Being October now we’re seeing an awful lot of events like this one come up, sadly Anti-Zombie:

For the past six months, Metzger has held down her administrative duties at Davis, as well as a part-time job at Naro Expanded Video in Ghent and a demanding gig as a community organizer of sorts.

Last year, inspired by a similar event in Raleigh, N.C., she organized Survive Norfolk, a zombie-themed game of tag in Ghent. She advertised it on Facebook, hoping maybe 100 people would come. More than 1,700 showed up. The buzz went well beyond Hampton Roads. USA Today profiled the Norfolk native. She has also been named one of Hampton Roads’ Top 40 Under 40 by Inside Business, which honors young businesspeople involved in community service.

…

This year’s Survive Norfolk will benefit local charities: d’Art Center, Hermitage Museum, Hope House Foundation and Lee’s Friends. Participants will be able to buy game armbands, $10 a pop, via the Survive Norfolk website, www.survivenorfolk.com.

Metzger is already thinking of another event that could involve the community. For a few years now, there has been something of a zombie buzz in pop culture, but if Metzger decides to organize another game of tag, she says the theme will have to change. “To keep people’s interest, it’s not always going to be zombie-themed,” Metzger said. “I also don’t want to get pigeonholed to doing a foot race game of tag. … ”

Sadly, Ms. Metzger is contributing herself to the pigeonholing of not just an event – but an entire population. While some might think that the ongoing Undead cultural renaissance of our current age is a case of ‘buzz’ or a fad of some kind, we, dear readers, know the truth: Zombies are finally claiming their rightful places in our culture and society.

Even if in the meantime they have to deal with some public co-option of their movement in ‘games’ like ‘Survive Norfolk’.

Observe, for instance, the rules which offensively divide players into, you guessed it, Zombies and ‘Humans’.

As if Zombies are not human!

Then they proceed to put the old slipper in while the Differently Animated are down:

All participants start out as Humans, obviously. Try your best to complete the game intact. If you’ve decided you cannot bear the thought of a zombie-filled world, you can be preemptive and come in zombie attire.

…

Humans

Your objective is to hit all 4 checkpoints and make it to the End Point within two hours all the while avoiding getting turned into a Zombie.

How you survive is up to you.

…

Zombies

Your objective is to track down and eat as many Runners as possible via two-hand tag.

Happy hunting!

Yes, because all Zombies want to do is track down and EAT people. They can’t participate in a game beyond being the slavering, fiendish, basically mindless wall of antagonism that drives the player characters toward their goal: avoiding members of another culture they are unfamiliar with.

Or in this case, mostly a bunch of small-minded Living individuals play-acting as being Zombies. Greenface, anyone?

Wow.

As you might have guessed, the ZRC condemns this event and all it stands for, and awards ‘Survive Norfolk’ our lowest demerit and mark of shame, the Living Supremacist ranking, for its cruel and dehumanizing segregation of Zombies in such a public forum.

For shame.

Tags: Anti-Zombie Public Event, ZRC Reviews

This entry was posted by John Sears on Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 9:24 am 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.