On Zombies and Vampires

In the last decade of the previous century and first decade of this one, everything was vampires. Actually, if I was going to place a firm date at the start of the recent vampire resurgence, I would say it was the release of Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). After that came the Blade trilogy (all very good), various and sundry television shows, and the delightfully unreadable Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. The books and movies earned $170 million for Meyer and she deserves every penny. G*d they are awful.

Somewhere in the last five years a major change happened. After nearly two decades of Vampires, suddenly everything was Zombies. Zombie movies (my favourite is Zombieland by Reuben Fleischer from 2009), zombie television shows (The Walking Dead obviously the best of the bunch), zombie preparedness kits, a Center for Disease Control report, and a zombie proof house.

We are careful with our fears. They are important to us. A major change like this, from one focus to another, means something. To explain why this change happened we need to understand what we were, and are, afraid of.

Vampires have always been a symbol of sexuality, or our fears about sexuality. So maybe we shouldn't be surprised the vampire re-emerged as a cultural fixture at precisely that time we, as a society (particularly the youth) were being taught to fear sex like never before. AIDS was in the news, in tv show plots, in movies, in the classroom, it was everywhere. G*ds punishment for our immorality (or a CIA plot to kill African Americans, if you believe the rantings of the lovably insane Bill Cosby). Sex was no longer something to fear because of social stigma - it could kill you.

In Coppola's Dracula the eponymous villain is a self-admitted monster but the most obvious link between vampirism and the new fear of sex is Dracula's refusal to bite the nearly-naked Winona Ryder. He refuses to "condemn her" to his world. In a movie otherwise drenched with sexual images and symbols, this is a strangely puritanical moment. Still, the connection between sex and death is consistent.

In the Blade movies we are introduced to a vampire who doesn't feed on humans. A chaste vampire. A virgin vampire. He still looks cool and murders people in appropriately graphic ways, but he is removed from the sexual connection between blood and sex. His only friend is an old man. His foe is a handsome (but presumably straight) young man. The two women in the film are a scientist who facilitates Blade's refusal to feed and Blade's mother. This is how the film handles the sexual nature of vampires - thru the interjection of a mother who has remained young and nubile. Instead of fear of AIDS we get the more ancient fear of incest. In Blade 2 the hero falls in love with another vampire (closing off any fear of infection) but she dies before their relation is consummated.

The Twilight series is completely without sexual tension or imagery. The characters are all beautiful and completely asexual. Until they are legally married. Then they are completely monogamous. The books add a new element to vampire mythology - the "mate for life" rule. They are also useful members of society, good neighbors, and generally amiable people. Except the Italians.

This is a sketch of a progression. Obviously there are deviations from this movement towards a friendly, neutered monster. Brian Bendis's Thirty Days of Night, for example, also removes the sexual aspect from vampires but replaces it with even more killing fury. 

And I wouldn't claim AIDS (and AIDS awareness) was the only reason for the evolution. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was an early precursor of Twilight's non-sexual monsters. Although Buffy was deeply in love with a vampire, the story was more concerned with traditional teenage sexual angst than fear of AIDS or more deep-seated fears of our own sexuality. Of course, the introduction of the vampire Spike took the show in a different direction - more comical and philosophical at the same time. This is an aside to the current argument but Spike was what made BtVS a truly great tv show.

By the time Twilight had finished its epochal run and K.Stew and Patts were (some) household names, vampire stories had become uncool. The hook was too obvious. Who wouldn't want to be rich, young, and beautiful forever? There was no down-side and so no drama. But that doesn't mean the switch from vampires to zombies was necessary or obvious. I would argue Twilight was more responsible for the shift than any other franchise. From rich, young, beautiful and omnipotent to dead, disgusting, and contagious - the zombie was the perfect monster to replace Twilight's teen-idols.

Vampires equal sex. This has been a staple of our culture for a long time. But what do zombies equal? I don't think they represent anything, certainly not in the obvious and fairly literal way vampires do. Zombies are stripped of qualities, they have only one function (eating flesh) and so cannot be analyzed as agents unto themselves. They function either as a metaphor for society or the cause of its overthrow and possibly both. Still, the question remains: Why are zombies so damned popular?

I used to think it was a metaphor for lack of political agency. Zombies cannot be reasoned with. They cannot even communicate. To me, this seemed like a perfect metaphor for the society in which we live - the most dominant fact about our social existence is that we are at the mercy of powers we cannot exercise any influence over or even communicate with. This was largely a Marxist reading of zombies (never thought I'd write that sentence). The zombie plague was capitalism in its current form, destroying everything it touched and leaving the survivors alone and fearful, scrounging a living from whatever was left behind. I now think this reading, while still possible, lacks nuance.

The most potent moment in any zombie film (tv show, comic book, etc) is when a character close to the hero (heroes) becomes a zombie. That moment of turning, when something previously familiar or even essential to the heroes understanding of the world and his/her place in it becomes the Other, is where the drama (and the terror) of zombie fiction resides. Zombie fiction is ultimately about social isolation, whether the cause is seen as capitalism, politics, urban planning, whatever.

Of course, zombie fiction also contains a powerful release. Instead of dreaming about becoming the monster (as is the case with vampire fiction) we gain power and freedom by remaining precisely who we are - provided we also have a lot of guns. The scene from The Simpson's is telling here:
Bart: Dad! You just killed zombie Flanders!
Homer: He was a zombie?

In zombie fiction our hopelessness and helplessness is never relieved. We do not change. Our circumstance becomes much clearer. Is that the asshole who insulted me yesterday? becomes Zombie! We don't suffer any extra burdens, at least not as viewers. Most of us are as afraid every day as the heroes of zombie fiction. But, unlike them, we possess no clear way of responding to our fear. We cannot understand our fear or isolation. And, as Hannah Arendt writes, "Suffering without meaning is intolerable."