The Effect of Biology

Through our relaxation of watching and playing with our mass media zombies, we fail to realize what this creature symbolizes. Our pop culture shows it in various ways among the different media.

An Unlikely Virus:

The Center for Disease Control makes a connection between rabies and zombiism, that both viruses are spread when bitten. But how likely is it really that you can be turned into a zombie because you were bitten by something with rabies? We have antibiotics for that, so it's an unlikely assumption.

I Am Legend: 

Watch the 'News Report Scene' from I Am Legend.

 Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRctxZT-a1A 

Then there's cures for incurable cancers that, in the end, causes world wide chaos turning everyone into vampire-zombies. Robert Neville, military biologist-scientist, then creates the cure 3 years later.

Resident Evil

The movie shows that Umbrella Corp. produced pharmaceuticals and medical equipment along with handling genetic engineering and biological weaponry. Thus allowing the corporation to hold power over the people and do as they please with their lives using them as experiments. In this way it shows that the one who holds the biological weapon wins.

Left4Dead, Call of Duty Zombies, etc. 

These zombie games expose that those who hold weapons and ammunition have power, they're going to be the ones to survive. Call of Duty does this differently though, doesn't matter how long you take on each wave of zombies, you're eventually going to die. Throughout these games though, the zombies are constantly mutating and becoming stronger (to a point) with their own special abilities, such as exploding (Left4Dead).

It's all in relation to science. 

A Mythical Creature in Pop Culture

George A. Romero is admired for setting the guidelines to our slow paced, unintelligent, and carnivorous, modern zombies. When you turn on your television or game console, there is entertainment of zombie apocalypses that are ranging from the song Thriller by Michael Jackson to the popular zombie TV show The Walking Dead to games such as Call of Duty Zombies, Left4Dead, Plants vs. Zombies, etc. to movies like Resident Evil, I Am Legend, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Warm Bodies, etc. are modern and different from how zombies used to be viewed throughout different cultures. They have transitioned from voodoo to becoming something of a treat for society, whether with horror or comedy films. 

Let's take this for example:

Video combination. Links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfDUv3ZjH2k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRIVaXrgddg

Can you tell the difference between the two? The seriousness of zombies is changing to being more comical, allowing us to relax and enjoy this entertainment of zombies instead of being fearful of the decay of humans and fast spreading disease.

Bill Yon says that “George Romero used zombies for entertainment as well as to make political statements and to explore his apocalyptic visions.” Though this is one use for zombies, Sarah Lauro, a professor of Clemson University, says that this faze of zombies in pop culture is “...part of a historical trend that mirrors a level of cultural dissatisfaction and economic upheaval... We are more interested in the zombie at times when as a culture we feel disempowered,” Lauro said. “And the facts are there that, when we are experiencing economic crises, the vast population is feeling disempowered ... Either playing dead themselves ... or watching a show like ‘Walking Dead’ provides a great variety of outlets for people.” So when we experience an increase in unemployment, there is a rise of popularity in zombies.

Though there is a connection between zombies and economics, the association between these two is stronger when viewed through disease, virus, and other health issues.

Let's Take A Step Back...

For those who don't know much about where zombies originated from, here's a little intro:

Zombies are originally from Haitian and African descent, they believe that those who die unnaturally, such as murder, hang about their graves. Melissa Nasiruddin says “Haitian voodoo folklore recognizes a dual identity of zombis: one form of zombi is an ambulatory body without a living soul, and the other, lesser-known form is a soul wandering without a body,” but also in this culture, zombies aren’t the predators but the prey.

Benjamin Radford says that “Haitian zombies... are corpses who have been re-animated and controlled by magical means for some specific purpose, usually labor. Bokors - witch doctors - are believed to have the magical power to zombify a person and were widely feared and respected.” While Melissa Nasiruddin says “...zombification, is thought to occur when a sorcerer, or boko, performs a combination of dark magic spells on a person to kill, enslave, or inflict illness upon him...” Both claiming the same thing but Nasiruddin believes that they’re possessed and used for evil actions.

If these zombies are possessed, then wouldn't there be a way to release them from their state of possession? For example, an exorcism? Nasiruddin declares “the only way a zombi can be freed from its slavery is if the spell jar containing its ti-bon anj [its awareness and memory] is broken, or if it ingests salt or meat. The latter would usually cause the zombi to hunt down and kill its master before finally returning to its family or its final rest as a corpse.”

All Images from: https://www.google.com