I found it interesting to read in Kyle Bishop's article on Zombies about the connection to Zombies and film during times of war. It makes me wonder what the populaces connection is with a zombie and war. There seems to be a link between consumerism and war. Anytime America has been involved in war time activities it does appear that war causes a large need in consuming materials, time, money and emotion. During WWII America experienced a shortage in precious metals. This intern caused the need for Americans to donate scrap metal to be used inn the war effort. Even the Deptartment of Treasury saw a need to stop the use of copper in penny production and use steel instead. Many toy manufactures experienced loss of business due to the unavailability to obtain metals used in their toy productions. This also caused an increase use in plastics as many items formerly made of metal were now being made of plastic. Also of note is fuel prices during war time. As we currently experience higher prices for gasoline, the Department of Defense increases its fuel reserves for use in the Iraq and Afghanistan war.
Zombies reflect this increase in consumerism by their constant need to eat human flesh. Could it be that Americans subconsciously view zombies as war? Since war is so consuming of our time and resources. This
link is to a web site that has done some research into this phenomena. I find it interesting that between the years of 2000 and 2008 over 120 zombie movies have been produced.
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I found this to be an interesting read as well. The relation to consumerism and zombies during wartime kind of escaped me. But that is a very good point. There was a part in Bishop's intro where he mentioned that loss of autonomy and freedom during wartime was represented with similar feelings if something of a zombie apocalypse should occur. So that kind of stuck with me and I didn't make that connection, even though after reading your assessment, it seems pretty obvious. Good connections.
ReplyDeleteI found this article created a great analysis on zombies, he presented evidence that I have never noticed before. He open my eyes to his views and it was great to see how our papers should do the same to others. Its tough to do! I guess we really need to critique every detail. Since 2000 we have faced many travesties. I just never realized how popular zombies were these past eight years.
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