Girl zombies, hotter than evs...

Girrrrrl zombie's night out.

I'd been thinking of zombies as being a semi-equal opportunity horror-fest, although probably lower on female participation than male. Some of that assumption reflects my bias. Since zombies-in-general look like hell on a cracker, I thought most females would recoil at the necessary slob-out of zombiedom. That's what I believed until I dipped into the Internet. Doing a Google on the phrase, "girl zombies" brought up a wealth of female longing and participation. Some of this is attributable to the female celebrity scriptwriter Diablo Cody's likely production of Breathers: A Zombie's Lament. Then, through www.evilontwolegs.com, I discovered that at one horrorific get-together, being a female zombie was the most popular costume choice, hands down.

Given the moldy look of most female zombies (except for Japanese zombies, see yesterday's post): flesh falling off, fucked-up hair, blood-drool on the chin, and hideous clothes, my knee-jerk reaction had been, Not in a million years. But actually, this is exactly what's attractive to many young women today, especially those who feel oppressed by having to shave above the knee, wearing a faceful of makeup, and the whole blow dryer thing.

Along my bumpy path of zombie research, I came upon the promising post: Zombies Ate My Brain from the blog Tales of An Ordinary Girl, which I highly recommend, in which the poster wakes up from a nap to overhear a conversation between her husband and sister-in-law. As she listens, it becomes clear that her sis-in-law believes zombies are real and is fretting about them. Her husband is far more patient than I would be, and points out that basing your assumptions on Dawn of the Dead doesn't make you the brightest bulb in the tanning bed. But the poster points out that she herself grew up in a Pentacostal household and believed in all manner of spirits and witches.

It got me to remembering a point I made early on in this blog. I wrote that down the road, Evangelicals would come to love them some zombies. If they were hot for rights of the unborn, they'd be maniacal about full-citizenship for the undead.

Seemed like a winner to me.

I wonder why no one ever commented.

Japanese zombies...

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This is not really the topic of this post, although for you zombie fans out there, I will certainly acknowledge the very real cultural contributions of the Japanese undead. Actually, I had just read an article in Slate this morning about RapeLay, a violent interactive rape simulation game from Japan. This got me thinking about Japanese teen fashions which, a couple of months ago, including the fashion-fad of dressing-up like you'd just been beat to shit: purple bruises, bulky casts, and artfully wound bandages. At this point my topic rapidly cycled into Why Are The Japanese So Nuts?

For that, I have a fairly speedy answer. The Japanese are nuts because, by necessity (eg. centuries old civilization, little-bitty island, few natural resources), they have an extremely rigid society. The more rigid the society, the more violent the porn. The End. All that is true, but hardly the stuff of a good chewy post, especially after discovering there is a US availability of RapeLay, and that knowledge is currently radiating in my brain like an exploded dirty bomb.

With a lot of throat-clearing, all manner of US venues are banning the game, but a fast 30 seconds on Google will uncover a fully functional copy you can download, creepily promising "hours of fun!". The Slate reviewer reports it's more like hours of depression, contemplating that special basement where true scum suckers live. Like a lot of Japanese bad-ideas, RapeLay is aestheticized so that its true yuckiness lives below a scrim of improbabilities. For example, once you've cornered your fair lady, a make-out session ensues and, after a yes-I-will-no-I-won't kind of struggle, the deed is done. And wuddya know. She likes it! Just like all rape victims really do. RapeLay is fodder for a lot of ire and ire a-plenty has already been expressed on the Jezebel and Shakesville websites. Me, I'm holding off on my own molten ire in order to hop on Japanese zombies.

Actually, the more I get into zombies, the more of a pounding I can expect from true zombie fans. Since I don't enjoy seeing the undead eat the living, my zombie-knowledge is woeful. In digging around, I discovered that some zombie lovers have created an artistic hierachy for zombie judging. There are those who believe that black zombies are the true undead creme, and they have their reasons. Zombies originate in Haiti, home of mixed races, and besides, there was that guy in Night of the Living Dead who was black, and Night of the Living Dead is the gold standard of zombie movies. However, an angry poster on a zombie website, like UnDead BackBrain, pointed out that the black guy in Living Dead wasn't a zombie at all. The first poster fired back, so what? He was the coolest guy in the movie. At which point I baled.

Supposedly the best Japanese zombie movie is one called Junk. I don't know. I've only examined a bunch of stills from few undead flicks. Checking those out, I conclude that Japanese zombies appear well-groomed, neatly often fashionably dressed, with really excellent makeup, which makes them scarier in a way. You're unlikely to know who's really a zombie unless you spot one squatting on a subway platform, munching up a commuter. Here at least, they demonstrate one universal quality of zombies: making pigs of themselves. After gobbling up one of the unfortunate, the Japanese undead have whole rivers of brilliant red blood coursing down their chins, which they leave in place (see illus. above). Actually, I consider this a weak point, horror-wise.

I'm a great fan of the straight vanilla Japanese horror movie. My quibble with them, however, is their buckets-o-blood syndrome. It's always too bright, too glittery, too much of it. But that's just my cultural bias.

We Americans like our virtual blood to look realistic.

I'm not sure why.

Zombies or vampires?......

I have to give a lot of credit to my readers, who are an uber-thoughtful bunch and inclined to mull over the deeper issues at some length. In my initial post on zombies versus vampires, I was persuaded towards vampires simply because of personal hygiene issues...superficialities in other words. Embarrassingly, I became fixated on how male vampires get to wear shirts with puffy sleeves, have long yet clean super-black hair, a preference for tight britches, and they rarely climb out of the coffin in saggy underpants and a lot of stubble. Female vampires get to sex it up with tight bodices, beaucoup cleavage, big black hair and, in more modern times, a nod towards S&M leather.

Yet a reader says in a well-reasoned Comment:

"Tough call, but I have to vote for zombies.

Don't get me wrong. Vampires are interesting. But I think there've been too many changes to the vampire concept in the last 20-30 years. It seems like the core vampire rules have been abandoned. One of the best-selling vampire books in recent memory features vampires who sparkle in the sunlight? Puh-leeze.

But zombies are (mostly) still mindless killing machines. The details have altered somewhat, but at heart they're still similar to the zombies of yesteryear."

And I have to say, on further reflection, he's right. The classical vampire of the snaggly Nosferatu type is no more. Overlooking the standard '50's I Was A Teenage Vampire (Wolfman, Werewolf, Blob etc.), probably the first important historical break with the accepted vampire-genre came with the movie, Near Dark, made in 1986, which postulated a bunch of white-trash vampire no goodniks, who rolled around the country in a dented Bondo-body van. At the time, a reviewer billed it as the first "...vampire hill-billy film", which brings to mind MA and Pa Kettle vampires and misses the point. It's really the legacy of Near Dark that informs the HBO series True Blood, although the True Blood vampires look like the League of Women Voters in comparison to the Near Dark skanks.

Zombies, on the other hand, are remarkably and classically unchanged. In fact, a very partial list of zombie movies gives you a quick sense of the remorseless unchangeablity of zombies and their goals.

Zombie 4: After Death, 1988
Zombie 90: Extreme Pestilence, 1991
The Zombie Army, 1991
Zombie Creeping Flesh, 1981
Zombie Cop, 1991
Zombie Holocaust, 1979
Zombie Island Massacre, 1984
Zombie Lake, 1984
Zombie Nightmare, 1986
Zombies of Mora Tau, 1957
Zombies of the Stratosphere, 1952
Zombies on Broadway, 1945
Zombie Rampage, 1992
Zombiethon, 1986

Zombies, in a real sense, are democracy in action. By the end of the film, they're all still together as a group (those who haven't had charcoal-starter squirted on them and set afire), gnawing on someone's leg, with no higher aspirations. Although they seem to get around a lot (to lakes, Mora Tau, Broadway, islands, nightmares, army posts etc.), travel doesn't appear to broaden them. Once there, whatever their destination, it's the same damned program: grab a human, tear his head off and gobble up his brains.

The whole business of zombie vs. vampire is, I see, a replay of that aesthetic argument between the post-modern and classical virtues.

But which is better?

Are you going for results or looks?

Zombies are the new vampires...

I CAN HAZ ZOMBIE?

Today, there's so much news of a certain kind that it's hard to understand how the human race has been saved from extinction. This heaving plethora of Bad Ideas has made me wonder if only a tiny minority of people have rotten ideas but a lot of flashy publicity, or if a great number of us are lumbering around harboring disastrous thoughts, but keeping our sucky notions to ourselves. And what saves us? Are there just a few smart people in the avant garde who warn us not to have sex with couches ? (...about which, more later.) Or does the phenomenon of the great hive brain take over, suggesting en mass that we not make a raincoat from our own hair? Make A-list movies starring zombies? Have sex with a church banister?

Greater minds than mine are surely on this. At least I hope so.

Today I read that no less a publication than Time magazine is declaring that our love of vampires is so last year. Zombies are the new biggie. Diablo Cody, she of Juno scriptwriting fame, is hard at work on a zombie flick, so that settles it. My husband and I had an intense discussion and agreed that Diablo Cody is full of shit, as is anyone who'd switch from vampire love to the undead. For one thing, my hub and I noted, zombies can't carry a picture. Hell, they can't even play second bananas. The best you can hope from zombies is background. As a group, they can stagger through New York City, ripping the arms off passers-by and gnawing entrails on the sidewalks, but that's about it. Plus, they have no fashion sense, chunks of them are always dropping off, and they smell godawful. Whereas vampires generally look pretty terrific, if you don't mind that deathly bluish-pale skin. They wear great clothes, can fly through the air, nibble on hot-looking humans and live forever. What's not to like?

Purusing my news sources, I've also come across an account of a Romanian woman who has woven an entire wardrobe from her own hair. She notes proudly, “I have nine items – a hat, a shawl, a skirt, a blouse, a raincoat, a purse, a handbag and a pair of gloves." She went on to say, "I did this because I wanted to show how practical human hair is. The clothes are warm and comfortable – and the materials are free.” She's right as far as she goes, but I think she's a little disingenuous in overlooking the yuck factor.

Marching on, last I came across a sexual preference I hadn't known anything about. Not that I'm a drooling libertine, but I fancy I'm as worldly as the next, however I'd never run across objectum sexuality. OS people, as they prefer to be called, are not in least attracted to people, squirrels, or blow-up dolls. Rather, they fall in love with fences, couches and roller-coasters and feel that the object of their desire reciprocates through telepathic communication. The only real difference between male and female OSers, is that men mostly want to have sex with their La-Z-Boy recliner, whereas the women want to marry it.

So what's your preference today? Zombies or vampires?

Or that sexy microwave oven?