[notdevice]
After becoming one of the undead for the Zombie Run for Humanity, Kyle Darbyson explores our culture’s fascination with the brainless biters.
When I woke up at 6 a.m. on Oct. 4 to join the legions of the undead, I wasn’t expecting much of a turnout.
Outside of the fact that the second annual Zombie Run for Humanity was held in the middle of nowhere (alright, it was only in Nepean), the weather that morning was cold, wet, and entirely miserable. I figured most people would rather stay alive in their beds.
But when I arrived to get my zombie makeup done, I was far from alone. In fact, there were at least 30 people already there, anxiously waiting for some blood and guts. The excitement circulating around the makeup tent was infectious, and the bad weather was as bothersome to these zombies as it would be to real ones (that is, not very).
The event ended up raising around $5,000 for Habitat for Humanity, and afterwards, when all the infected had lumbered their way through the five-kilometre obstacle course, the 300 or so participants walked away with a thoroughly memorable experience and no lingering effects.
As I walked to the bus stop in full zombie attire to make my way home, I couldn’t help but think to myself: How has our appetite for all things undead become so great that people are now willing to sacrifice their Saturday morning to re-enact the coming apocalypse?
A cultural pandemic
Over the last five to 10 years, community events like this one have become commonplace all over the world. Organized public gatherings like zombie walks originated worldwide in Toronto and Vancouver in the mid-2000s, but they quickly spread across the globe, becoming yearly re-occurring events in places like Stockholm, Rio de Janeiro, and Sydney. They regularly attract growing numbers of participants of varying ages and backgrounds, all united under the common goal of shambling through major urban areas looking like a corpse.
The popularity of these events has also given rise to even more undead shenanigans, such as zombie car washes, zombie fashion shows, and even zombie-themed weddings.
The surging popularity of these cultural events can certainly be attributed to the meteoric rise of zombies in mainstream fiction. Recently, these decaying monsters have come to dominate movies, television, video games, and even literature.
The most glaring example is AMC’s The Walking Dead television series, based on Robert Kirkman’s best-selling graphic novels, whose recent season five premier garnered 17.3 million viewers, making it the highest-rated show in cable television history.
On the less gruesome side of the pop culture spectrum, kid-friendly mobile games like Plants vs. Zombies also dominate the marketplace. When this free-to-play tower defence franchise released a sequel in August 2013, it became the most successful mobile games launch of all time, reaching 16 million downloads in just five days.
In a seemingly unlikely success story, zombie culture is steadily spreading throughout our collective zeitgeist. There must be certain factors that make the living dead so appealing to so many different people.
Method behind the madness
The participants I talked to at the Zombie Run for Humanity had their own ideas of how zombies have reached this high level of popularity and why people bother to dress up like rotting corpses in public.
Some, like Jessica Marie-Jamer, an early childhood educator, emphasized the social aspect of these kinds of events, saying that they are a great way to “make some new zombie friends.”
Others believe the subculture’s overlying appeal lies in its morbid escapist quality, a position taken by Jonathan Mudde, a part-time Carleton student who came to the race dressed as a zombified Thor.
“I think a lot of people who like zombie stuff really like the idea of, ‘Oh, I wish the world would end for like a day so I could try it out,’ and I think this (event) is a little bit of a taste of that.”
And there are those who just like to take these opportunities to unleash their darker side, as is the case with Kirsten Churchill, a financial worker for the city who was sporting a grotesque undead nurse getup.
“People screamed more than I thought. Turns out I really like scaring people.”
Professor Sean Moreland, who teaches horror fiction at the University of Ottawa, has his own theories about why zombies appeal to our apparently sick, depraved human minds.
“One of the things that I think makes zombies fascinating, from the point-of-view of cultural criticism, is that they’re really capacious as a kind of metaphor, as a way of speaking to a wide range of human experiences that are often otherwise very difficult to address and to articulate.”
Just a cursory glance at the history of zombie cinema reveals this expression of diverse cultural fears and anxieties. For example, in the 1932 film White Zombie, Bela Lugosi stars as an evil voodoo master who brainwashes an entire Haitian plantation into doing his bidding. Not only is this film considered the first feature-length zombie film, it’s also a striking meditation on the poisonous legacy of slavery and colonialism in the 20th century world.
George A. Romero often used zombies for the purpose of overt social commentary in his renowned series of horror films. In Dawn of the Dead (1978) the director deployed his shambling, mall-dwelling undead as a subversive critique of uncontrolled American consumerism in post-World War Two America.
These days, directors have portrayed zombies that can move at breakneck speeds, such as those that populate movies like 28 Days Later (2002), Zombieland (2009), and World War Z (2013). These creatures spread fast and often uncontrollably, tapping into our contemporary fears surrounding the spread of infectious diseases. Such fears are especially apparent today, as the rapid spread of the Ebola virus has driven many into panic.
And while all these films draw on fantasy, there is evidence that suggests such extreme manifestations of our societal anxieties might be more possible than you’d think.
Getting down with the sickness
If you were to turn on the news or casually flip through a science textbook, you would see that zombie-like behaviour is all too real.
The mind-controlling parasites found in video games like Resident Evil 4 may seem like ludicrous flights of fancy, but these kinds of organisms already exist in nature. Species of parasites like cordyceps attack the brain directly, influencing the actions of various insects—often driving them to their deaths. Although the influence of parasites on humans isn’t nearly as severe (not yet, anyway), the implications are still unsettling.
Dr. Earl Brown, an expert in virology and immunology, explains how parasites like toxoplasmosis can find a home in felines, meaning that cat owners all over the world are susceptible to its influence.
“One out of three people have toxo sitting on their brain, idling away, and those people are greater risk takers, the girls are more promiscuous, the guys have more car accidents, etc.”
If that’s not something you’d consider gruesome zombie behaviour (because, well, it isn’t), consider the involuntary and often violent actions of people who suffer from the late stages of an infectious disease.
Afflictions like Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (the human variant of mad cow disease) and rabies have been known to reduce normal, healthy people into a twitching mess of spastic delirium, so much so that they can often turn violent.
“When you’re infected enough to be killed, a lot of weird things happen to you and your body shuts down. One of the features is delirium,” said Dr. Brown. “There are stories about human rabies patients trying to bite their doctors, trying to attack them.”
People’s concern about “real-life” zombie activity has not been ignored by organizations like the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. Back in 2011, the CDC even released official health policy documents that were meant to educate the public on “zombie preparedness.” The campaign was mostly done in jest, but its very existence demonstrates how people’s interest in zombie fiction is crossing over with their concerns for public health.
‘A false face’
With all this collective fear and anxiety lingering in our minds, you’d think there wouldn’t be so many people willing to attend a fun event like a zombie run.
I mean, the girl I was paired with along the course was beyond excited when the first heat of the race started, giddy at the idea of chasing after some runners with fake blood dripping down her chin.
Moreland believes these events act as a sort of coping mechanism.
“All the best horror fiction has always worked by speaking to and addressing actual anxieties, whether they are individual or cultural, but also distancing them to some degree, sort of fetishizing them, creating a false face that we can think about, that we can imagine, that displaces the actual danger, the actual source of anxiety.”
Coping with fear through high concept fiction and inclusive cultural movements is as good a method as any for coming to terms with reality. It gives us a sense of control and security in a world that is becoming increasingly chaotic.
While the idea of shambling corpses and unstoppable infectious diseases may seem terrifying, community events like the Zombie Run for Humanity give us a chance to take a step back, take a deep breath, and laugh at the grotesqueries on display.
It also makes it a bit of an ordeal to catch a bus home covered in blood.
[/notdevice]
[device]
When I woke up at 6 a.m. on Oct. 4 to join the legions of the undead, I wasn’t expecting much of a turnout.
Outside of the fact that the second annual Zombie Run for Humanity was held in the middle of nowhere (alright, it was only in Nepean), the weather that morning was cold, wet, and entirely miserable. I figured most people would rather stay alive in their beds.
But when I arrived to get my zombie makeup done, I was far from alone. In fact, there were at least 30 people already there, anxiously waiting for some blood and guts. The excitement circulating around the makeup tent was infectious, and the bad weather was as bothersome to these zombies as it would be to real ones (that is, not very).
The event ended up raising around $5,000 for Habitat for Humanity, and afterwards, when all the infected had lumbered their way through the five-kilometre obstacle course, the 300 or so participants walked away with a thoroughly memorable experience and no lingering effects.
As I walked to the bus stop in full zombie attire to make my way home, I couldn’t help but think to myself: How has our appetite for all things undead become so great that people are now willing to sacrifice their Saturday morning to re-enact the coming apocalypse?
A cultural pandemic
Over the last five to 10 years, community events like this one have become commonplace all over the world. Organized public gatherings like zombie walks originated worldwide in Toronto and Vancouver in the mid-2000s, but they quickly spread across the globe, becoming yearly re-occurring events in places like Stockholm, Rio de Janeiro, and Sydney. They regularly attract growing numbers of participants of varying ages and backgrounds, all united under the common goal of shambling through major urban areas looking like a corpse.
The popularity of these events has also given rise to even more undead shenanigans, such as zombie car washes, zombie fashion shows, and even zombie-themed weddings.
The surging popularity of these cultural events can certainly be attributed to the meteoric rise of zombies in mainstream fiction. Recently, these decaying monsters have come to dominate movies, television, video games, and even literature.
The most glaring example is AMC’s The Walking Dead television series, based on Robert Kirkman’s best-selling graphic novels, whose recent season five premier garnered 17.3 million viewers, making it the highest-rated show in cable television history.
On the less gruesome side of the pop culture spectrum, kid-friendly mobile games like Plants vs. Zombies also dominate the marketplace. When this free-to-play tower defence franchise released a sequel in August 2013, it became the most successful mobile games launch of all time, reaching 16 million downloads in just five days.
In a seemingly unlikely success story, zombie culture is steadily spreading throughout our collective zeitgeist. There must be certain factors that make the living dead so appealing to so many different people.
Method behind the madness
The participants I talked to at the Zombie Run for Humanity had their own ideas of how zombies have reached this high level of popularity and why people bother to dress up like rotting corpses in public.
Some, like Jessica Marie-Jamer, an early childhood educator, emphasized the social aspect of these kinds of events, saying that they are a great way to “make some new zombie friends.”
Others believe the subculture’s overlying appeal lies in its morbid escapist quality, a position taken by Jonathan Mudde, a part-time Carleton student who came to the race dressed as a zombified Thor.
“I think a lot of people who like zombie stuff really like the idea of, ‘Oh, I wish the world would end for like a day so I could try it out,’ and I think this (event) is a little bit of a taste of that.”
And there are those who just like to take these opportunities to unleash their darker side, as is the case with Kirsten Churchill, a financial worker for the city who was sporting a grotesque undead nurse getup.
“People screamed more than I thought. Turns out I really like scaring people.”
Professor Sean Moreland, who teaches horror fiction at the University of Ottawa, has his own theories about why zombies appeal to our apparently sick, depraved human minds.
“One of the things that I think makes zombies fascinating, from the point-of-view of cultural criticism, is that they’re really capacious as a kind of metaphor, as a way of speaking to a wide range of human experiences that are often otherwise very difficult to address and to articulate.”
Just a cursory glance at the history of zombie cinema reveals this expression of diverse cultural fears and anxieties. For example, in the 1932 film White Zombie, Bela Lugosi stars as an evil voodoo master who brainwashes an entire Haitian plantation into doing his bidding. Not only is this film considered the first feature-length zombie film, it’s also a striking meditation on the poisonous legacy of slavery and colonialism in the 20th century world.
George A. Romero often used zombies for the purpose of overt social commentary in his renowned series of horror films. In Dawn of the Dead (1978) the director deployed his shambling, mall-dwelling undead as a subversive critique of uncontrolled American consumerism in post-World War Two America.
These days, directors have portrayed zombies that can move at breakneck speeds, such as those that populate movies like 28 Days Later (2002), Zombieland (2009), and World War Z (2013). These creatures spread fast and often uncontrollably, tapping into our contemporary fears surrounding the spread of infectious diseases. Such fears are especially apparent today, as the rapid spread of the Ebola virus has driven many into panic.
And while all these films draw on fantasy, there is evidence that suggests such extreme manifestations of our societal anxieties might be more possible than you’d think.
Getting down with the sickness
If you were to turn on the news or casually flip through a science textbook, you would see that zombie-like behaviour is all too real.
The mind-controlling parasites found in video games like Resident Evil 4 may seem like ludicrous flights of fancy, but these kinds of organisms already exist in nature. Species of parasites like cordyceps attack the brain directly, influencing the actions of various insects—often driving them to their deaths. Although the influence of parasites on humans isn’t nearly as severe (not yet, anyway), the implications are still unsettling.
Dr. Earl Brown, an expert in virology and immunology, explains how parasites like toxoplasmosis can find a home in felines, meaning that cat owners all over the world are susceptible to its influence.
“One out of three people have toxo sitting on their brain, idling away, and those people are greater risk takers, the girls are more promiscuous, the guys have more car accidents, etc.”
If that’s not something you’d consider gruesome zombie behaviour (because, well, it isn’t), consider the involuntary and often violent actions of people who suffer from the late stages of an infectious disease.
Afflictions like Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (the human variant of mad cow disease) and rabies have been known to reduce normal, healthy people into a twitching mess of spastic delirium, so much so that they can often turn violent.
“When you’re infected enough to be killed, a lot of weird things happen to you and your body shuts down. One of the features is delirium,” said Dr. Brown. “There are stories about human rabies patients trying to bite their doctors, trying to attack them.”
People’s concern about “real-life” zombie activity has not been ignored by organizations like the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. Back in 2011, the CDC even released official health policy documents that were meant to educate the public on “zombie preparedness.” The campaign was mostly done in jest, but its very existence demonstrates how people’s interest in zombie fiction is crossing over with their concerns for public health.
‘A false face’
With all this collective fear and anxiety lingering in our minds, you’d think there wouldn’t be so many people willing to attend a fun event like a zombie run.
I mean, the girl I was paired with along the course was beyond excited when the first heat of the race started, giddy at the idea of chasing after some runners with fake blood dripping down her chin.
Moreland believes these events act as a sort of coping mechanism.
“All the best horror fiction has always worked by speaking to and addressing actual anxieties, whether they are individual or cultural, but also distancing them to some degree, sort of fetishizing them, creating a false face that we can think about, that we can imagine, that displaces the actual danger, the actual source of anxiety.”
Coping with fear through high concept fiction and inclusive cultural movements is as good a method as any for coming to terms with reality. It gives us a sense of control and security in a world that is becoming increasingly chaotic.
While the idea of shambling corpses and unstoppable infectious diseases may seem terrifying, community events like the Zombie Run for Humanity give us a chance to take a step back, take a deep breath, and laugh at the grotesqueries on display.
It also makes it a bit of an ordeal to catch a bus home covered in blood.
[/device]
