the lurking fear that in the middle of mindless Western consumption, it is not the other who is being Zombified, and having its humanity diminished, but oneself. While the consumer of a Zombie film will instinctively identify with the survivor character, perhaps, suggests Garrett, we have a greater fear that in our consumption-at-all-costs lifestyle, our trampling on each other in the market economy, and radical individualism, we have actively depleted our own humanity; or at least failed to embrace its fullness. Several movies explore this by having Zombies in all their blank, empty, hollowness, shopping in shiny American Malls, unable to think, only to consume. Again it begs deep-seated questions about the purpose of life. If the ancient answer that the chief end of man was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, gave way to 'I think therefore I am', if what we have now is just 'I consume therefore I am'; then we are just as well to be scared at the sight of the hollow, empty stare of the Zombie, which looks uncomfortably mirror-like. Likewise the Marxist concept of Alienation has some resonances here, with the way in which technology has made so many jobs de-skilled and repetitive; we fear the Zombie, because he is un-creative and mindlessly programmed to act. Again, contemporary life uncomfortably mirrors horror.
Garrett finally sees the good moral message of the Zombie Apocalypse as being one in which, despite the real and often unspeakable horrors of the world-gone-wrong in which we live, where cultural, environmental, nuclear, political or viral catastrophes threaten; we still have agency, still have humanity, and can still chose to fight for the good. (212). That's fine, but I couldn't help wondering if what was needed next was an explanation of how the Christian message offers hope, meaning, vitality and life-affirming wholeness to the alienated, the insecure, the bleak and the worried. That would have been a more robust and compelling conclusion - especially for the millions of consumers of these stories he identified.
Did Garrett succeed in turning me into an appreciator of gory, horror apocalyptic movies, TV-series, and the like? Absolutely not. I still think they are ghastly, and if I never see another one, I won't be one bit sorry!
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