Recently, The Zombie Rights Campaign announced its nominees for Zombie of the Year 2010. It was a diverse list, with personalities and people from a wide variety of media, both fictional and non-fictional, and it proved very difficult to select a final award winner from so many worthy individuals.

Still, in the end, there was one clear choice, a person who truly embodies the spirit of the Differently Animated, and whose achievements in the last year deserve, nay, demand recognition from the Zombie Rights community. That person is Baron Mardi.

The Baron is a controversial figure, to be certain; his larger-than-life persona, unpredictable public appearances and occasional personal scandals are well known and fodder for the rumor mills. Yet, as the Differently Animated personality and co-star of Atomic Age Cinema TV 2: Atomic Boogaloo, he and his cohorts struck a blow for all Zombiekind, savagely eviscerating the hateful Romero-Russo mythology about the Undead and exposing it to the critical thought and parody that it has so richly deserved for so long. Others have tried, in their own way, to walk this path, but in the end most succumb to a lack of vision or the need, despite satirizing the popular conception of the Differently Animated, in the end to conform to the hateful prejudices held by so many.

Thus we have seen movies ranging from Shaun of the Dead to Zombieland, which even as they poke fun at the Anti-Zombie genre, remain woefully bogged down within its pestilential swamps of bigotry. Not so with Atomic Age Cinema TV 2, and not so with Baron Mardi, who transcended it instead.

For this stunning achievement, and for a wide body of work educating the public about the positive contributions of Zombiekind, through personal appearances and hosting work, consultation and behind the scenes production efforts, The Zombie Rights Campaign congratulates Baron Mardi for winning our highest honor.

Special additional thanks to the entire Atomic Age cast and crew, who, although not Undead, were clearly critical in this effort. Thanks also go to The Dark Carnival, Clockwerk Pictures and all our other nominees for their own achievements and contributions toward creating a better world for the Living and the Differently Animated alike.

See you again next year!

Tags: Zombie of the Year 2010

This entry was posted by John Sears on Friday, October 29th, 2010 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Zombie Media, ZRC News. 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.