For those of you who do not watch the Walking Dead (like me), it is a series that basically covers the Zombie Apocalypse. When that happens, or any other apocalypse happens, we Mormons have to be ready.
Well, the maker of my favorite cutlery, Gerber, has a new Zombie Apocalypse Survival kit. It comes with several blades and sharp thingies, including a 10″ long Infantry knife, and a 19″ long Parang, and then an ax and a machete to really chop those zombie heads in half!
If we really want to be ready, here’s the link to Discovery’s article on this wonderful collection:
I tried watching “The Walking Dead” on Netflix. Didn’t last more than five minutes into the first show. Watching a little girl zombie get blown away didn’t do it for me.
Speaking of zombies, I have wondered why so many of us have accepted that there will zombies during the apocalypse. I know part of it is just pure (clean?) fun, and I believe “The Night of the Living Dead” started the whole thing in the 1960s, but why zombies?
Part of me thinks that there is nothing more scary than former humans who apparently have lost their souls. There are some religious implications to that worth exploring.
My real estate agent in Las Vegas happens to be across from a “zombie survival store”. My agent was late and I needed use their restroom so I looked inside for awhile. It was pretty much a basic army surplus/ survival store with some zombie movies and books.
In a somewhat related note, I just finished a project on zombie films. It is one of those research projects that, while maybe not the most prestigious subjects, made it fun to be a historian.
Its funny, but much of Christianity is looking forward to zombies. Not in the sense of mindless flesh eaters, but in the sense of dead people coming back from the dead. Is the zombie thing an attempt to create prejudice against the resurrected dead?
I personally think that the Zombie Apocalypse is a narrative on how government sucks the life out of people, and then tries to get them to help them obtain more zombies to their cause. You’ll note that zombies have no brain activity of their own, and attempt to eat the brains of others, so they will also become perfect government zombies.
No matter how hard you try to stem the government growth (blowing out its brains), it still keeps coming at you. Many people end up giving up and becoming part of the government’s zombie clan, receiving benefits and “rights” that suck the soul out of one’s love for freedom and liberty.
Geoff, I haven’t watched the Walking Dead, either. And it is sad they would depict a small child being killed for being a zombie. That said, I can see how many of our kids today are now government zombies. The young college student, Sandra Fluke, has probably been a government zombie for many years, and doesn’t even realize she was doing government’s job by begging government to force free thinkers to buy her contraceptives for her.
I’m not sure how one provides a new and functional brain to a zombie. In the movies, with the exception of “I Am Legend” and “Omega Man”, no one has found a cure for movie zombies except a shotgun blast to the head. I’m afraid we’re still searching for a cure for mindless government intervention that is sucking the souls out of Americans everywhere. (and no, I am not recommending using shotguns, as they are far too messy and probably would not get the job done, anyway).
The ongoing strength of this zombie fad is a bit dumbfounding, especially when it jumped from isolated, gory little fables to the attempts to stitch all the stories into a logical but pointless framework.
I think the mainstream popularity of the Zombie Apocalypse is mostly the male counter to the female fascination with vampires that glitter.
It makes me want to shoot and chop things with no moral guilt attached, too.
Nobody asked the guy who just published research on the subject? lol.
There are several reasons for Zombie popularity.
George Romero (Dawn and Day of the Dead) mocked the brainless rampant consumerism of modern culture. So there is an element of social satire in the brainless zombies. This was done with hilarious results in Shaun of the Dead, where the main character doesn’t even know there is a zombie outbreak because he is so busy being a “zombie”. At the end he plays xbox with his zombie friend as though nothing happened.
Other writers point out the morality tale of many Zombies. The failure to work together and mistrust leads to defeat. So this is similar to social satire but takes it darker.
Walking Dead has the same debate as Battle Star Gallactica. Namely is surviving the only requirement for humanity or do you also have to be worthy to survive. Or how do you keep your humanity in a world that is so inhumane. So the Shane/Rick dichamoty (sp) focused on a Hobbsian realist that will do anything to survive versus more of a Wilsonian liberal that tried to adopt the moral choice. Although the last episode started the writers said they started the Ricktatorship so I’m excited to see where that goes. So its popular, in addition to the great drama and riveting tale of survival, it asks us questions we have since the War on Terror started. What tactics are appropriate to survive and do they make you unworthy of surviving? In short, are the humans worse than the zombies?
Some writers point out that this started the first person shooter craze. This gave a person human targets without any of the morality of shooting humans. So there is a video game aspect to zombie actions.
My research argued that these are representation of sub human “others” found throughout Western history. These others were always scary, partook in violent rituals, sought to destroy civilization and even eat their enemies. We see this as far back as Herodatus, the Roman historians, Spanish depictions of the Aztec and as recent as British description of the Zulu. The tactics used to defeat zombies also emphasized tradtional western tactics such as discipline, the right kind of bravery, and the power of citizen militia.
For me, I like it from a little of all of the above. I’m a fan of end of the world scenarios and can’t think of a more scary ending than a zombie apocalypse. I’ve always wanted to survive a siege and my imagination ranges from the Crusades to World War Z.
For those looking for a Zombie Apocalypse, just wait until we see what happens over the next few years regarding our national debt, etc.! There’s going to be a lot of mindless drones going house to house looking for brains or anything else they can to eat.
And here is how bad it is now:
National Review on our Tanking Economy. And why Australia is hedging itself against us going over the edge…