The Walking Dead Volume One "Days Gone Bye"

A fresh change of scenery. That's exactly how I felt with The Walking Dead Volume One. Books are great. And movies are awesome, but graphic novels combine both those elements and this one did so very well. Although, the story in volume one was a little boring it was still interesting. I didn't know what to expect after turning some pages and the end was a complete surprise. One thing that I enjoyed about the graphic novel was the change in location for hiding out from the zombies. They didn't hide in the mall, underground, or move around house to house. They stayed where they were. They camped out in the wilderness. A location so often deemed as unsafe in prior zombie fiction.

In the introduction Richard Kirkman states that he's not trying to scare anyone and "Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are, they make us question our station in society... and our society's station in the world." I believe the first volume of The Walking Dead graphic novels do so very often. It is clear very early on that the story is not about zombies themselves but how people react to them and how they react when people are hurt by them or by the chaos they caused. The love triangle between Rick, Lori, and Shane is evident enough. Shane takes his partners wife and kid in order to keep them safe yet falls in love with her and her child. When Rick is reintroduced into their lives it makes sense that Shane would feel hurt and abandoned by the woman he loves. Time kills. Time hurts. Time gives hope but shatters dreams at the same time. That is what ultimatley leads to Shane's death. He can't wait any longer for the army to rescue the group and he can't wait any longer for Rick to get out of the picture so he can be with Lori. It makes sense, but Rick can't be blamed for not getting what he wants. And niether can the zombies. It's a matter of circumstance and coicidence that killed Shane. Not Carl attacking him, although, in a literal sense it is. But the main thing that kills Shane's spirit is the time wasted and time it takes to survive. It got to his head and was his fatal flaw.

Friedrich Nietzsche on the zombie

Nietzsche focuses on the term ressentiment which is the opposition to ones misfortune or illness. He talks about the views of this from both nobility and slaves. Each ones justification of ressentiment is warranted by the class system that is set up, good and evil. The justification from the nobles stand point is because they have the land and wealth this must mean they are good. “We the noble, the good, the beautiful and the happy”. This shows the nobles perspective of themselves being “good” just from their good fortunes and power. On the other hand the slave’s reasoning to be poverty stricken causes them to be “bad” or “evil” which explains their misfortunes. Each uses this concept of their own luck or existing power as a statement of their own morality. The weak take the sense of winning everlasting life as a win against the strong. Their belief in focusing on the evil in the world and the after life inhibits them from enjoying life in general. The strong’s own power and wealth make them already good and they don’t need to focus on the evil or afterlife.

This sense of ressentiment ties in very well with the zombie. People tend to think they are the “good” and the minority or the others are the “evil”. Finding “evil” in the zombie is shown in many zombie narratives. For example in I am Legend Robert Neville believes he is the good of man kind and justifies his killing of the vampires/zombies as “good”. The act of him being human makes his take on ressentiment as him being “good” and the misfortune of the other humans turning into vampires as “evil”. Characters in zombie movies or books need justification of ressentiment to be able to give good reason for the acts they commit towards zombies. The blaming of the zombie is perfect for one to get over the gruesome and inhuman acts they commit. If you consider the zombie “evil”, your actions towards them can be then considered “good”.

On the Genealogy of Morality

In our selected readings from Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche begins by formulating a background for morality using a slave-master analogy. Nietzsche goes in depth on how these two drastically different social classes develop their morality. Those with a higher or more noble social status, the masters, tend to define terms of 'good and bad' and 'good and evil' in terms that since they are since they are noble they are good.

The slave morality, Nietzsche argues is more based in ressentment, that what the slave views as good is the oppisite of what the master views. This difference of moral basis, i feel, erodes the basis for an inate human morality. That each group of people, and ultimately each individual, dfines their morality differently from another in no way strenghtens the idea that there is one right and wrong.

I find this idea of different clases defining their own morality very interesteing. We have seen that there are many interperations of the zombie, and I think this idea can be most easily applied to the social zombie we have seen in a few works. Even if the social zombie is not concieoulsy aware of it, they must have some basis for morality, some underlying unification that govers how or if they work together. With this idea of morality exisiting outside the human, as zombies are definitely not human, we cannot with complete certianty say that morality is strictly a human concept.

Ressentiment: Let's play the blame game

Ressentiment, as Nietzche explains, is the need for humans to place blame on something for their sickness, illness, and bad luck. With blame there can be aggression and aggression leads to violence, war, and ultimately superiority for the victor. The large part of this essay focuses on the fact that good and evil is defined by the dominate culture. The “good” people define themselves as good and then believe it is their duty to oppress the “evil” people. Because both sides feel this way, the “good” people always win. The dominate culture will win and they will instill their idea of good into the inferior culture. The “good” will always have the Ressentiment to find a new “evil.” He believes that if man does not have Ressentiment then another group of men will and they will likely become the next culture to fall. He goes on to give an example of the fall of the Roman Empire. Rome was a strong empire but today what was Rome is inhabited by Christians. I know little about that history, but I don’t think Nietzche is right about Christians taking over the Roman Empire.

My most direct relationship between Ressentiment and Zombies is very simple. All Zombie media is based around the fact that humans must blame the Zombies for their turmoil, while it is obvious the society wasn’t functioning properly in the first place. Armageddon rarely occurs without reason, and there is always that underlying message. For example, Romero attempts to make it very clear that the materialistic and consumer culture we live in will lead to our demise. However, for that story to take hold an antagonist, something we can place our Ressentiment on, must exist. The Zombie is the perfect character for that purpose. The audience can see the Zombie and blame the protagonists’ turmoil on that figure. However, it is the zombie that merely moves the plot along, as we have said in the past. The movie or novel is a vehicle for the message, whether that’s consumerism, overzealous science, immorality, or any other reason. But as Nietzche said, the human is always looking for saving and the ascetic priest he mentions has the answer. The humans must blame themselves for troubles, because there is always Ressentiment. Often in Zombie media, a character will realize the issues they face are self inflicted, and the Ressentiment is placed on themselves or society in general.

Day of the Dead

George Romero's Day of the Dead shows the continuing transitions of humans to something less than human and zombies to something closely resembling humanity. It is probably the least accessible of the Romero zombie films, since the human characters are not all that likable, and much of the film is spent without zombies lightening the mood (or scaring the audience, as the case may be).

Sarah, the female doctor/scientist, is ostensibly the heroine of this film (with a little help from John and Bill). She is trying to find a way to reverse the zombie epidemic, while at the same time trying to hold the human community together.

Dr. Logan, on the other hand, believes that the only solution is to domesticate the zombies. Humans are drastically outnumbered (400,000 to 1 by Logan's calculations), so would not be able to simply eradicate the zombies. Logan works out a teach and reward system, so that zombies have an incentive to behave properly. "Reward is the key," he says over and over throughout the film.

These characters, and their actions, lead to several thematic questions:

1. What would be the result of reversing a zombie epidemic? Would people be cured and return to normal, or would they simply die on the spot? And which result would be preferable to the survivors?
2. Does Dr. Logan's approach to the problem reflect a Marxist perspective? Is the film suggesting that the only way to prevent a revolution is to reward the uneducated majority for its menial work?
3. Does the ending of the film imply that the rules of the "old society" must be forgotten in order to start fresh?
4. Thinking of Romero's other films, where African Americans are the heroes, why is Sarah the hero in this film? What is John's role in this film, and is it important that he is African American?

I may have to watch this one more time before I feel like I can discuss it fully.

Day of the Dead

George Romero's Day of the Dead movie explores, once again, the post apocalyptic world that would be created if zombies began to overtake the human life and all of its existence. We follow a small group and despite their few numbers, they have a divide that is separating them from accomplishing something. Research and science versus violence and destruction, the two are in constant opposition.

The remaining military personnel just want to get rid of every zombie in sight. Yes, it is a plan but given their resources it is also very impractical. The other people, mostly the research scientist, he just wants to "train" the zombies to behave in a more human manner. Again, we can all see how this too is quite the task in itself and nearly possible to achieve. In the middle are Sarah, John, Bill, and a few others are stuck trying to please both groups of people. As many of the zombie movies we have watched, the humans' biggest downfall is the lack of a similar goal. Most definitely, only a few will survive if anything.

In some of the books and literature we talked about how the zombies begin to evolve and becoming smarter as time progresses. In this movie, a different approach is taken. A few characters in the movie do say that the zombies are becoming more intelligent but the scientist has a different way of using their instinct behaviors. His goal was to domesticate the zombie, something we have seen or read about previously. We first see this occur when Bub, the zombie under experimentation, acts like he's shaving his face, reading a book, and even talking on the telephone.

Near the end of the movie is when we really see the effects of teaching the zombies. It is obvious that through time, Bub learned and developed feelings. When the scientist died, Bub became upset, saddened, and angered. He took his revenge out on Rhodes and ended up shooting him. This type of behavior we have not seen before because we were under the assumption that zombie had no way of possessing such thoughts. Prior to Day of the Dead, zombie have been completely mindless.

Briefly, there were some important symbolism to be pointed out. One that tied the story together was the calendar that Sarah crossed the days off on. The last scene of the movie shows her crossing off November 4th, which is Day of the Dead in Latin American cultures. Maybe is it just to show that the three survivors may be the only real humans left and every other "human" is a zombie, dead.

Zombie Bite Calculator

Hey everyone,
This is the link to the calculator I used in my presentation which figures out how much time you have left after being bitten by a zombie. This will help you plan out and know how long you have to say your goodbyes and put your affairs in order.

http://theoatmeal.com/quiz/zombie_bite

"The Open" and "Homo Sacer"

In my opinion this text was challenging. There were a few things that I think I understood. According to I believe it was Aristotle there are two ways of looking at the question of what is life. There is zoe and bios. Zoe is life that an animal has. An animal is alive but does not quite have higher brain function. Bios is the pursuit of "the good life". Then the text goes into a connection between bios and politics. A part of this text that was interesting to me was when it was talking about politics as life. If you're out of politics then that means that you have no rights and if you have no rights then you really have no life(bios). You are essentially only living(Zoe). The text talks about Nazi science experiments and how they related to this idea of having no life(bios). This is what seems relevant to zombies. The prisoners that were at the camps had horrible experiments run on them. They had no say in what happened to them because their rights had been revoked. They were in between real life(bios) and just existing(zoe). I think it is really interesting to think of zombies this way. I'm glad to see that there are other ways of looking at what a zombie is other than half rotten living dead who eat brains.

On Homo Sacer and Agamben

For class we are given the introduction to Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer and selections from The Open. There are many ideas in these dense texts that revolve around the concept of life. Agamben brings up "homo sacer", "bare life", "good life", and in the other reading "umwelt" which I think can link back to the idea of the zombie well enough, with specifically George Romero's Day of the Dead in mind. However, I had to travel to the internets to help myself even begin to unpack what is being said.

In Homo Sacer Agamben talks about old Roman laws and quotes Aristotle frequently. A big idea he borrows from Michael Foucault is the idea of "biopolitics" in which politics are ingrained entirely into human lives. I don't think this is to say that politics have a complete controll over lives, but more that one cannot really have life without the other. It seems to me that politics exist for the lives of people and the people exist within the politics. It's almost symbiotic. This ties into what Agamben refers to as a "bare life" where a person's rights as a citizen are removed yet he still lives, able to be killed by anyone yet still sacred, i.e. "Homo sacer". Even with bare life where your rights are all removed, you are included in society by that very exclusion, as Agamben puts it. This is opposed to a "good life", which isn't used as often, but is implied that it is a life with politics and the use of those rights.

From this it seems clear to me the parallels between a bare life and the existance of a zombie. Zombies are exempt from any sort of political laws or restrictions but are still able to be killed by the humans on the other side. In Day of the Dead, even when the society at large has apparently broken down there is still a functioning group work within the military research bunker, much how biopolitics posits that politics are so ingrained in human life. Even with some ten people together, the zombies are still treated as Homo sacer by the people and the scientists. The only way to keep the zombies within the percieved laws of this new organization is by force. In the case of "Bub" the zombie test subject, the idea of biopolitic surfaces again a little as he does an instinctive salute motion to the Captain Rhodes' uniform, showing that even though zombies are removed from society and politics there is still a memory of it that keeps them included yet excluded.

Lastly, in Agamben's excerpts from "The Open" I found an interesting idea in his reporting on the "umwelt". This is the sense that what is the world view to us is different than the world view of say a rat or a spider or a plant. There is no way for us to understand how another animal might see the world. An interesting anecdote I remember is of the bee that was ingesting honey. Even if its abdomen was severed, it would continue to drink the honey because it saw that it had to, that gathering the honey was its purpose. In "Day" we are shown that zombies consume, yet have no physical requirement to do so. This is their "umwelt", which we as living humans cannot fathom. If we're full, we stop eating. Zombies will keep eating and keep existing.

Thoughts on Land of the Dead

While watching Land of the Dead, I was reminded of the “Phone Crazies” from Stephen King’s Cell. This was brought about almost right away with the zombies attempting to play music in the gazebo, they seemed to be smarter than the average zombie right off the bat. Especially at the way they seemed to be able to communicate with one another. They way that they distracted the zombies at night with the fireworks was actually really cool and again reminded me of the way that the “Phone Crazies” were vulnerable at night. That point was where Big Daddy showed just how much he had still up in his head, or how much he had regained. Of course I’m not just going to ramble on about how the two items, Cell and the movie, were alike one another because that would just get boring.

However, another reference that popped into my head while watching this video was that Fiddler’s Green somewhat reminded me of Rapture from the video game series Bioshock. It was just the way that the videos were shown and the voice being used to advertise it. That and the way that the paradise like place that had been established went right down the crapper eventually leading to zombies getting into the main building. That and the main zombie had the name “Big Daddy” making him seem like the things you have to fight in the games that had the same given name.

There were several nameless zombies that stood out to me and quickly won me over with how they acted against others who were trying to re-kill them. “Tambourine” was one such zombie. He played that instrument that I have based his name off of and really put his all into it, even though that wasn’t much. “Butcher-guy” showed that he was more than just a rotting face, helping Big Daddy get through the plywood boards to get closer to the city, as well as showed that even if someone has a grenade, if you cut off their hand and make them fall onto it, you can keep on going. “Spring-head” because he was just that funny. He showed that looks aren’t everything because a zombie that doesn’t look like it has a head, can still have one, and can surprise you with it when you think “oh good, it doesn’t have a head, that means it cant bite me.” Last but not least “Clown Zombie” because clowns are freaking scary enough on their own, but a clown that is a zombie is just over the top, I personally was glad that he wasn’t in the movie very long, just long enough to get a piece of “Mouse”.

All in all, this movie was quite enjoyable, the rich guy was thinking of himself with a snobbish attitude, the “good guys” had guns, the head zombie tried his best to look out for his kind, and everyone learned a lesson from the zombies, and that lesson is “don’t mess with zombies, they will eat you.” or “working together is a good thing, see how much the zombies did?”