Posted By John Sears on October 9, 2011

I really don’t know what to say; this development has left me almost speechless:

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas emergency management officials are urging residents to prepare for an invasion of zombies as part of a national disaster readiness campaign.

…

The Kansas Division of Emergency Management says if people are prepared for zombie attacks, they’re ready for anything.

Several Topeka events are scheduled as part of the awareness effort, including an information booth Saturday, Trunk or Treat on Oct. 27, and a Spooktacular Safety Fair and Zombie Preparedness Day on Oct. 29 in downtown Topeka.

I…

I…

Wow. This is a new low for Zombie-Living relations in America, and it’s all thanks to Kansas, a state apparently without any sense of decency, following in the shameful footsteps of the CDC, attempting to leverage Anti-Zombie hatred for, what?

Getting people to stockpile some bottled water in their houses? Knowing where the fire extinguishers are?

Good grief.

I didn’t want to believe it was true, but.. it is. Kansas has officially decided to lead the angry, ignorant, torch-wielding mobs of our day against their own Differently Animated fellow Americans.

They even have a coloring contest to ensnare the kids.

I’m not joking.(PDF link)

The ZRC will be working in the coming days to try and address this savage injustice being perpetrated by the government of the state of Kansas. We will seek an official response and apology from Kansas’ government as well.

Stay tuned to the ZRC blog for updates.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Public Event, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on October 8, 2011

Really? This was necessary?

Atlanta, Ga – October 1, 2011 – After the smashing success of its first year, the massive Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse attraction has returned for the 2011 Halloween season.

Patrons are treated to 100,000 square feet of zombie madness as they navigate through abandoned hotels, office buildings, a post-apocalyptic village and more

…

You are thrown into a story line and left to survive the onslaught of countless zombies, fascist militants, and the maddened survivors of the apocalypse.

Yes, it’s another ‘onslaught’ of the Differently Animated, here to demand your delicious flesh and not, say, the right to vote in elections or the right not to be rounded up and shot in the back of a truck by some rapidly-deputized yokel.

Brother. Stereotype much?

Naturally, they have a fearmongering website and even a trailer for their, ahem, ‘attraction’:

Is Georgia just awash in Anti-Zombie spectacle due to The Walking Dead, or does this reflect deeper societal tensions? Inquiring minds want to know.

In the meantime I guess Atlanta doesn’t want any Zombie tourist dollars. Fine. We can take a hint.

*cough*bigotry*cough*

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Public Event

Posted By John Sears on October 7, 2011

Sometimes I talk about how, increasingly, ZRC work pops up in the course of everyday activities. Part of this is no doubt the current ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ fear/fad being peddled by your Robert Kirkmans and Max Brookses of the world, sure. And in October, surely some of it is just seasonal. At any rate, it really is astonishing.

Case in point. The other night I went out to get a pizza for dinner and saw… this:

Now, I get that traditionally the Undead fellow from Shelley’s book is traditionally referred to as Frankenstein’s ‘Monster’ and that these days being labeled a Monster isn’t always a roadblock to acceptance (Witness the Cookie Monster) but still. Words can hurt, Glass Nickel Pizza! (Specifically, this one)

Clearly we need to purchase, and review, this Undead-adjacent food item at once. I think we’ll do that tonight and get back to our readers. Will this pizza be a testament to the resiliency and versatility of the Differently Animated, or will it be some foul abomination from the pizza oven of the damned?

Yeah, see, even I’m getting into this October spirit thing now.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Zombie Products

Posted By John Sears on October 7, 2011

For those who do not know, World Zombie Day is an annual event to coordinate Zombie Walks and similar events to collect food for the needy, and this year’s WZD is tomorrow:

World Zombie Day, a day when all fans of zombie culture can join together in an international effort to alleviate world hunger. At all World Zombie Day zombie walks, participating living dead are encouraged to bring a non-perishable food item donations for local food banks.

Now, the ZRC is not sure about the ‘living dead’ moniker, and some of the ‘Zombie Rules of Conduct’ for WZD are, quite frankly, a bit demeaning and accusatory to the Differently Animated. Nevertheless, on the whole we have to support such a civic-minded attempt to change the public perception of Zombies from ‘ravenous brain eaters’ to ‘Undead friends helping out during hard times.’

That would be a substantial improvement.

So check out the list of cities participating in WZD and consider hitting up an event in your area!

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Social Justice, Zombie Public Event, Zombies Doing Good

Posted By John Sears on October 7, 2011

We’re all for education about the history of Anti-Zombie media here at the ZRC, but it can all too easily cross the line into scaremongering or glorification of Anti-Zombie violence, and I think the folks at SFX have easily vaulted over that line:

Like zombies? Then you’ll love our latest one-off special issue! Zombies: The Ultimate Guide is a 132-page magazine dedicated to all things undead.

The mag comes packaged with three great free gifts:

* A gruesome zombie face key-topper

* A warning sign sticker to slap on your door (perfect for fending off unwelcome salesmen…)

* A double-sided A1 poster. This has Walking Dead art by Drew Struzan on one side, and a specially commissioned “wartime propaganda poster” image on the reverse.

Uh-oh.. that sounds bad.

So I went to the actual SFX site and found out this magazine is LOADED with all sorts of Anti-Zombie propaganda, including interviews with Max Brooks, John Russo and Robert Kirkman… but not a peep from anyone in the Zombie Rights Movement.

J’accuse!

And just take a gander at that self-described propaganda poster!!

I think that settles it. The Zombie Rights Campaign can safely declare that this ‘Ultimate Guide’ is in fact a work of vile Living Supremacist hatred.

Shame on you SFX!

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Journamalism, ZRC Reviews

Posted By John Sears on October 7, 2011

Really, I think we all know where Zack Snyder stands on Zombie Rights, given his helming of the incredibly odious, gun-fetishizing ‘Dawn of the Dead’ remake, but apparently that wasn’t enough degradation to pile on the Differently Animated community, and he has more cinematic evil waiting to be inflicted on the public:

How will this undead feature stand out among the recent crowd of undead films? With bizarre zombie rape scenes.

…

“There’s an extra dimension to this zombie film, because they…. they…. I’m still wondering if I should tell this…. the male zombies rape human females. Yes. And they have human hybrid zombie offsprings. It’s a new take on the zombie genre, which is crazy.”

Yes, Zack Snyder decided that, being at the bottom of a black pit of hate, the logical response was to grab a shovel and start digging further.

It hardly needs to be said that the pervasive fear of oppressed minority groups often manifests in bizarre paranoia that They, the Other, will barge into your homes and steal your female relatives for violation. This is a very common, ugly and recurring trope in American history.

But Snyder thinks it would make for a catchy plot angle in a movie.

Ugghhhhh…

For shame. Just… for shame.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Movies, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on October 6, 2011

I mentioned this on Twitter, but last week we were taking the art director’s family around town on a totally non-ZRC, non-Zombie Rights related outing (to the extent I can ever stop thinking about it anyway) and saw this:

Wow! Zombie-related theatre right here in town for me to review.

And yet, of course, it means that even if I try to take a day off from The Movement, The Movement will find me anyway.

Is that a good thing… or a great thing?

Bonus: this could be a VERY exciting and promising play:

Long kept a secret from the rest of the world, all that separates Zombies from the living is a little thing called death. In Z-Town, Zombies of all ages laugh, cry, sing, dance, love, and hate in a place where “living” is a dirty word and a neighboring town’s suspicions carry the threat of violence. When one high-minded Zombie invites an unsuspecting family of tasty Breathers to town, will the undead find the rest they’ve been denied? Or have these Zombies bitten off more than they can chew?

I’m really, really excited about this one now. We’re going to try and check it out this weekend for the ZRC!

Category: Zombie Media | 2 Comments »
Tags: Zombie Theatre

Posted By John Sears on October 6, 2011

Oh how I wish I didn’t have to read about so many Anti-Zombie spectacles:

A family dressed all in purple, likely arriving from the football game, parked their car in Aggieville on Friday. They opened the doors to get out, chatting with one another, when suddenly Roger Adams, curator of Special Collections and associate professor, rushed up to them waving a cane over his head, blood on his shirt.

“Get back in the car,” Adams yelled at them. “They’re coming!”

Yes, Kansas State apparently held a Zombie Walk to promote, err, misunderstanding and fear and prejudice. Attacking cars, classic stereotyping, the works.

And yet they tied it to a charity fundraiser so I cannot completely condemn it either:

An hour and a half earlier, the participants had met on the west side of City Park to collect canned goods for the Flint Hills Breadbasket and put on makeup to prepare for the Zombie Walk. Maribeth Kieffer, executive director of the Breadbasket, stood off to the side and watched as the crowd grew larger and more horrifying while they collected donations.

“We need it,” Kieffer said with a shrug. The Breadbasket has seen a surge in demand this year, servicing 1,039 more people in August of this year than in August of 2010. Kieffer said illness and loss of jobs were the most common reasons why people came to the Breadbasket for help. The Aggieville Zombie Walk presented her with four large boxes full of food collected. There were no brains in the donation boxes — those were saved for the horde.

Really, Kansas State? You couldn’t collect canned goods without stereotyping our clients? Would that have been so hard?

Argh.

No, that’s not a ‘groan like a Zombie’ argh either, KSU. It’s just an ‘exasperated activist’ groan.

Next year maybe you can leave the hatemongering at home and just do good without spreading fear of the Differently Animated? Maybe?

It’d make things a lot easier for some very decent people who just happen to be Undead. Thanks.

PS: Enough with comparing the Differently Animated to some natural disaster, people:

Dave and Joy-Lynn Carlson, Manhattan residents, heard about the Aggieville Zombie Walk from one of the organizers. The Carlsons are members of a charity preparedness organization called Zombie Squad, which uses zombies as a fun metaphor to encourage people to prepare for disasters. Subsequently, they decided to dress as survivors for the Zombie Walk.

“We are the premier non-stationary cadaver task force,” Dave Carlson said. “That means they get up and start moving again, we make them deader.”

Dave’s advice to fellow survivors was to stock up on Twinkees.

“In my opinion, they’re better than Spam,” he said.

‘Make them deader’? So, ‘Zombie Squad’ is some sort of Anti-Zombie terrorist cell that assaults the Differently Animated?

Wow. There are some dangerous nuts out there. Dangerous and violent, for shame.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Public Event, Journamalism

Posted By John Sears on October 5, 2011

Well, I suppose this was inevitable:

There’s just something sticky and icky about Lucio Fulci’s 1981 gorefest in Zombie, which is loosely a follow-up to the events in Dawn of the Dead. The gore is outrageous. The zombies are nasty decaying corpses. The women have nice boobs and big bushes, and of course: there’s a sequence that pits a zombie against a shark!

And, finally, Blue Underground is bringing this bad mama-jama to HD for the first time ever on October 25th.

Yes, ‘Zombie’ is one of the most infamous movies in all of Anti-Zombie film history. Personally I find Fulci a bit hard to watch even aside from the Anti-Zom prejudice, but I’ll probably have to pick the ZRC up a copy of ‘Zombie’ on Blu-Ray for the old film archive and do a proper review of this new, and no doubt heinous, edition of the prejudiced film ‘classic’.

We have to understand our foe in order to defeat them in the marketplace of ideas, after all.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Euro-zom, Movies

Posted By John Sears on October 4, 2011

Naturally we here at the ZRC are in favor of Zombies protesting publicly, and even offer qualified support to the Living who wish to dress up as Zombies and protest in public.

However, when Living people slap on makeup and shamble around to intentionally mime the worst and ugliest stereotypes about the Differently Animated, that’s wrong. It’s also what we in the movement call ‘Greenface’.

Here’s an unfortunate example:

So, what in the world do zombies have to do with the protests against Wall Street?

It’s simple, really: The protesters are portraying the financial fat cats as money-eating, corporate zombies. Here’s one protester explaining the clever representation:

The zombie is a metaphor and symbol of corporate greed … Let’s just do our best to embody zombie-ism … get into the whole ‘Uggghhh, moneeeey!’ thing, you know?

This is highly offensive, not to mention perplexing; Zombies aren’t exactly known for their profligate ways, expensive dress and Gilded Age mentality. In fact, Zombie hordes tend to be extremely egalitarian gatherings, both in real life and in fiction.

So what, precisely, are these people on about?

I really have no idea, but strongly suspect this is another case of lazy mental shorthand, ‘Bad things = Zombie’, fostered and encouraged by our irresponsible Mainstream press.

Instead of shameful and quite frankly embarrassing examples of casual Living Supremacism like these protesters demonstrated, we need more highly visible, peaceful and Zombie Friendly protests, much like the Madison Zombie Walk we had in the spring which the ZRC documented at the time on the blog.

For now we’ll have to stay hard at work educating would-be Zombie marchers about the plight of the Differently Animated, and the need to be respectful of Zombies and Zombie Culture. It’s what we do.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Public Event, Don't Use the Zed Word, Greenface, Journamalism, Mainstream Media