McKinley: Zombie Apocalypse Now — Freak Crimes and the Living Dead

The widely talked-about freak attacks of last week — the Florida face eating, the Maryland… The widely talked-about freak attacks of last week — the Florida face eating, the Maryland heart eating — brought to the national stage one of America’s odd fascinations: zombies. But those who speak of our zombie tradition as a casual exercise commit a mortal error: Our widespread fascination with zombies has become an alternative to religious doctrine on life and death.

Last week in particular put our fascination with the undead on full display, as reports of “zombie-like” activity lit up the Internet. In places as diverse as Miami, New Jersey and Maryland, freak crimes have us contemplating the presence of a mystic living dead. Reports of a face-eating man or a heart-craving college roommate convinced the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to release an official statement claiming that the agency “does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms).”

If the federal words were an attempt to reassure the public, they largely failed. Popular reports on the Web indicate that the general population feels that just because the CDC doesn’t know of a zombie-causing virus doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Indeed, the government’s need to seriously address the issue of zombies only further legitimizes the fascination.

We are fascinated by zombies. Case in point: Netflix. Alongside the limited selection of critically acclaimed blockbuster films, such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Forrest Gump,” the movie service lists a huge selection of C-rated zombie films — 55 pages of them, to be exact.

Zombies dominate not only people’s movie choices, but also their behavioral choices. Each year, thousands of people participate in zombie parades and zombie proms. Even weddings can adopt a zombie air. A Bride and groom can share their first bite of an arm cake that oozes out a thick red icing. On our own campus — as well as campuses throughout the nation — thousands of Nerf-gun-wielding college students play the game Humans vs. Zombies.

Our fascination with zombies is nothing new. The first-ever zombie film was released in 1932. The film, “White Zombie,” depicts black Haitians chasing a white woman and mainly served as government propaganda to further convert racist fears into political support for an American military invasion of Haiti.

Zombie fascination has affected many places, but it’s especially relevant to the history of Pittsburgh. This is where the biggest series of zombie movies was initially imagined. George Romero, the so-called “Godfather of Zombies,” was a student at Carnegie Mellon and worked on the set of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” when he decided to enter the horror-film industry. His 1968 film, “Night of the Living Dead,” filmed in Pittsburgh, became a cult classic and serves as an important benchmark in the zombie-film industry.

With video games like “Left 4 Dead” currently selling millions of copies, there’s no sign the long history of zombie fascination will close anytime soon. But if college students continue to fire Nerf pellets at their zombie classmates for years to come, a long-standing question must be addressed: Why are we so hypnotized by mystic beings caught between life and death?

Perhaps we fixate on zombies because they provide an alternative to the finality of death. Existing between the vivacity of life and the unconsciousness of death, zombies boldly contradict the clear divide between the alive and the dead.

Those bandanna-clad Humans vs. Zombies players might appear to be wildly imaginative children, but they more accurately resemble a postmodern community of believers fascinated by the undead. Who is to say a belief in zombies is any more wildly unrealistic than the ancient Greek belief in the great gods of Olympus? For centuries, humans have contemplated the stark division between life and death. Existing somewhere in the middle, zombies provide millions of modern Americans with a way out of the confusion.

While religious doctrine attempts to assuage our fears of death, zombies stand in opposition to death. Our common fascination with zombies suggests a common dissatisfaction with our various faiths and beliefs. We do not share a universal religion, but we do share a desire for an alternative to the living-or-dead structure that religious doctrine provides.

The outrageous nature of zombies only makes it more of a viable alternative to what our priests or imams may tell us. Zombies are just impossible enough that we don’t feel blasphemous imagining them. We can feel comfortable considering their existence because it never appears as a legitimate challenge to our much more accepted beliefs in Jesus or Muhammad.

The presence of zombies on Netflix, television shows and video games allows us to imagine a medium between living and dying. These trancelike beings allow us to blur the otherwise clear division of existing and not. So bring on the zombie walks, epic fake battles and rotting flesh makeup. Zombies may not be realistic, but neither is resurrection.

Write Rosie at romckinley@gmail.com.