Zombies are not zombies!

When did zombies become flesh and brain eaters? It's stupid. As far as I can tell, it's a misunderstanding of Night of the Living Dead from 1968. The funny thing is, that movies never, ever calls them zombies.

In 43 years zombies went from the slave-labor of vodoo sorcerors to flesh-eating mutants, and all through misinterpretation.

I always assumed it was some sort of chemical malfunction in the brain. I mean, Sharks have to eat all the time, Vampires have to suck blood, so the undead would have to eat something. Food isn't going to do anything for them anymore, so live flesh would give them nutrients to keep thier dead flesh moving. Just my thoughts.

But that's not part of actual zombie lore.

I agree with you. I don't understand why Zombies would want to eat anything since their digestive systems don't work. Zombies as an immortal work force is definitely a scarier & more relevant fear. I blame it on secularization, where zombies are no longer magic & defeatable by salt. http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly.html

I prefer the 'serpent and the rainbow' style voodoo slave zombies over the the mindless shambling corpse variety. Especially now since they seem to be able to run even though they are dead.

Like all myths, there is no one "true" iteration of the zombie. There may be an "original" (though even that is arguable), but there is no "true" version: myths and stories are fluid, living things that change to reflect the cultures which embrace them.

The voodoo zombie represented the Haitian fear of being rendered soulless and thus returned to a state of slavery. It became a subject of morbid fascination for white folks essentially because it carried with it the implied threat of colonial inversion: a black voodoo priest could conceivably make white people into zombie slaves, which was both terrifying and (on some anthropological levels) taboo and therefore intriguing. The zombie was reinvented post-Romero to reflect modern Western cultural idiosyncrasies, which have more to do with insecurity based on internal fears (the "threat" walks among us and is viral in nature) and sociopolitical ideas regarding war and capitalism (in a sense, we fear humanity is eating itself).

There's actually an interesting book written on the cultural evolution of the zombie, its origins, and what the symbol has meant to the various cultures who've embraced it: American Zombie Gothic

Wow, didn't realize there was such a Zombie history!!

But, Zombies are the hottest selling things we have this year.

Mondern Zombies are more like Ghouls. I resent them being called Zombies because they're so far removed from the Haitian originals. Even though modern vampires are far removed from ancient vampire myths they still have commonalities of being undead & drinking blood.

But now they sparkle, too!

How about the Beserkers from 28 Days/Weeks Later being broadbrushed into the "Zombie" label despite being alive and starving to death being the resolution of the first movie.

That's the only time I've really been bothered by the Zombie label.

Funny I would come across this topic when I just finished watching the first episode of the second season of The Walking Dead today. What a great way to start the new season too. It was that good! Trying to think back to the first season and the story I just watched and I'm pretty sure the undead are never called zombies by the living characters.

American Zombies came into existence when Johnson started his great social experiment. haha

These movies are all fiction anyway. What does it matter? Not trying to start anything, but "zombie" is just a label given to an animated corpse in this genre of horror movie. What else you gonna call them? How one uses it in horror fiction is no big deal. Movie zombies are meant to scare you. Besides, as some have pointed out, in most cases it is WE the moviegoer who call them zombies, not the movies themselves.

jfh1970 wrote:

I'm pretty sure the undead are never called zombies by the living characters.

They don't. They just call them "Walkers" and "Draggers".

Similarly, Max Brooks using the term "Zombie" very loosely in World War Z, opting instead for more familiar language like "Zack" and "Gs".

I watched Zombies: A Living History on the History Channel last night. Very interesting stuff.

Ironically, modern movie "zombies" are rather like the vampires of "pre Stoker" European legend. In those earlier legends, they were not these suave seducers of the innocent, but shambling, half rotted corpses (at least in some legends) with the stench of death upon their breath.

So, in a way, we've come full circle.

As MysteryLad so elequently stated, such tales are malable and change to fit the audience.

Another point, while we think of "Dracula" as a period piece, for it's time, it had certain elements of of being a high tech thriller. Characters employed the latest breaking technology available at that time like wax cylinder audio dictation devices, typewriters and even electric torches. That was bleeding edge stuff at the time. It would be like a character in today's fiction decking out himself with a portable particle accelerator ala "GhostBusters" to combat the supernatural.

Sincerely,

Bill