Often we have to explain our position on a particular item or product here on the ZRC blog, delving into nuance, exploring the perhaps unintentional way in which a particular author, artist or developer may have insulted Zombies or otherwise harmed the Differently Animated.

Then we have columns like this:

But vampires have held a place within pop culture since Bram Stoker brought us Dracula exactly because of that charm, that mysterious and sexy way they seduce their victims and bring them, often willingly, into their own world.

On the other end of the undead movie monster spectrum is that sluggish, bloody, organ-eating grotesque: the zombie. The zombie is in every way the antithesis of the vampire, instead of seducing and charming you into their trap, the zombie just grabs you and tears you to pieces, eating your organs right out of your body while you’re still alive.

Gross.

Over the past five years or so, the zombie genre has risen faster from the dead than one of the brain-hungry stumblers. It is as if the zombie genre has come back into horror vogue in direct reaction to the popularity of those slick vampires. I’d love to see someone try to turn those nasty zombies into a cutesy love story. Good luck.

As you can see, that column is just virulently, shockingly hateful toward Zombies, dripping with hate and prejudice, soaked with derision and scorn. It’s also pretty ignorant; there have been love stories featuring Zombies, actually. I’ve seen a few at indie film festivals. ‘Lonely’ was one, there was another at The Dark Carnival last year featuring a sort of Zombie resistance/rehab organization, I forget the name, and of course, we had ‘George’s Intervention’, a solid attempt at Zombie Romance, if not a perfect film from a Zombie Rights perspective. ‘Breathers’ sold pretty well, even if it was unevenly written and pretty Anti-Zombie by the end.

Now, the comparison the column is trying to make is with Twilight, I think, and mercifully, there has been no direct Zombie equivalent. But how on Earth can that be a bad thing?

As it turns out the raving, spittle-flecked passage above eventually segues to the point of the Cinespastic column: having established his cred as a Zombie and Anti-Zombie genre hater, the author, one Ben K., then gushes all over ‘The Walking Dead’. See, it was important not to be seen as one of Those People, who like Anti-Zombie movies, or worse still, one of, well, Us People, Zombie fans and advocates, assuming the author is even aware we exist.

Of course. We understand. You’re not a Zombie fan, or Anti-Zombie fan, you’re a precious and unique snowflake, critically sophisticated and Above It All. There there. Your reputation is safe.

As an elitist, Living Supremacist bigot, that is.

Tags: Journamalism

This entry was posted by John Sears on Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.