Over at the Boston Phoenix, Peter Keough attempts a Marxist interpretation of the popularity of vampires and zombies:Maybe Karl Marx, wrong about so much in the real world, could offer some clarification in the realm of make-believe. Could vampires, like the filthy rich, parasitic, aristocratic, and charismatic Cullens, be representatives of the capitalist class? And zombies, those lumpen, lurching, mass-consuming legions, could they stand for labor and the proletariat? If so, vampire movies would embody the audience’s anger and fascination with the money men responsible for the recent economic collapse. And zombie movies would touch on the dread of — and wish for — an uprising of the working against those same exploiters.
Aside from the analysis itself, Keough gives us a little gem of a reaction shot from the father of the modern zombie flick:
Not even George A. Romero, who as much as anyone can take credit for the zombie phenomenon — spawning it as he did back in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead — can explain why they do this. “I don’t get it,” he remarked about these undead wannabes when I interviewed him recently about his newly released sixth film in his zombie franchise, Survival of the Dead, which opens next week. “You just want to say, ‘Get a life.’ ”
Wow. The dude responsible for Diary of the Dead thinks you're the one who needs to get over the whole zombie thing.
2 comments:
"You always hurt-- the one you have to sell to--"
Didn't Heinlein say something about how he hated all of his readers?
So much he made a religion out of them.
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