I have this strange fascination, several actually, but particularly stranger than the rest of my other random shizms (I make up words too apparently).
I absolutely love zombies.
You know, the walking dead, living dead, rising dead; those slow-moving, human-eating, apocalyptic creatures that only truly die if a specific part of their brain (specifically medulla?) is destroyed.
For someone who is a total scaredy-cat (I can't go to the bathroom alone in the middle of the night), and the mere fact that I'm a girly-girl, I have often found myself having to justify this fascination, not just to curious friends but to myself as well -- what motivates me to download ~50GB of zombie movies, occasionally plop down to collect and read zombie fiction, and look for good-enough zombie games (it stops there, I do not collect zombie paraphernalia thank you very much!).
And I find that what interests me the most about these literally disgusting creatures, is the humanity associated with them. I am particularly interested with how the humans (not just the lead characters BTW) deal with the zombie apocalyptic situation -- it has all the ingredients for a good reflection; philosophy, theology, stupidity, romance, reality and absurdity(?). Coincidentally, these are the ingredients to make some of the most interesting conversations I've ever had. Most of them with my sister, who shares most of my time and my interests, and with a few friends who don't find it corny, boring or dumb to just sit and talk for hours on end.
Let me share specifics to make more sense (but not too much or else I'll have nothing else to talk about when I talk to you!). At the start of an outbreak, its interesting to see how preoccupied humanity is with their own lives that they aren't able to recognize the obvious threat immediately until it is too late to control it. Zombie movies often have individual characters find each other to form a larger group that the story would revolve around -- and these groups are little reflections of human society. It's through these characters that you see human behavior. It's interesting to see the writers' different takes on what we would do, if such a situation would happen. The struggle to continue living a "human life", more than just surviving enough to repopulate the planet, interests me. Especially when thrown in with the idea that the "safe zone" that they were all working towards, their source of hope and reason to keep on going, is actually already infiltrated with zombies -- what then? will humanity lose hope? turn to god? or kill themselves? And ofcourse, the classic decision to kill your lover/sister/father/daughter if you find out that he/she had been bitten and had hidden it from the group which leads to the bigger issue of outweighing the needs/worth of one member of the group with that of the larger group. In the end, someone survives through it all, the hopelessness that comes with the option of "choosing to go in my own way" never prevails, and that gives me hope (and thus, my feel-good-less-stress feeling after every zombie movie).
So, zombies = humanity for me. haha Sure, I can love the gore, the blood, the violence too -- which is one of the biggest criteria for most "top zombie movies" bloggers. But zombies can be so much more! :)
BTW, this little post was inspired by the start of Walking Dead's Season 2 (check it out!) and the discovery of a new Zombie friend NOT because I'm procrastinating.
I absolutely love zombies.
You know, the walking dead, living dead, rising dead; those slow-moving, human-eating, apocalyptic creatures that only truly die if a specific part of their brain (specifically medulla?) is destroyed.
For someone who is a total scaredy-cat (I can't go to the bathroom alone in the middle of the night), and the mere fact that I'm a girly-girl, I have often found myself having to justify this fascination, not just to curious friends but to myself as well -- what motivates me to download ~50GB of zombie movies, occasionally plop down to collect and read zombie fiction, and look for good-enough zombie games (it stops there, I do not collect zombie paraphernalia thank you very much!).
And I find that what interests me the most about these literally disgusting creatures, is the humanity associated with them. I am particularly interested with how the humans (not just the lead characters BTW) deal with the zombie apocalyptic situation -- it has all the ingredients for a good reflection; philosophy, theology, stupidity, romance, reality and absurdity(?). Coincidentally, these are the ingredients to make some of the most interesting conversations I've ever had. Most of them with my sister, who shares most of my time and my interests, and with a few friends who don't find it corny, boring or dumb to just sit and talk for hours on end.
Let me share specifics to make more sense (but not too much or else I'll have nothing else to talk about when I talk to you!). At the start of an outbreak, its interesting to see how preoccupied humanity is with their own lives that they aren't able to recognize the obvious threat immediately until it is too late to control it. Zombie movies often have individual characters find each other to form a larger group that the story would revolve around -- and these groups are little reflections of human society. It's through these characters that you see human behavior. It's interesting to see the writers' different takes on what we would do, if such a situation would happen. The struggle to continue living a "human life", more than just surviving enough to repopulate the planet, interests me. Especially when thrown in with the idea that the "safe zone" that they were all working towards, their source of hope and reason to keep on going, is actually already infiltrated with zombies -- what then? will humanity lose hope? turn to god? or kill themselves? And ofcourse, the classic decision to kill your lover/sister/father/daughter if you find out that he/she had been bitten and had hidden it from the group which leads to the bigger issue of outweighing the needs/worth of one member of the group with that of the larger group. In the end, someone survives through it all, the hopelessness that comes with the option of "choosing to go in my own way" never prevails, and that gives me hope (and thus, my feel-good-less-stress feeling after every zombie movie).
So, zombies = humanity for me. haha Sure, I can love the gore, the blood, the violence too -- which is one of the biggest criteria for most "top zombie movies" bloggers. But zombies can be so much more! :)
BTW, this little post was inspired by the start of Walking Dead's Season 2 (check it out!) and the discovery of a new Zombie friend NOT because I'm procrastinating.
booooyaaah! :D kudos!
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