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2013-04-07 -Short Attention Span Theater-
The Lessons of Zombie-Mania
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Posted by Fred 2013-04-07 00:00|| || Front Page|| [336082 views ]  Top

#1 interest in flesh-eating ghouls has far outstripped popular enthusiasm for vampires, wizards and hobbits

Cognitive elites (and their wannabees) subconscious self-identification?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2013-04-07 07:14||   2013-04-07 07:14|| Front Page Top

#2 Getting old sux, but the alternative is so much worse, or so I'm told...
Posted by badanov 2013-04-07 07:23|| http://www.chriscovert.net  2013-04-07 07:23|| Front Page Top

#3 For your reference. The dead still vote. Next zombie marriage.
Posted by Procopius2k 2013-04-07 09:26||   2013-04-07 09:26|| Front Page Top

#4 P2K: I guess if that's what it takes for the rich "creative" artistic types to avoid the tax system.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-04-07 11:10||   2013-04-07 11:10|| Front Page Top

#5 Zombie's or no, it upsets me when parking is blocked due to filming and I can't reach one of my favorite restaurants.
Posted by Besoeker 2013-04-07 11:20||   2013-04-07 11:20|| Front Page Top

#6 I'm not surprised "zombies are totally hot right now". When there's a pervasive feeling that something quite ain't right or things are going to hades in a handbasket.

The country is a mass of demographics: fragmented socially, politically, and economically. The others not in your sphere are merely bodies walking about. They talk, they stand in line with you, they take your parking space, but they aren't "your people". A disaster on the opposite coast or the next state over might as well have happened on Mars. And Middle America is Mars.

Something is wrong, but there's no clear enemy to blame. The Soviets are gone. Nobody thinks about the Chinese as anything but producers of schtuff you buy.

You can't blame the Republicans, because you don't really know any and anyway the media sez they're dying.

You can't blame corporations (much) because there's no specific corporation or CEO to blame. All the CEOs you hear of are sucking up to the White House. The ex-tycoons have foundations trying to find cures for diseases.

You can't blame terrorists because, like corporations, they're essentially anonymous. It's impolite and lawsuit-worthy to mention 'muslims' anyway and besides, Osama bin Ladin is dead.

You can't blame the government 'cause you elected it and it's taking care of "the poor".

So you take your vague, or not-so-vague unease, and channel it into a fantasy where you have little or no control over events. Nuclear war is so 1950s and 'Armageddon' is a term those religious wackos use. Hence a mass of not-people zombies.
Posted by Pappy 2013-04-07 13:48||   2013-04-07 13:48|| Front Page Top

#7 "Can zombies actually suck? Doesn't it take air? But they've stopped using their lungs for good. Smoking is also out, I guess. And playing the bassoon. And that'd be the reason they don't talk much, and they don't sing at all. I don't know why they don't go bowling."

Fred, you are a national treasure beyond price. :-D
Posted by Barbara 2013-04-07 14:00||   2013-04-07 14:00|| Front Page Top

#8 You can't blame the Republicans, because you don't really know any and anyway the media sez they're dying

So THAT'S where the zombies are coming from!
Posted by Glenmore 2013-04-07 15:04||   2013-04-07 15:04|| Front Page Top

#9 I agree with Pappy, its about the only bogeyman left which is okiedokie to destroy; robots and aliens rounding out the majority of the rest.

To go a bit further, a service friend and I were discussing age olde nerdscussion on fast vs slow zombies and how they translate into the real world scenario. We concluded the slow ones would be the result of sickness, advanced starvation, any condition which would result in the weaking of the body and mind. The fast zombie would be something of mass uncontrolled rioting or fleeing. Both of which would involve large unarmed stampeding masses. We found it interesting because we figured both of us in one way or another would be on the front line of such a deal, and would either have to fight the zombies or basically become one of the mob of zombies (especially if a biological or even chemical slow zombie).

What is left out is the coordinated riot which would include armed and planning humans; we decided that is more of a war battle than fending off stampeding yet otherwise docile turned flipped out dangerous humans - which the zombie fad actually desensitizes those who would feel themselves chosen survivers to, well, actively defend themselves from.
Posted by swksvolFF 2013-04-07 16:30||   2013-04-07 16:30|| Front Page Top

#10 I find it odd that there's a Fast v. Slow Zombie argument.

I blame comic books.
Posted by Shipman 2013-04-07 17:09||   2013-04-07 17:09|| Front Page Top

#11 fast are the worst. See 28 Days Later
Posted by Frank G 2013-04-07 17:17||   2013-04-07 17:17|| Front Page Top

#12 *off topic
Besoeker, that is a nice menu and setting. Its funny when even domestic food critics of the States point and laugh, they choose the fast boxes rather than places like that.

*On topic
Fast vs. Slow - I'm trying to think of the first fast zombie movie, was it 28 days? Personally, I'm against the designated hitter.
Posted by swksvolFF 2013-04-07 17:44||   2013-04-07 17:44|| Front Page Top

#13 I wish I didn't look that up, but it seems to be the case movie wise, 28 Days (2002). I do not venture into comic book land without a guide and a safety rope.
Posted by swksvolFF 2013-04-07 17:50||   2013-04-07 17:50|| Front Page Top

#14 yep. In 28 Days - they're not slow, shambling. They're like rabid Carl Lewises
Posted by Frank G 2013-04-07 18:35||   2013-04-07 18:35|| Front Page Top

#15  the zombie fad actually desensitizes those who would feel themselves chosen survivers to, well, actively defend themselves from

Something I hadn't thought too much about, but makes sense. After all, you can't shoot the moron who took your parking place, and blasting those religious nuts is still illegal. So you vicariously live it out via destroying zombies in the media.
Posted by Pappy 2013-04-07 22:52||   2013-04-07 22:52|| Front Page Top

22:52 Pappy
22:43 Barbara
22:39 Pappy
22:28 JosephMendiola
22:14 JosephMendiola
22:12 newc
21:57 trailing wife
21:57 trailing wife
21:45 JosephMendiola
21:29 USN, Ret.
21:27 JosephMendiola
20:25 Frank G
19:42 DarthVader
19:41 JosephMendiola
19:40 DarthVader
19:29 whitecollar redneck
19:19 Barbara
19:00 NoMoreBS
18:35 Frank G
18:30 lord garth
18:09 Uncle Phester
17:50 swksvolFF
17:44 swksvolFF
17:17 Frank G









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