We hope you'll find this blog an educational, entertaining, and inspiring source of information, whether you're recently undead, a long-time member of the differently animated, or a still-living friend of your fallen, yet risen again, brethren. Everyone with an interest in zombie rights is welcome!
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Posted By John Sears on December 3, 2010
Rise of the Living Corpse is about forty seconds long and consists of one meanspirited joke at a Zombie’s expense. Not funny, Mr. Walsh.
It is therefore rated Anti-Zombie.
Posted By John Sears on December 3, 2010
We saw Closure, an Israeli short film, at The 2010 Dark Carnival Film Festival. Closure marks a milestone for the ZRC, as it
represents our first chance to review a zombie movie from the Middle East, and a peek at the politics and perception of the Differently Animated in a whole new region of the world (for us, anyway).
Unfortunately, the view we get is disturbingly familiar.
In Closure, we observe a young woman apparently stranded on the rooftop of (what is presumably her) apartment building, hiding out from some sort of collapse of civilization. Random screams and scary noises filter up from street level as the woman obsessively draws in the dust and dirt on the rooftop. What horrors could she be hiding from?
Well, not to spoil it or anything, but we’re reviewing it here at the ZRC, so as you might have guessed, it’s the ‘Zombie
Apocalypse’ again.
Zombie Apocalypse: Tel Aviv edition
At any rate, our small cast is about to become somewhat larger, as the young woman’s estranged love interest will make an appearance on the scene, the allegedly Undead will interrupt their emotional reunion, and, yeah, the woman will attempt to get her ‘closure’ before the end of the world.
Sigh.
Closure is, in other words, yet another entry in the ‘Zombies as Background Menance to Illustrate Human Foibles’ field so beloved of George Romero and Robert Kirkman. Actually, Closure is closer to the latter than the former, in that Romero
likes to give at least hints of character and backstory to his Zombies (often in the form of wacky clothing that gives an
instantaeous, if tiny, bit of uniqueness to each Zombie, ie, a Ballerina Zombie, a Clown Zombie, and the like). Much like
with Kirkman’s infamous Walking Dead comics (now regrettably a hit tv show), the Zombies here are an anonymous force of nature, existing only to facilitate the drama between the Living people, who of course are all that really matters. It’s
the End of the World as We Know It, and guess what? They don’t feel fine.
The novelty therefore wears off fast, but at least it’s a short poke in the eye rather than a feature length one.
For relegating Zombies to the status of props and once again reviving the tired Zombie Apocalypse trope, the ZRC awards
Closure our second-worst ranking, that of ‘Anti-Zombie’.
Israeli cinema has let the green man down.
Posted By John Sears on December 2, 2010
Lately, especially since the Federal Reserve’s mandated audit information started coming out, there’s been a term I’ve seen a lot in the media that the Zombie Rights Campaign needs to address (and correct the record upon): ‘Zombie Bank’
This particular slander against the Differently Animated is showing up everywhere.
From noted Lefty blogger Atrios:
Zombies Aren’t Merely Corpses
They feed on brains.
So Paul Krugman’s prediction of zombie banks creating a drag on the economy has not come true. The reality is, in fact, much worse. Krugman foresaw zombie banks that didn’t lend due to capital concerns, preventing the recovery from getting off the ground. We’re seeing plenty of that, but we’re also seeing zombie banks actively prey on the economy through the foreclosure process in an effort to repair their balance sheets. The zombie banks aren’t just failing to boost the economy, they’re actively sabotaging it.I need to eat.
BRAIIIIIINZ
Over at Fire Dog Lake, David Dayen used the term:
Precisely. There were enormous social costs from the financial meltdown. Those are ongoing, and the bailout didn’t fix them. They merely propped up zombie banks which are still insolvent, and extended the suffering of regular people.
Even those nonconformists at Corrente have been caught bashing the Differently Animated in this fashion:
You can pump all the blood you want into a zombie, but it’s still a zombie
This particular usage is especially bad since it seems to conflate Zombies with Vampires, or some other blood-draining type of Undead. Let’s try to keep it straight, people!
So where does this ‘Zombie bank’ term come from, anyway? Wikipedia has at least one possible origin:
A zombie bank is a financial institution that has an economic net worth less than zero but continues to operate because its ability to repay its debts is shored up by implicit or explicit government credit support. The term was first used by Edward Kane in 1987 to explain the dangers of tolerating a large number of insolvent savings and loan associations and applied to the emerging Japanese crisis in 1993.[1]
In all honesty, I expect it’s less a reference back to an earlier age of financial perfidy and more a sign of the times; Zombies are ‘in’, as in, ‘popular to shoot at’, and thus villainous entities are seen by the general population to be Zombie-like, having been suitably conditioned against the Differently Animated to start with.
How is this harmful to our clients? Well, aside from the guilt-by-association angle I allude to above, where the word ‘Zombie’ is gradually stretched beyond its ordinary (and already grotesque) bounds of prejudice to encompass any and all forms of wickedness, it’s also just confusing and inaccurate language. How, precisely, is a ‘Zombie bank’ like a Zombie?
According to the very definition Kane, and this is key, a ‘Zombie’ bank is a bank that has zero net worth (or less) but has not been allowed to die.
Do you see the distinction? Kane forgot that Zombies have, at least temporarily, ALREADY died.* His ‘Zombie’ banks are not, in fact, Zombies, as they have never died in any meaningful sense – and are not, therefore, Undead in the first place.
The term ‘Vampire’ bank would be more accurate, in that these institutions have a desperate need for additional amounts of a resource (capital instead of blood) normally used by the ordinary (i.e., ‘Living’ banks), but even here, the word ‘Vampire’ would have to be carefully construed to be akin to vampire bats rather than Nosferatu and his ilk, because, again, ‘Zombie/Vampire’ banks have never died. (Matt Taibbi has often referred to Goldman Sachs as a ‘vampire squid’, showing that at least some commentators have noticed the closer resemblence to vampiratical behaviors)
What term would the ZRC prefer? Well, from a Zombie Rights perspective we’d be satisfied merely if people stopped confusing the Undead with anything and everything they personally disapprove of. From a linguistic perspective, however, we should search for a more accurate pejorative term. Parasite bank? Leech bank?
Regardless of the more accurate terminology one might eventually settle upon, one thing is clear: ‘Zombie banks’ are not Zombies. Their dishonest nature and sneaky treachery are profoundly un-Zombielike (even the most strident Anti-Zombie campaigners like George Romero portray Zombies as honest in their goals and upfront in their methods), but even more basic than that, a Zombie bank would have to have died, and then revived, in an externally obvious and fundamentally different manner than the living.
These institutions have not remotely done that, and in fact have taken great pains to avoid doing so in the future.
We didn’t pick the term ‘Differently Animated’ for nothing, folks. If these banks were remotely Zombie-like, we’d work on their behalf. They aren’t, and we don’t, and we wish the larger blogosphere would notice the difference as well.
*Some of the larger Differently Animated community often labeled as Zombies, like the individuals seen in Boyle’s work, haven’t technically died either, but they have been radically transformed and reorganized and no longer function biologically in a similar fashion to ordinary Living people. At any rate, they’re closer to Zombies than a ‘Zombie bank’.
Posted By John Sears on December 1, 2010
No, I’m not referring to the book by Thomas Frank but rather to this disturbing little story out of Tonganoxie:
On a recent Monday, the scene in the lobby of the Tonganoxie Public Library was pretty much what a visitor would expect: A middle-aged man reading a magazine, a woman quietly walking along book shelves looking for a good read and two teen-age girls sharing a hushed conversation at a computer.
Meanwhile, the action in the Community Room of the library was a bit more raucous.
“Where are all these Nazi zombies coming from?” Josh Strutton asked, as he blasted away at a video computer game projected on the wall. “These zombies are coming from everywhere.”
…
Although it wasn’t a scene one might expect to see in the library, it was one played out from 3 to 5 p.m. each weekday in the Community Room. Royce Kitts, Tonganoxie Public Library director, said video gaming was a popular attraction at the library.
Let me get this straight: the public library in this Kansas town is not just allowing, but actively encouraging the violent communal slaughter of the Differently Animated in videogame form? Amongst its children?
Are these the ‘heartland’ values we hear so much about? “Hey kids, come on in, no need to read about or even vaguely tolerate those different from yourselves, here’s a controller, shoot some Undead people in the face?”
And Nazi Zombies? Come on. As if the Nazis were, or are now, made up principally of the Undead. I wonder what other historical atrocities we can pin on the Zombie community? Maybe the Mongols were actually Undead and invaded China to get brains to eat?
(Note: this is NOT an invitation to write historical fiction along these lines, people)
Oh well, lesson learned. I guess if you’re Differently Animated, you’re not welcome in small town Kansas, and certainly shouldn’t try to check out a book, lest the Lord of the Flies experiment going on in the Community Room spill over into the Fiction section.
Posted By John Sears on December 1, 2010
My how the mighty have fallen. From the glory days of the Genesis to this sad and pitiful state, where Sega, desperately wanting to feel relevant, wedges over the top, hyper-violent Zombie-hating into one of its remaining high profile game franchises:
The first third person shooter from Sega’s Yakuza team will be Yakuza of the End. In this PlayStation 3 game, Kamurocho is overrun with zombies. Armed to the teeth, Kazuma along with three other Yakuza characters head to the streets to take back their home.
Yes folks, we’re now at a place where it’s not just ok for regular people to massacre the Undead on screen, but ruthless killers can get their hero time in by doing so. Organized crime’s not so bad if it helps keep the Differently Animated in check, huh, Sega?
Oh for the days when Sega made Sonic games that didn’t suck instead of things like this.
Posted By John Sears on November 30, 2010
Capcom is just determined to get on the ZRC’s bad side lately. I mean, it’s not bad enough that three separate Zombie slaughtering characters from Resident Evil are going to be in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, or that they may be about to announce a new Resident Evil game; they’ve got to do more harm to the Differently Animated.
Today’s offense against reason and decency is the announcement of yet-another Xbox exclusive Dead Rising 2 spinoff, which may be coming out in time for the holidays, and features the return of snarky slaughter machine Frank West from the first Dead Rising:
Fans of fictional, war-covering photojournalists rejoice, for Capcom has announced that the Xbox exclusive Dead Rising 2: Case West is slated to arrive “next month.” As of this writing, it’s just barely still November, so it would seem Frank West will return to Dead Rising in time for Christmas.
Capcom deserves a giant lump of coal in their corporate stocking.
Posted By John Sears on November 29, 2010
(There are some spoilers for Creepshow in this piece but, hey, there’s a statute of limitations on this stuff, as Penny Arcade said. Please be advised)
Yesterday was a sad day for film-lovers and Zombie Rights enthusiasts alike, as one of the great American comedic actors, Leslie Nielsen, died at 84 years of age.
For a solid description of his overall career, this post from the Horror Society is hard to beat. However the ZRC wants to touch upon his significance to our particular movement.
Creepshow was and is still a groundbreaking piece of Pro-Zombie cinema. In Creepshow, American audiences were treated to views of the Differently Animated as complicated characters, protagonists and antagonists alike rather than dim-witted brain-hungry automatons. Ironically enough, George Romero helmed Creepshow, making him both one of the best Pro-Zombie filmmakers of the last few decades and one of the very worst (if not the very worst period).
Leslie Nielsen starred in one of Creepshow’s segments dealing with the Undead, ‘Something to Tide You Over’. The unique and groundbreaking aspect here for Zombie Rights is that Nielsen plays the villain, a Living man, while his victims come back from their watery graves as Zombies of Justice. In keeping with the EC comics vision of often-bloody and dark cosmic justice, the Differently Animated are seen here as agents of retribution against the wicked; Zombies are seen as people, fully realized and intelligent individuals capable of understanding right and wrong. It’s an interesting take and an all-too-rare attempt to acknowledge the complexity of the Undead community, rather than reducing them to flesh-eating monstrosities.
Nielsen’s participation here was essential, as his character was the necessary flip side of the coin. If the Differently Animated can be heroes, then perhaps the Living can be villains, even in a world partially populated by the Undead? In your ‘classic’ Zombie movies, there’s nothing Living people can do to wrong a Zombie; they’re treated as beneath contempt and actively worthy of persecution. Creepshow turned that on its head by reaffirming the idea that Zombies Are People Too, and even more, that they can aspire to be the heroes of their own stories.
So today we here at the ZRC mourn the loss of a great comedic actor and groundbreaking thespian who worked to illuminate the plight of the Undead so many years ago in a still-classic film, helping create room for Zombie Rights activists such as ourselves in the public consciousness, and advancing the cause of Living-Unliving reconcilation along the way. Goodbye, Mr. Nielsen. You will be missed.
Posted By John Sears on November 29, 2010
Kind of forgot about these, oops. Some good stuff in here too.
First, you can see the whole set of new DC photos here as a subset of our flickr page.
These shots show some of our work papering the legal advertising spaces on Kirkwood in Bloomington with our flyers and literature:
Would you trust the creature seen below to perform delicate surgery? If so I will refer you to him for a nominal donation to the ZRC.
And speaking of ill-advised surgeries:
One of the best things about The Dark Carnival is its emphasis on independent filmmakers. In our previous set I posted a picture of Patrick Rea talking about filmmaking on a panel at the DC; here you can see Joe Bob Briggs interviewing the creator behind Planting Season, Slater Jewell-Kemker:
A photo from the closing ceremonies:
Finally, we saw this hilarious ad on the way home and just had to share it. No, it has nothing to do with the festival per se, but man:
If I’m summarizing the message correctly, it seems to be saying ‘Family/Children or Meth?’
Now, why is that an either/or question? Aren’t they all delicious?
Why can’t you have your meth alongside your family? Say, as dessert?
Posted By John Sears on November 28, 2010
At The Dark Carnival, I recorded a short testimonial from our esteemed Zombie of the Year Award 2010 winner, Baron Mardi, and intended to upload it to the site. Then I got a bad trip hangover from the ride back, and in our big Halloween Romero-a-Thon (heavily documented in the Twitter feed) it slipped my mind until tonight.
Alas, it was a windy night, and the camera’s mic picked up… well not much that’s usable.
So I guess I’ll just have to ask the Baron for his thoughts in another video the next time I see him.
Posted By John Sears on November 28, 2010
I got this one from our frequent correspondent Michelle Hartz a while ago and sort of got sidetracked commenting upon it in the post Dark Carnival coma thing. (I also have some more video I need to upload, oops)
Basically what we have here is a graphic demonstrating the ignorance many people have about the daily lives (Unlives, if you prefer) of the Differently Animated. The idea that a Zombie’s entire existence is comprised of dodging violent retribution and eating the Living is simply misguided. Zombies often have rich inner and outer lives, participating in their cultures and societies. Sometimes, they’re even picketing alongside the ZRC.
We always enjoy that.
Maybe some day we’ll get a poster to celebrate the contributions of Zombies to society, instead of inflaming tensions against them.