zombie thesis:
this is pretty much an outline of my masters thesis i am gearing up for and is the product of about two years of active research...so if anything strikes you as interesting, i'd be glad to discuss it or explain it in more detail or argue with you about it...
i didn't really intend to write this but it just happened so i figured i might as well post it on here...anyway, whatever...
this is what i have hypothesized has happened:
anecdote: we, as a culture (as well as most cultures) used to believe in spirits outside of our bodies that invade our bodies and cause problems like sickness--both physical and mental. as the scientific age wore on we tried to bring every part of our existence under its proscribed paradigms of explanation. thus, there was a shift from seeing these things that affect us not as external spirits but of internal processes of our minds and psyches--in a word, demons became psychological ailments.
the shift here, is a shift in the locating of these general problems and forces from something external to us, to something internal to us.
we are undergoing a similar shift in our culture in regard to the way we view and form our own personal and cultural identity, and this is exemplified in the in our current redefinition of how we use the idea of an "enemy." in wwii, we recognized an enemy that was complete and wholly Other to us (and on into the cold war)--the germans were bad, we were good; the russians stood for communism and we stood for freedom, etc...now, however, that is not the case, and hasn't been since vietnam. vietnam was the first time we were confused about who the bad guys were and this was partially helped along by the rise in a way of film making and journalism that showed our "enemies" in the pitiable state of being slaughtered by our own troops. so the average american, stowed safely away in there comfortable living rooms eating tv dinners could contemplate these images reaching them from a war they didn't understand and couldn't.
it appears to me that what began at that point was shift in the way we relate to our enemies...we began identifying with them. now, with this "war on terror" we have even less of an ability to identify an "enemy" that is wholly Other to us. enemy has become nebulous and thus, our Other has become nebulous as well.
this causes a problem for us on a personal and cultural level in regard to the formation of our personal and national identity. part of the process of identity formation requires an Other that can function as image of what we are not. in times of war, this function pivots on those values and reasons we give ourselves for going to war--we are making a stand for what is good and right and the enemy is making a stand for what is evil and wrong in the world. in jungian terms, the Other, or the classic "enemy" gives us a body upon which to project our shadow--the darker part of our selves that we don't want to admit is there, and gives us an object upon which to focus our fears and anxieties.
thus, after close of wwii and our dropping of The Bomb, through the cold war, we projected our fears on the russions and they became the source of our fears and anxieties we were feeling over the very real and demonstrated destructive abilities we had shown in dealing with japan.
in pop-culture this anxiety showed up in the form of the ufo, first, as the subject of rash of sighting that began promptly after we dropped the bomb and made its way into film represented by the alien and a multitude of invasion narratives (note: here the location of our “enemy” is external to us, so we are afraid of invasion)-and as a symbol the alien came to stand for higher intelligence, more highly developed technology, and possibly a higher degree of evolution that somehow spelled the destruction of our world, themes that are central to nearly all alien invasion narratives.
what has happened is that we have had that ability to project that dark part of ourselves as external to us taken away and just like we came to view demons as internal processes of our psychological structure we are undergoing a shift into a way of identity formation that involvers our internalizing our shadows-partly by being so self aware about our projecting all this stuff onto some Other.
this can be seen in our attitude toward other people groups and our inability to identify an “enemy” in the current war. (note: this whole process has developed in tandem with the development of multi-culturalism) we no longer allow ourselves to vilify a people group, though some still try, we do know better, and are at least self conscious about doing so.
so, we find ourselves unable to find a suitable Other, which to make the object of our present fears and anxieties about the future of our social, political and cultural structures.
this internalizing of our shadows forces us to internalize the object of our fears and anxieties as well. so the gaze goes inward, aided on the one hand by the shift in our relation to our Other, as described above, and on the other hand, by continued scientific advances which have also turned our eyes inward. such advances as the work done with DNA and the mapping of the human genome, which began gather steam in the 60s, the concern over biological weapons that grew out of vietnam, the appearance of AIDS in 1981 and on till now with our fear of things like anthrax, avian flu and etcetera.
this began showing up in film precisely at the same time the image of the alien and invasion narratives began loosing power in cinema, which just happens to have been also around the time of vietnam. first with hitchcock’s psycho, in 1960 and then with romero’s night of the living dead, in 68.
enters the zombie.
if we look at the current form the zombie has taken, it appears to have grown through the last few decades into an image suited specifically to our present personal and cultural anxieties and it is not an accident that it, as a symbol, just so happens to mirror this shift in how we view our “enemy” and the confusion over our own identity in relation to that proposed “enemy.”
in direct contrast to the image of the alien, the zombie represents the lowest form of intelligence, a regress in technology, possibly a state of devolution. where the alien was completely and wholly Other, the zombie is a mother, a brother, a daughter, you. . .me. and it is fitting then that even the whole structure of the narrative has changed from a fascination in cinema with invasion narratives to a fascination with breakout narrative. we are no longer able to be afraid of aliens but we are horribly afraid of viruses, psychological abnormalities and the like-virtually anything that can be located within our own body. thus, the destruction we fear also comes from within-we are not so afraid of nuclear bombs as we are of sickness, trading our interest in fallout shelters for bottles of hand sanitizer.
this may also explain the interest now, in pop-culture, with the human body as flesh. (note: the rise in movies about dismemberment-the saw movies, the details in remakes of chainsaw massacre, hostile, etc.) we have become fascinated with the dismemberment of our bodies. also another key motif of the zombie film.
what does this all mean? i think it means that we are undergoing the painful process as a culture of coming to grips with being trapped within our own skin-with being forced to face our own shadow. i also don’t think it is an accident that the latest explosion in the popularity of images like the zombie started at the beginning of our “war on terror” after y2k (facing us with our fears and hopes of a collapse of our socio-political structure and our fascination with apocalypse) and 9/11. these events brought our general cultural anxieties to a head and the zombie sat ready as the perfect image of that anxiety-for i also don’t think it is in an accident that we would become obsessed with carnage and the image of dead corpses ambling along after us, trying to devour us, while engaged in a war that makes us feel somewhat guilty for the deaths our involvement there has produced.
i will finish by saying that i do not think our current war is the cause of this anxiety. that would be missing the point. it appears to me that even our “war on terror” has become a symbol for something much deeper we sense wrong about ourselves and our culture. something that manifests as particular kinds of violence, such as eating disorders, the accumulation of debt, and school shootings, and emotions, such as rage and fear and despondence. it is fitting that the violent actions produced by this deep cultural anxiety take the form of bodily and financial destruction and the mass shootings of virtually anonymous random people because at the heart of that anxiety is the inability to identify an “enemy” in a culture that has at it structural base the paradigms of war, which peel off and become our own psychological structures, such that every endeavor and relationship becomes one of war, from the corporate world to the bedroom, from the nursery to the university campus.
and it is my personal opinion, that the violence will continue until we have the ability to face ourselves as our own “enemy” and redefine Other in such a way that it no longer involves, inherently, a relationship of war.
i didn't really intend to write this but it just happened so i figured i might as well post it on here...anyway, whatever...
this is what i have hypothesized has happened:
anecdote: we, as a culture (as well as most cultures) used to believe in spirits outside of our bodies that invade our bodies and cause problems like sickness--both physical and mental. as the scientific age wore on we tried to bring every part of our existence under its proscribed paradigms of explanation. thus, there was a shift from seeing these things that affect us not as external spirits but of internal processes of our minds and psyches--in a word, demons became psychological ailments.
the shift here, is a shift in the locating of these general problems and forces from something external to us, to something internal to us.
we are undergoing a similar shift in our culture in regard to the way we view and form our own personal and cultural identity, and this is exemplified in the in our current redefinition of how we use the idea of an "enemy." in wwii, we recognized an enemy that was complete and wholly Other to us (and on into the cold war)--the germans were bad, we were good; the russians stood for communism and we stood for freedom, etc...now, however, that is not the case, and hasn't been since vietnam. vietnam was the first time we were confused about who the bad guys were and this was partially helped along by the rise in a way of film making and journalism that showed our "enemies" in the pitiable state of being slaughtered by our own troops. so the average american, stowed safely away in there comfortable living rooms eating tv dinners could contemplate these images reaching them from a war they didn't understand and couldn't.
it appears to me that what began at that point was shift in the way we relate to our enemies...we began identifying with them. now, with this "war on terror" we have even less of an ability to identify an "enemy" that is wholly Other to us. enemy has become nebulous and thus, our Other has become nebulous as well.
this causes a problem for us on a personal and cultural level in regard to the formation of our personal and national identity. part of the process of identity formation requires an Other that can function as image of what we are not. in times of war, this function pivots on those values and reasons we give ourselves for going to war--we are making a stand for what is good and right and the enemy is making a stand for what is evil and wrong in the world. in jungian terms, the Other, or the classic "enemy" gives us a body upon which to project our shadow--the darker part of our selves that we don't want to admit is there, and gives us an object upon which to focus our fears and anxieties.
thus, after close of wwii and our dropping of The Bomb, through the cold war, we projected our fears on the russions and they became the source of our fears and anxieties we were feeling over the very real and demonstrated destructive abilities we had shown in dealing with japan.
in pop-culture this anxiety showed up in the form of the ufo, first, as the subject of rash of sighting that began promptly after we dropped the bomb and made its way into film represented by the alien and a multitude of invasion narratives (note: here the location of our “enemy” is external to us, so we are afraid of invasion)-and as a symbol the alien came to stand for higher intelligence, more highly developed technology, and possibly a higher degree of evolution that somehow spelled the destruction of our world, themes that are central to nearly all alien invasion narratives.
what has happened is that we have had that ability to project that dark part of ourselves as external to us taken away and just like we came to view demons as internal processes of our psychological structure we are undergoing a shift into a way of identity formation that involvers our internalizing our shadows-partly by being so self aware about our projecting all this stuff onto some Other.
this can be seen in our attitude toward other people groups and our inability to identify an “enemy” in the current war. (note: this whole process has developed in tandem with the development of multi-culturalism) we no longer allow ourselves to vilify a people group, though some still try, we do know better, and are at least self conscious about doing so.
so, we find ourselves unable to find a suitable Other, which to make the object of our present fears and anxieties about the future of our social, political and cultural structures.
this internalizing of our shadows forces us to internalize the object of our fears and anxieties as well. so the gaze goes inward, aided on the one hand by the shift in our relation to our Other, as described above, and on the other hand, by continued scientific advances which have also turned our eyes inward. such advances as the work done with DNA and the mapping of the human genome, which began gather steam in the 60s, the concern over biological weapons that grew out of vietnam, the appearance of AIDS in 1981 and on till now with our fear of things like anthrax, avian flu and etcetera.
this began showing up in film precisely at the same time the image of the alien and invasion narratives began loosing power in cinema, which just happens to have been also around the time of vietnam. first with hitchcock’s psycho, in 1960 and then with romero’s night of the living dead, in 68.
enters the zombie.
if we look at the current form the zombie has taken, it appears to have grown through the last few decades into an image suited specifically to our present personal and cultural anxieties and it is not an accident that it, as a symbol, just so happens to mirror this shift in how we view our “enemy” and the confusion over our own identity in relation to that proposed “enemy.”
in direct contrast to the image of the alien, the zombie represents the lowest form of intelligence, a regress in technology, possibly a state of devolution. where the alien was completely and wholly Other, the zombie is a mother, a brother, a daughter, you. . .me. and it is fitting then that even the whole structure of the narrative has changed from a fascination in cinema with invasion narratives to a fascination with breakout narrative. we are no longer able to be afraid of aliens but we are horribly afraid of viruses, psychological abnormalities and the like-virtually anything that can be located within our own body. thus, the destruction we fear also comes from within-we are not so afraid of nuclear bombs as we are of sickness, trading our interest in fallout shelters for bottles of hand sanitizer.
this may also explain the interest now, in pop-culture, with the human body as flesh. (note: the rise in movies about dismemberment-the saw movies, the details in remakes of chainsaw massacre, hostile, etc.) we have become fascinated with the dismemberment of our bodies. also another key motif of the zombie film.
what does this all mean? i think it means that we are undergoing the painful process as a culture of coming to grips with being trapped within our own skin-with being forced to face our own shadow. i also don’t think it is an accident that the latest explosion in the popularity of images like the zombie started at the beginning of our “war on terror” after y2k (facing us with our fears and hopes of a collapse of our socio-political structure and our fascination with apocalypse) and 9/11. these events brought our general cultural anxieties to a head and the zombie sat ready as the perfect image of that anxiety-for i also don’t think it is in an accident that we would become obsessed with carnage and the image of dead corpses ambling along after us, trying to devour us, while engaged in a war that makes us feel somewhat guilty for the deaths our involvement there has produced.
i will finish by saying that i do not think our current war is the cause of this anxiety. that would be missing the point. it appears to me that even our “war on terror” has become a symbol for something much deeper we sense wrong about ourselves and our culture. something that manifests as particular kinds of violence, such as eating disorders, the accumulation of debt, and school shootings, and emotions, such as rage and fear and despondence. it is fitting that the violent actions produced by this deep cultural anxiety take the form of bodily and financial destruction and the mass shootings of virtually anonymous random people because at the heart of that anxiety is the inability to identify an “enemy” in a culture that has at it structural base the paradigms of war, which peel off and become our own psychological structures, such that every endeavor and relationship becomes one of war, from the corporate world to the bedroom, from the nursery to the university campus.
and it is my personal opinion, that the violence will continue until we have the ability to face ourselves as our own “enemy” and redefine Other in such a way that it no longer involves, inherently, a relationship of war.