Another day, another tenuous excuse to bash Zombies when talking about anything unpleasant to the writer.

Case in point: in 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, or to be more precise, it triggered the complete collapse of ridiculously antiquated and defective flood control systems, and the subsequent waters devastated New Orleans.

A Six Flags park on the East side of the city was submerged with seawater for a month, and never rebuilt or reclaimed post-Katrina. It is rapidly slipping into decay and has become a favored subject of urban explorers, and tragically, an excuse for Zombie bashing:

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and ripped the heart of fun and the amusement out of this park. Almost six years later, Six Flags in New Orleans is unnaturally silent, no lines and no laughter. This 140-acre surreal setting has morphed into a nightmarish land of twisted dreams. It seems as if the post-apocalyptic atmosphere might be the perfect place to make a zombie movie. As if lured by a distant echo of scattered screams and the ghost of good times, urban explorers venture out of curiosity and capture the moments and crumbling scenes. They share with us in a virtual urban exploration tour of this creepy abandoned amusement park – Six Flags New Orleans. Most of these photos are very recent, as in taken during 2011, nearly six years after Hurricane Katrina tried to swallow New Orleans and Six Flags. A special thank you to the urban explorers who risked arrest, and possible zombie attack, to go in and shoot these current shots of Six Flags, and then gave us permission to use their copyright photos.

Really? Why can’t someone make an AWESOME Zombie movie in a well-lit, peaceful modern setting? Why do Zombies ALWAYS have to be associated with prejudice and the ‘Apocalypse’?

I’ll tell you why: prejudice.

Tragically, this is not just the result of editorializing by angry Anti-Zombie bigots, but can be seen in the graffiti and vandalism that have taken hold in the abandoned park itself:

Yes, people really sneak into this abandoned park to live out their deranged fantasies of a Zombie uprising… against, presumably, the abandoned park? Its many daily visitors? I’m a bit lost on the plot here.

On the other hand, it is inhabited by terrifying creatures like this:

*shudder* Spooky.

This is a tragic coda to a national tragedy, and yet, still, even in a city long associated with a more positive and complicated relationship with Zombiism than the modern Romero stereotyping, we see Anti-Zombie prejudice creep in.

It’s abandoned, it must be a target for Zombies. It’s creepy, watch out for Zombies.

*rolls eyes*

I for one hope that some day this park is restored to its former greatness, so the citizens of New Orleans, Zombie and Living alike, again have it as a place to play, in spite of Anti-Zombie bigotry, engineering malfeasance and terrible storms.

Tags: Don't Use the Zed Word, Social Justice

This entry was posted by John Sears on Monday, July 4th, 2011 at 12:48 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.