TheoFantastique: Kevin, thank you for helping me secure a copy of your book, and for your willingness to be interviewed to discuss it. Given your background in theater, how did you come to develop both a personal and academic interest in zombies?

Kevin Wetmore: Actually, the interest in horror was probably there first. I am an actor and director and academic by training and inclination, but have been a horror fan since I can remember. I had always loved Romero’s films – I remember seeing the commercials for Dawn of the Dead on TV back in 1978, when I was 9 and being both frightened by the images and drawn to them. I asked my parents to take me, but wisely they did not. I eventually saw it as a teenager and have seen all the films since perhaps hundreds of times. I moved to Pittsburgh to attend the University of Pittsburgh for a Ph.D. in Theatre, and Pittsburgh is America’s zombie capital. I talk in the book about moving there the same weekend as the 25th anniversary of Night convention and going to that instead of unpacking. I am also part of a generation of fanboy academics. We would be reading theory and critical analysis in grad school and then go home and watch movies or TV and see the same cultural patterns. While I was doing research on African and Japanese theatre, my present to myself was to write a book about Star Wars (The Empire Triumphant) that took a postcolonial approach to the depictions of religion and race in those films. I have also been fortunate enough as an actor living in Los Angeles to appear in several horror b-movies, so I have been a zombie myself and eaten by zombies (and a werewolf, and a serial killer). So all parts of my life: academic, artist, horror fan have kind of blended together.

TheoFantastique: In your book you look at Romero’s zombie films, and various remakes or films influenced by his zombie narratives, and you approach them from the perspective of cultural sociophobics. Can you define that, and explain why this perspective helps us understand important dimension of these films and the times in which they were produced?

Kevin Wetmore: Films don’t mean – they generate meaning. You watch, not as some personality-less, history-less witness, but as someone who brings your own stuff to the story. Sociophobics looks at the fears not of the individual but of society as a whole – what scares us collectively? What are we as a nation or even as a species worried about. So you have a number of films in the late Sixties and early Seventies, such as NOTLD that on the surface are simple drive-in horror films but which contain subtext about the Vietnam War or the civil rights movement. And it doesn’t matter what the filmmakers intended, because we are shaped by our culture and times whether we are aware of it or not. So, for example, at a time of economic crisis and concern about the consumer culture, Romero gave us the original Dawn. Seven years later, under Reagan, Day showed an out of control military exploiting amoral scientists. But the 2004 Dawn reflects the realities of a post-9/11 culture: one in which people do not really connect with one another and in which we fear that our neighbors or even friends and family may turn out to be a monster trying to convert us to their way of life.

TheoFantastique: How have sociophobocs changed from 1968 with the original Night of the Living Dead, to our postmodern and post-9/11 period?

Kevin Wetmore: As the nation, society and culture change, so too does what frightens us. We can still watch the originals and they have something of the power to frighten, but they no longer speak with immediacy to our culture. To give but one example of difference. Both versions of Dawn feature humans trapped in a mall confronted by zombies. The original features slow zombies. The remake featured fast, running zombies. We can see this as a marker of the change in fear. 9/11 was fast, took us by surprise, and the threat was immediate. Films reflect the times and the people that made them. It is no coincidence that the Saw and Hostel films were made at a time when our nation was debating torture. It is no coincidence that films like Cloverfield and Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, which show monsters attacking buildings in New York came to prominence after 9/11. All horror, even crappy 2-AM-on-theSyFy-channel horror, reflects the fears of the culture that made it. The best horror films, in my humble opinion, function both as horror and as sociophobic marker. They stand the test of time because they scare us on a visceral level, not by yelling “boo” or showing gore but by filling us with dread. They allow us to view the things we fear from a distance and somehow contain the fear.

TheoFantastique: One of the interesting facets of this discussion comes up in light of your mention of audiences now being “active participants” in regards to these films. Now with participatory culture fans are involved in participation with the zombie and its sociophobics through websites, blogs, horror conventions, fan film creations, Zombie Walks and other things. How has this participatory aspect of fans helped shape the development of the “zombie canon” of films?

Kevin Wetmore: It’s interesting how the age of the zombie has arrived. I suspect we are seeing a few different phenomena here. First is that the zombie is a monster for all milieu. You can put it anywhere and you can have it while anything is going on. Vampires and werewolves tend to dominate their narratives and must be fought. Zombies are just there and you can do anything with them. This flexibility also means that we can use the zombie to express any fear: of the masses, of foreigners, of change, of religious people, of the young, of the old, and, of course, of the dead. The zombie is also a safe way to think about your own demise. Except for the goths, the truly morbid, and those who like to frighten their parents, few of us think about our own bodies after we die. The zombie gives us a way to live on, so to speak. The horror in zombie films is that once bitten or when one dies, one becomes a zombie, but is that really the worst thing ever? It becomes a form of wish fulfillment: do what you want, when you want, and the only way to cease existing is if you suffer a head injury. There is a freedom in being a zombie. You can disappear into the mob and you have no individual responsibility. There is also a power. Zombies are terrifying. If you are a zombie, others fear you and fear what you can do. Participatory zombie culture is also wish fulfillment on the other end. Last year for Halloween, I went to a “Zombie hunt” wherein one was given a gun that shot soft pellets and had to negotiate a maze set up in a warehouse and emerge on the other side without being caught by the zombies. The zombies wore goggles over their makeup and you could shoot them on sight, but only a head shot would cause the actor playing the zombie to lie down and let you pass. In other words, my friends and I paid for the privilege of running through a warehouse shooting “zombies” in the head without consequences. So all aspects of zombie participatory culture represent freedom and power: I can kill without consequence if I am living or if I am zombie. The participatory culture allows one to act out a part of these fantasies safely, and we see that then echoed in the films, it becomes a kind of loop. At the same time we see what Henry Jenkins calls “textual poaching” – fans take the zombie stories and make them their own, sometimes writing their own and sometimes living their own. It’s the exact same thing as a Star Trek convention. In the case of the zombies, the guy with the dull 9 to 5 job gets to be a monster or a monster slayer, in the case of Trek the same guy gets to be Commander Vertrox of the starship Verillion.

TheoFantastique: What has been the result of the shift of horror from an adult genre to youth culture in the depiction of zombies and their sociophobics?

Kevin Wetmore: Hmmm…I do not know if I agree entirely that there has been a shift. Horror in one sense has always been a part of youth culture since youth culture developed in the post-war years. The Fifties aimed horror at teens with cars and disposable income. Whereas Dracula and Frankenstein was aimed at adults or at least the whole family, I Was a Teenage Werewolf wears its target demographic on its titular sleeve. Likewise, Eighties slasher films were clearly aimed at the 14 to 30 demographic as well. The original Dawn was released unrated, so on those over 18 were technically allowed to see it, but the development of the home video market in the Eighties also rendered the MPAA ratings kind of moot. I would see twelve-year-olds renting The Exorcist and I Spit on Your Grave. Carol Clover (among others) pointed out that most horror films were, in fact, cautionary tales aimed at the young: if you smoke, drink, disobey authority and have sex, the monsters will kill you. So I actually see a shift back towards more adult or serious horror since 9/11. What we see happen now is a kind of bleak nihilism and a sense of helpless despair. I am thinking here of films like The Mist or The Strangers, but even the remake of Dawn ends with the implied deaths of all characters. In a sense, the original Night, with its bleak, ironic ending, paved the way for the current crop of films which end with the deaths of all the characters, often for stupid, avoidable reasons. That might also explain the current popularity of zombie culture: not that it has caught up with our culture but that our culture has finally caught up with it.

TheoFantastique: You refer to Romero’s zombie films as “apocalyptic and millennial.” What do you mean by this? And how did 9/11 and fears of religious fundamentalism impact this element of zombie films?

Kevin Wetmore: Yes, I think 9/11 certainly brought religion to the forefront in a number of ways, both the religious faith and culture of the terrorists and our own nation’s response to it. President Bush responded to 9/11 and framed the two wars in its wake in religious language, most obviously casting terrorists as “evil” and America as a force of goodness and Godliness in the world. So we fear religion and we fear those who give themselves wholly over to it, as there is no reasoning with someone who believes God himself wants them to kill you. There are two streams of horror that result from this. The first are films that present evil as real: the devil exists and he is out to get us. The second are films that show fundamentalists as being dangerous. The behind every deeply believing person is a sinister reality: witness The Last Exorcism, End of the Line, The Rite, and The Reaping. Either the devil is real and out to get us, or it does not matter as fundamentalists will actually do his work for him.

But there is also something of the apocalyptic in both the biblical sense and the popular sense both in American culture in general and in zombie films in particular. In the biblical sense, “apocalyptic” means “hidden things revealed,” but in the popular sense it is conflated with eschatological things: the end of the world. Zombies represent the end of the world. Romero shows the dead rising, outnumbering the living, and then eventually owning the world, transforming it in their image. The living have two choices: die in a way that one does not “come back” or become a zombie and perhaps kill those you love. Similarly to President Bush, Romero also frames his stories in religious language. There is a reason that the most famous line from the original Dawn, repeated by the same actor in a cameo in the remake is, “When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.” The language of Revelation is also very zombie-friendly. It speaks of the dead returning and rising and battles between good and evil. There is not that much difference between, say 28 Days Later and Left Behind. And there are even some apocalyptic Christian zombie stories out there, most notably Mark Roger’s The Dead. I also find it fascinating that the phrase “the Zombie apocalypse” has come into common usage. It conflates popular zombie narratives with the Christian idea of the end of the world and a battle between good and evil. It is a secular apocalypse, to be sure, but still, religion frames the idea of zombies.

TheoFantastique: In your discussion of Dawn of the Dead (2004) you conclude by stating, “The ending is emblematic of post-9/11 horror. It is bleak, nihilistic and offers little to no hope of survival.” You have a forthcoming book titled Post-911 Horror in American Cinema (Continuum). How do you see the current wave of zombie films, and with The Walking Dead perhaps television too, reflecting various aspects of post-9/11 horror?

Kevin Wetmore: There are several tropes, if you will, that have risen to prominence in the wake of 9/11 in horror cinema, many of which were present in zombie cinema before but which are now almost central. The first is the bleak ending. Let us compare Dawns. In the first, Fran and Peter get in the helicopter and escape. She is pregnant. They have nowhere to go, but some sense of hope or a future is implied. Four people reach the boat at the end of the remake, but if one continues to watch through the credits, we see the boat run out of fuel, we see them find a living head in a cooler and then we see them land on an island and get attacked by a horde of zombies. The camera then falls and a zombie falls in front of it. The implication being that hope is impossible. We see the tropes as well in Romero’s post-9/11 films. The pseudo-documentary has become a central subgenre in horror: Paranormal Activity, Apollo 18, Devil Inside, and Cloverfield, for example. Romero gives us Diary of the Dead, a pseudo-documentary that still contains his social commentary (the film students are more concerned about how many YouTube hits their footage gets than their friend who just died), but also reflects the mediated-yet-immediate experience of 9/11. For most of us, 9/11 was immediate but not experienced directly. We watched it happen on television in real time, and then repeated over and over and over again. This is what pseudo-documentaries do – give us the echo of the experience of 9/11.

Another trope that the zombie film has had all along, but which we have finally caught up with is the idea of a hostile world. As with ghosts in Pulse and vampires in Stakeland or 30 Days of Night, zombies have taken over “our” world and it is theirs now. If we are to remain safe, we must change how we live our lives and even curtail some of our freedoms and desires in order to remain alive, safe and ourselves. As I noted above when we discussed participatory culture, there is also an element of freedom from restraint that is reflected in post-9/11 horror. Zombies do not deserve mercy, the opportunity to surrender or the protection of the Geneva convention. “They” attacked “us” and cannot be reasoned with, therefore anything we do in response is not only justified but necessary. Fighting zombies allows us to justify the worst kinds of behavior. I am not suggesting it was necessary to read Osama bin Laden his rights, just that zombie cinema reflects a world in which we are fighting to win, but the old rules no longer apply.

Most of all, however, post-9/11 horror is bleak, nihilistic and hopeless. In slasher films, one dies because of what one has done: ignored one’s responsibilities or authority figures, engaged in immoral behavior such as premarital sex, or ignored the dangers of camping where a massacre occurred 25 years ago tonight. In post-9/11 horror, one dies not because of what one did but because of where one is. Perhaps the best example of this comes from The Strangers, in which Kristin asks, “Why are you doing this?” and one of the masked killers answers “Because you were home.” One dies not because of action but because of proximity. The terror attacks of 9/11 showed random, anonymous death killing thousands for no reason other than they were on the hijacked plane or they were in the targeted building. Shows like The Walking Dead demonstrate the same random, anonymous death. People die and/or become zombies for no real reason or justification. And that reflects the world we live in now, or at least the way it is perceived.

It’s their world now.

TheoFantastique: Kevin, again, thank you for your discussion of the book. I hope you can come back in the near future to discuss Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema.

Kevin Wetmore: I would be delighted to. Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss this book.

After revising my essay on the Zombie Walk phenomenon and Zombie Jesus for the forthcoming volume The Undead and Theology, I discovered Dead Meat Walking: A Documentary on Zombie Walks, currently in production and scheduled for release in the Fall of 2012. The web page has little other than the video and the following description.

A real-life zombie epidemic is spreading. Inspired by the increasing popularity of zombie movies and television shows, men, women and children from all walks of life use gruesome makeup and costumes to become a rotting mass of zombies moaning and staggering through city streets for Zombie Walks across the globe.

In Dead Meat Walking, filmmaker Omar J. Pineda takes to the streets to document the Zombie Walk experience, from the average, small town Zombie Walk to a big city Zombie Pub Crawl (complete with zombie burlesque show!). He examines the Zombie Walk phenomenon from its inception at small events that included only a handful of zombies to larger, record-breaking events with thousands of participants. The film follows organizers of zombie walks in several US cities who, in the age of Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, are able to spread the zombie plague at a record pace.

In one of the more interesting facets of his analysis, Wetmore considers the opening credit sequence of the film where a connection is made between zombies and terrorists. Witmore writes:

The opening credit sequence features a number of news clips and seemingly raw live, documentary footage. One of the first images is a group of Muslims bowing in prayer, followed by images from disasters, news broadcasts, and indistinct shots, brief and out of focus. The film begins with imagery designed to evoke terrorism and 9/11. The bowing Muslims from the opening give way to images of zombies. The credits end with what looks like a television journalist reporting from a hotel in the Middle East; the camera suddenly turns to show soliders being attacked by zombies in the hotel room, and the final zombie attacking the camera, also looking Middle-Eastern. The visual link is made — threat is world-wide, but America and the American way of life are particularly at risk. We are under assault from without and within, just as on 9/11. The zombie is a terrorist.

Wetmore’s book makes a helpful contribution to an understanding of zombie films in terms of sociophobics and their immediate cultural contexts. In addition to zombies as terrorists, he also includes a consideration of Dawn‘s take on the difficulty of establishing and maintaining genuine relationships, and an interesting shift in the religious framework of the 1978 Dawn with its reference to “When there’s no more room in hell the dead will walk the earth.”

Look for a discussion of these ideas here soon.

Last week The Walking Dead intersected with religion in wrestling the big questions of life in the face of apocalypse and life as the seemingly absurd. Tonight, with the episode “Save the Last One,” it not only raised questions about God’s existence,but also perfectly illustrated an existential question from twentieth century philosopher Albert Camus. In The Myth of Sisyphus he wrote:

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer [the questions of suicide].”

This question was raised at the conclusion of Season One as one of the cast members chose suicide with the destruction of the Center for Disease Control. This season the pressing question is raised again, not only with the daily challenges of survival amidst the zombie apocalypse, but also in light of Carl Grimes clinging to life after a gunshot wound. His mother Lori wonders aloud whether his death would be better than life in the world of the walking dead. Thus far her husband Rick clings to a positive answer to this dilemma, choosing life rather than suicide, interpreting a deer in the woods after a prayer for a sign as a glimpse of wonder and therefore as some kind of “signal of transcendence,” in the words of sociologist Peter Berger. Season Two of The Walking Dead gives every indication that it will press difficult existential questions further than the founding season, drawing upon various aspects of human culture in helping viewers grapple with these issues.

Zombies: A Living History, will air on Tuesday, October 25 on The History Channel. See local listings for times. Curiously. the program does not show up on a search of the channel’s website.

Last Sunday night AMC aired the premiere episode for season 2 of The Walking Dead. In the process the series set new records:

The 90-minute episode drew 7.3 million total viewers, becoming the strongest telecast for any drama in basic cable history among two key demos.

The zombie drama based on Robert Kirkman’s long-running comics drew 4.8 million viewers in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic, 4.2 million adults 25-54 and registered a 4.8 household rating, shattering a nearly 10-year-old basic cable record among the demos for a single drama telecast.

The 4.8 household rating and 7.3 million total viewers represent a 36 percent and 38 percent increase, respectively, over the drama’s freshman season ratings.

This episode, “What Lies Ahead,” did not disappoint in many ways. From the continued development of character relationships and the storyline from the first season, to the intensification of zombie makeups, making this one of the best genre programs currently on television.

One of the more interesting subtexts for The Walking Dead is the place of hope and faith in the midst of an apocalyptic scenario. The series not only asks viewers to wrestle with whether life is worth living in such a context or whether suicide is a more sensible response (thus raising questions about whether self-conscious beings should live at all in a vicious and seemingly nihilistic universe), but also raises questions about the place of religion in such a setting.

In season 1 religious questions lay below the surface. As in other zombie stories, in particular the early films of George Romero, some characters wrestled with whether the zombie apocalypse was the result of God’s judgment. Others expressed doubt about the efficacy of hope and prayer altogether in light of the struggle to survive. Season 2 picked upon on such religious considerations and pushed them further.

With the Center for Disease Control destroyed at the end of last season, the beginning of the new season finds the group of survivors traveling toward an Army base. Along the way they find the highway littered and blocked with traffic, and the vehicles filled with the bodies of the dead. The group decides to use the opportunity to scavenge for supplies. Shane discovers a truck filled with water bottles, and as he opens them and lets the water pour over his head he tells one of his fellow survivors that the experience is like a baptism. This phrase sets the stage for the religious aspects of the episode that follow.

As a major portion of the group searches for a missing girl (interestingly named Sophia, meaning wisdom, raising questions about wisdom, perhaps even divine wisdom, leaving the group), chased into the woods by two zombies, they hear a church bell ringing in the distance. They run to follow the sound, hoping that either the missing girl is ringing the bells herself, or that someone who found her may be doing so as a signal. They find the church, and as the group enters viewers see three zombies sitting on the pews facing forward, a bloody crucifix in the center of the undead worship. The group quickly kills the three zombies, with Rick Grimes looking up at the crucifix after his killing.

Following the zombie church member executions, two of the characters use the setting of the church for prayer and the search for guidance. Carol prays and asks for forgiveness for wishing her abusive husband dead, the victim of a zombie attack near the end of season 1. She fears that God may be bringing judgment through the disappearance of her daughter, the incident that brought the group to the church in their search. Rick Grimes also uses the church for spiritual reasons. He has been functioning as the group leader and tries to provide hope, even when he admitted to the CDC worker at the end of last season that he felt all was hopeless and that everyone was eventually going to die. In a form of prayer, Grimes looks at the bloodied Christ on the cross in the church and shares his frustrations, desperately asking for some kind of sign that he is leading the group in the right direction.

This episode raises several questions whereby zombies, and their presence in relation to a church, provide for spiritual reflection. An obvious question is why a crucifix is found in this church at all. The characters are still in Georgia, a very Baptist state, and as the group makes its way toward the church after running through a graveyard, they pass a sign that provides the name of the church as Southern Baptist Church of Holy Light. Southern Baptists are very Protestant, and such these churches tend to have little to no religious symbols present. When they do it is an empty cross emphasizing resurrection, not a crucifix with a battered and bloody Jesus. The crucifix is out of place in this religious setting and its anomalous presence raises points for consideration. The figure of the body of Jesus suggests a more readily present figure of the divine than does an empty cross which points more toward transcendence. In addition, the beaten and bloodied figure of Jesus makes for a point of connection between Christ and the survivors of the zombie apocalypse, but it also connects Jesus to the walking dead when the resurrection of a dead corpse and the “zombie Jesus” of popular culture are considered.

I have already noted that the question of God’s judgment through the zombies has been hinted at in The Walking Dead. That possibility is raised again in “What Lies Ahead” as the church sign includes a Bible verse below the church name reading Revelation 16:17. This passage discusses the pouring out of the final bowl of seven of God’s wrath upon the earth. Are the writers hinting at divine judgment through zombie apocalypse or does this cataclysmic event simply overlap with a church’s weekly sermon on “end-times”?

And what are we to make of Rick Grimes and his desires for a sign from God as he functions as something of a new Moses leading his people through the desert of the undead? In his prayer he is very forthcoming about his doubts about God’s existence, and yet at the same time his prayer indicates a tension of doubt and faith, reminiscent of a man in Mark’s Gospel who tells Jesus, “Lord I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Interestingly, this passage is part of a narrative in Mark where Jesus is about to heal the father’s boy, thus providing a sign that will lead to the father’s faith and the overcoming of his doubt (Mark 9:14-29). This is related to the situation for Grimes where at the conclusion of the episode (spoiler alert) Rick, his son Carl, and Shane find a deer in a clearing. The boy approaches with wide eyed wonder and gets very close. Smiles form on the face of Rick and Shane as his boy gets close to touching the deer. We begin to wonder, is this the sign that Rick was searching for? Is God answering his prayer, and in a positive way? Such hopeful thoughts are quickly dashed as a shot rings out, hitting both the deer and Rick’s son.

The conclusion of “What Lies Ahead” is a pessimistic one, and viewers are left to grapple with the presence or absence of the divine in the midst of the struggle for survival. Is God present in the midst of even the worst suffering and threat to life imaginable, somehow leading and guiding despite the difficulties encountered? Or is religious hope and faith merely a placebo that may have worked in an ordered civil society with evil and violence escaping through the cracks, but now that death and destruction rule the day religion is shown to be an illusion? Why were the zombies sitting in church in a pose reminiscent of their church attendance and worship in life? Were they going through the familiar routines of their previous life, or do the zombies serve as a metaphor for the deadness and futility of Christianity, and perhaps of all religion?

I don’t know that future episodes in season 2 will provide answers or insights related to such questions, but I am pleased to see The Walking Dead providing a multi-layered story that makes for multiple levels of entertainment and reflection.

Related posts:

“Can Zombies Be Spiritual?”

“Religion Dispatches: Toward a Zombie Theology”

“Matt Cardin: Spirituality in Romero’s Living Dead Films”

TheoFantastique: Andrea, thank you for your willingness to discuss your book and helping us understand some of the meaning of zombies in our culture in greater depth. Your book came out of your MA in Sociology at Carleton University. How did you develop a research interest in this topic, and how did you persuade the university to allow you to focus on this for a thesis project?

Andrea Subissati: Thanks, John. When I started my MA, I intended to write my thesis on the recent resurgence of traditionally “domestic” pastimes among young women; knitting in particular. Throughout the course work portion of my studies, I came across Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow, which led me to Wade Davis’ ethnographies on zombies in Haitian Vodoun communities. I became intrigued by the transformation of the traditional mythological zombie to their horror movie counterparts, and this transformation or “Americanization” became the foundation for my thesis.

I was further compelled to write on this topic because at the time I started writing (2007), it was apparent that zombies were more popular than ever and were spreading to other forms of media, including television, video games and classic literature. And yet, in spite of their popularity, there were surprisingly few academic resources that gave zombies as much analytical weight as other horror movie monsters, like vampires or mummies. All these factors made a compelling argument for an academic thesis on the cultural study of zombies, and my supervisor was actually eager to oversee such a relevant and as of yet untapped topic in sociology.

TheoFantastique: What analytical strands do you bring together in your analysis of the zombie, particularly Romero’s defining work on this cultural icon?

Andrea Subissati: Cultural materialism is a method for analyzing literature within a Marxist framework, one that focuses on conflict and power imbalances portrayed in text. I use this viewpoint to argue for the critical merit of these films as radical texts that have potential to inspire critical thought about real social issues including consumerism, racism and mistrust in military authority (to name a few). I also draw from tenets of active audience theory to focus my analysis on the analytical potential of the fans and to keep this as distinct from the intentions or motivations of the filmmaker.

TheoFantastique: Many commentators and critics have noted Romero’s critique of consumerism in his zombie films, particularly Dawn of the Dead. In your analysis do you see a variety of critiques in this regard, and what else can we understand Romero to be offering by way of cultural critique through his very different approaches to his canon of zombie films?

Andrea Subissati: Of what little academic resources I was able to find on zombies, the elements of consumerism in Dawn of the Dead were the most popular. The analogy of zombies to shoppers is rather overt, but there are plenty of other critical topics tackled in that movie, particularly in Peter’s theological remarks about his Vodoun granddaddy about “When there’s no more room in hell”. I found that observation to be particularly profound which is why I chose the quote as the title of my book.

I believe that all of Romero’s films featuring zombies are uniquely poised to inspire critical thought because instead of focusing on the undead rising, they focus on the people dealing with the undead rising, and the cultural trappings that keep them from being able to cooperate and survive the onslaught. More and more zombie movies today are focusing their gaze to the zombies themselves and all of the effort goes into making them faster, scarier, grosser, etc. For me, the best thing about Romero’s treatment of zombies is how he is able to show the monstrosity that human beings are capable of, which is a whole lot scarier than a brain-eating corpse!

TheoFantastique: I have been interested in the academic study of the Zombie Walk phenomenon, from sociological, anthropological, and perhaps even religious studies perspectives. I was pleased to see you mention this phenomenon twice in your book. Do you have any thoughts on the meaning of this experience for participants and what they may be saying about issues related to both personal identity and their feelings about society?

Andrea Subissati: The zombie walk is such a fascinating combination of fan convention, flash mob and guerrilla theater. I love it precisely because it’s so difficult to explain. Certainly, there is good clean fun to be had. As a fan of the genre, it is pretty enjoyable to see familiar streets and local landmarks overrun with the living dead, but beyond that I feel that the walks are an expression of the special connection that people feel to zombies. So much of modern life treats human beings like a mindless cannibal horde: junk culture, fast food, and overpopulation come to mind as examples. It is almost as though the zombie walks are a cathartic parody of urban life, expressed in a manner that is simultaneously radical and playful.

TheoFantastique: If we could, let’s move beyond your analysis of Romero’s zombies to these creatures in another context. As you know, The Walking Dead television series was very popular for the AMC network last year, surpassing their expectations for the number of viewers. This seems to indicate that the zombie is a figure of interest beyond the confines of the horror and zombie subcultures to a more general audience. With the challenges we face in society at the present time, perhaps similar or worse to that of the late 1970s when Romero produced Dawn of the Dead a decade after the counterculture, why do you think the zombie in The Walking Dead has resonated with so many people?

Andrea Subissati: I think it’s important to note that The Walking Dead TV show was destined to succeed from the start. The graphic novel series has been celebrated since its first issues in 2004, and following the critical acclaim of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, AMC had been established as a juggernaut on the syndicated TV scene. The TV show debuted in 120 countries and deployed a tremendously expensive and far-reaching marketing campaign prior to its release. This story of production and distribution is such a far cry from Romero’s struggles with Night of the Living Dead which was released independently and grew to notoriety and critical acclaim underground.

In my opinion, something important and subversive was lost in The Walking Dead’s journey from graphic novel series to network TV. I think part of the reason The Walking Dead is enjoying more mainstream popularity than the B-movie celluloid of yesteryear is has to do with the subject matter being polished, paraphrased and made more palatable for a TV audience. To put it more simply (and less snobbishly, I hope), I fear that the novelty and violence of the show is what is resonating with audiences rather than the subversive themes that made Romero’s series what it is. I really enjoy the graphic novel series so I am hopeful that the great characters and plotlines will shine in season 2, but backstage tensions and Frank Darabont’s sudden departure are worrisome.

TheoFantastique: In your bio on the back cover of your book I was struck by the fact that you are smart enough to look beyond the academy “in favor of regular paychecks.” One of the ways you do this is through your Undead Clothing company. Can you talk a little about how this came about, what it involves, and how readers can purchase some of your work in this area?

Andrea Subissati: Undeadclothingco is like the evil twin sister to my master’s thesis: they were both born out of the stress, strain and sweat that came from undergoing graduate studies. I knitted on the bus, I crocheted on my breaks and I sewed while I listened to Romero’s commentary of Dawn of the Dead for the hundredth time. The result of all this creativity was a household that had more crocheted slippers than it did feet to fill them, so I started selling my handiwork online and at craft sales in Ottawa.

Sadly, abandoning academia also meant getting a 9-5 job in an office, where idle hands are looked upon less favorably. Nowadays, my precious spare time is consumed with writing (including work on a chapter for your forthcoming anthology [The Undead and Theology]), roller derby (keeping me off the mean streets of Toronto) and the occasional guest stint on the Rue Morgue podcast (available on iTunes and streaming off the Rue Morgue website). On the odd chance that free time and inspiration strike at the same time, you can find my handmade goodies listed at undeadclothing.ca and on my etsy site (http://www.etsy.com/shop/undeadclothingco?ref=pr_shop).

TheoFantastique: Andrea, thanks again for your time. I enjoyed your book, and am looking forward to your contribution to the anthology. Keep up the great work among the undead.

Kim Paffenroth and John W. Morehead, editors

The academy and pop culture alike recognize the great symbolic and pedagogical value of the undead (or reanimated dead). Vampires, zombies, and other creatures possess an important ability to enable reflection in a variety of personal and cultural ways. This has been explored variously from critiques of consumerism and racism, explorations of gender and sexuality, consideration of the breakdown of the nuclear family; such academic examinations of the undead have been done from the perspectives of philosophy and political theory. But another important avenue of exploration these monstrous icons can lead us is theology.

This anthology volume on the undead and theology is similar in format to those that have looked at various expressions of horror in pop culture and philosophy, such as Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy (Open Court Press, 2010), True Blood and Philosophy (Wiley, 2010), and Twilight and Philosophy (Wiley, 2009). Submissions address a variety of theological issues by drawing upon the undead as objects of critical reflection.

Contents

“When You’re Undead, the Whole World is Jewish”
Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg; Visiting professor at University of Baltimore

The Jewish myth of the Golem is usually remembered as a magically animated clay construct, but there are Golem stories that shatter the misconception that there are no Jewish zombies…apart from a certain carpenter. Golem folklore often features reanimated corpses in stories of injustice, vengeance, and the search for the soul, with the addition of the Jewish respect for the dead (K’vod HaMes). The creature is impelled by belief in God but a danger to its creator and its intended victims. Tales of the Golem are often overlooked in our expanding exploration of the cultural impact of the undead.

“The Living Christ and The Walking Dead: Karl Barth and the Theological Zombie”
Jessica DeCou, PhD Candidate in Theology at University of Chicago Divinity School

Stepping into the world of The Walking Dead, this chapter considers the “theological zombie” through a Barthian lens. Unlike the philosophical zombie, indistinguishable from us in appearance and behavior, the theological zombie is the recalcitrant corpse of popular imagination, shuffling about in sluggish but relentless pursuit, consuming the living for the sake of the dead. What are the implications of this zombie infestation for a theological understanding of genuine humanity? Can this apocalyptic outbreak serve to “reanimate” theological contemplation of the eschatological promise of bodily resurrection?

“’You have to have faith’: Science, belief and slaying vampires”
Dr. Hannah Gilbert, Visiting lecturer at York St. John University

The vampire and vampire slayer have generally been situated as nemeses, where the expertise of the slayer ultimately destroys the malevolent vampire. This chapter will look at their representations as characters of belief in a Christianity that endorses supernatural evil, and how they deal with supernatural scepticism. Like Hess’ (1993) case studies of supernatural fiction involving similar malevolent supernatural threats, explicit importance is placed on accepting the reality of – believing in – the supernatural if a malevolent supernatural threat is to be defeated. Furthermore, it will consider the significance of a new branch of vampire fiction that has redefined the vampire as anti-hero (rather than villain), and consider this implication for vampire slayers.

“Vampires, and Female Spiritual Transformation”
Dr. Vicky Gilpin, Millikin University

An originator of the “urban fantasy” genre, Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series encouraged new pop cultural interpretations of vampire existence and the effects vampires have on humans and other paranormal creatures. Through the mostly human protagonist’s psychological, magical, and spiritual growth as a result of her paranormal connections, the works explore the question “what is the definition of monsterhood?” A character with strong religious identification, Anita’s increasingly sex-based powers and proclivities often cause her to question her spiritual standing. The depictions of religion and spirituality in the Anita Blake series, as well as the constant themes of sexual power, demonstrate the importance of a character’s spiritual and reflective journey as another lens through which to view theology and the undead.

“Crossing the Spiritual Wasteland in Priest”
Joseph Laycock, PhD Candidate at Boston University’s Department of Religion and Theological Studies

Scott Stewart directed Legion and Priest. Both films work by turning the traditional heroes of religious horror films––angels and the Church––into antagonists. This is one of the classic “sociophobics” discussed in Douglas Cowan’s Sacred Terror: the fear of a change in the sacred order. This article explores how Priest attempts to disturb and fascinate by challenging audience expectations regarding spiritual good and evil. The vampire-hunting protagonist experiences moral uncertainty about his Church and these doubts are inflicted on the audience as well. The film’s post-apocalyptic setting is explored as a potent metaphor for a broken sacred order.

“Vampires are People, too: Personalism in the Buffyverse”
Jarrod Longbons, PhD Candidate at the University of Nottingham

Buffy the Vampire Slayer puts forward an interesting image of the vampire: a dead body in which a demon has taken the place of the soul. Moreover, a vampire in the Buffyverse may elect to win back its soul. Though they remain “un-dead,” these “en-souled” vampires display only one significant change: they transform from diabolical parasites into persons for others. Because of its immanent perspective, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s vision of the soul is a secular parody of Catholic personalism, as explicated in this essay via an analysis of the character arc of the vampire “Spike.”

“Zombie Jesus, Zombie Walks, and the Eschatology of Postmodern Flesh”
John W. Morehead, MA from Salt Lake Theological Seminary

This chapter will describe the origins and expressions of the zombie walk, and Zombie Jesus phenomena, and how these phenomena incorporate postmodern conceptions of the body, and perhaps hint at a critique of the frequent Evangelical Christian emphasis on the soul/spirit to the neglect of the physical body. Finally, this chapter will consider that the mass gatherings of zombies rising from the grave, coupled with the presence of Zombie Jesus, may be understood in part as a form of resurrection without immortal bodily transformation as well as a reflection of critique of Christian eschatology, and the incorporation of postmodern nondualist metphaphysics.

“When All is Lost, Gather ‘Round: Exploring the Theologies of Grief and Hope in The Walking Dead”
Ashley Moyse; Sessional Instructor, Faculty of Science, University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, BC; Ethics Tutor, Undergraduate medical program, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia

This essay will explore the theology of grief and hope as illumined in the debut season of The Walking Dead. Specifically, the essay will argue that The Walking Dead tells the story of how one must rely upon the community, not only for strength but also hope during times of crisis and of grief. In support of this thesis, I will rely upon the theological writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth and Paul Tillich who may help explore how communities are constructed, how they labor together in times of grief, and where they may encounter hope.

“Negotiating (Non)Existence: Justifications of Violence in Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead”
Dr. J. Ryan Parker

The religious aspects of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead chiefly concern morality and ethics, particularly regarding the brutal violence within various communities of survivors and between these communities and the zombies that plague them. From moral or physical superiority to survival needs to revenge, survivors of the zombie plague attempt to justify their violent actions. Drawing from studies of not only violence in film, television, and video games, but also the ways in which it is defended within such media, this essay further reveals ways in which narratives of the undead speak to the living. In our own world where unthinkable acts of violence (and violent reactions to them) are often cloaked in moral/religious/theological armor, Kirkman’s narrative sheds light on the hypocrisy of one individual or group claiming superiority over another, even if that other is a zombie.

“’The Devil is Born Anew’: The Satanic Turn in the Vampire Legend and the Creation of a Popular Theology of Evil”
Dr. Scott Poole, Associate Professor of History at the College of Charleston, author of Satan in America: The Devil We Know (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), and Monsters in America (Baylor University Press, 2011)

This essay examines how Hammer Studio films use of satanic metaphors in the late 60’s and early 70s reflected an increased fascination with the Devil as a new kind of horror film monster, as well as anxieties about “real” Devil worship. My analysis includes the work of several significant evangelical and Pentecostal theologians whose work touched on the role of the demonic such as Carl F.H. Henry, Gordon Fee and John Christopher Thomas. The essay will show the links between moral panics, modern folklore, theology and film audiences.

“’Eat of My Body and Drink of My Blood’: Johannine Metaphor, Gothic Subculture, and the Undead”
Beth Stovell, PhD Candidate at St. Thomas University, Assistant Professor in Biblical Studies

Using conceptual metaphor theory, this essay examines inclusion and exclusion in the Johannine literature, Gothic subculture, and modern “undead” literature, suggesting three critical ways that apocalyptic metaphors are used in these contexts: 1) as a reaction against mainstream culture, 2) as a reaction against exploitation, and 3) as a form of paradox and irony that subverts expectation. By creating a group of insiders and rejecting the culture of its time, these “undead” literatures, like the Johannine corpus, provide solace and a community for their readers, reinterpreting apocalyptic metaphor, and informing social identity.

“Fire, Brimstone and PVC: Clive Barker’s Cenobites as Agents of Hell”
Andrea Subissati, MA from Carleton University with a thesis on the sociology of the living dead

In Clive Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart, Frank Cotton’s search for the ultimate carnal experience leads him to discover a gateway into hell. Far from the orgiastic pleasures he had hoped for, Frank is dragged into hell by cenobites for an eternity of corporeal torture. Barker’s novella and the resulting films are laden with theological concepts, particularly the Christian distinction between body and soul. This chapter will seek to analyze Barker’s version of hell, looking at how it relates to traditional Christian conceptions. Sources will include the original text, comic books and franchise of films.

Arnold T. Blumberg
Jessica DeCou
Hannah Gilbert
Vicky Sue Gilpin
Joseph Laycock
Jarrod Longbons
John W. Morehead
Ashley John Moyse
J. Ryan Parker
Brian Solomon
Ben Stovell
Andrea Subissati

My own contribution will be a chapter tentatively titled “Zombie Jesus, Zombie Walks, and the Eschatology of Postmodern Flesh.” Publisher and release date TBA in the weeks to come.