Why are zombie movies so compelling?
Maybe they represent the fear of the unknown. Or maybe they represent our obsession with complete societal collapse.
Or maybe they’re just mindless (HA) entertainment.
But maybe, just maybe, they reflect and speak to a very real phenomenon that’s happening all around us.
Albeit instead of a slow (often fast), entranced march for MEEEAAT, it’s a slow (often fast), entranced scroll for MEEMEEES.
Okay, I enjoy a good meme as much as the next person (and meat, non-human). And let’s be realistic, the following theory is based on absolutely nothing.
However, more and more I find myself able to identify with zombies from shows like The Last Of Us.
Sometimes weird forces take control of me and make me do things I don’t wanna do.
Sometimes I’m obsessed with a thing and run head-first toward it without any awareness of what’s going on around me.
And sometimes I just smell bad.
But seriously, within all of us exists the capacity to become well and truly zombified.
Zoned out. Numb. Unconscious. Call it what you will.
This doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. Everyone has times in their lives when all they need is to just take a day on the sofa, zone out, and consume, consume, consume.
The problem is that this little zombie inside of us is being strengthened and rewarded as our world fills more and more with things like zombifying devices, mind-numbing work, and craving-inducing food and apps.
There’s something eternally fascinating about the question:
What would happen if we gave in to our internal zombies and let our least virtuous desires and cravings completely take over?
What would happen if we let our most primal instincts take over our brains and bodies, just like ophiocordyceps unilateralis (the parasitical, zombie mushroom from The Last of Us), and we acted on every single selfish urge and primitive impulse?
This happens to us on small and large scales every day.
Some people are “infected” by the junk food bug and can’t for the life of them stop eating crap. Some people are infected by the TikTok bug and find themselves scrolling all night without any purpose. Some people are infected by the comfort-of-being-a-passive-consumer-and-observer bug and can’t find the energy or motivation to step into the driving seat of their own lives.
Seeing the full destruction and ugliness of what happens when external forces control our actions in the zombie scenario is a window into such unconscious or hidden parts of ourselves that we may not be willing or able to notice or acknowledge.
The zombie scenario is an illustration of what our lives may look like if those barely conscious moments of stuffing your face with junk food at 12am, checking your email 25 times a day, and scrolling Instagram on the toilet were to actually be 100% outside of your control.
The example of how the ophiocordyceps fungi infects ants (and humans in the series) is most apt here.
We often believe these moments are acts of our own conscious free will.
When what’s actually happening is we are being hijacked to ensure the survival of corporations that feed on attention and spread their greedy tendrils further and further through our own engagement, likes, content, etc.
We can’t see the harm of these automatic actions precisely because we are zombified. Their purpose has merged with ours. We eat junk food cos’ we like it. We scroll endlessly because it’s fun and fills dull moments. We watch porn cos’ it feels good.
There’s a voice inside of us telling us otherwise. However, the internal dissonance of destroying our health, giving in to desire, and not investing time and energy into things that actually matter/are fulfilling is easily and quickly soothed by consuming more meat/stuff until it becomes nothing but a distant whisper.
Just like in ants, these parasitical habits don’t kill us. They keep us alive, as a kind of zombie, controling us and using us for their own benefit.
Until finally, one day, they’ve consumed every inch of our soul and have no more use for us so they explode out of our heads and go off to find new victims.
Did I take it too far?
To me, Zombie movies speak to these little but potentially devastating zombies we all have within us.
The happy ending is that, just like all good zombie movies (but unlike the ants), the underdogs always make a strong comeback.
We humans rise up and fight back.
Often against all the odds. Often only by rekindling distinctively human qualities and abilities like teamwork, perseverance, compassion, awareness, and empathy.
Seeing people, often loved ones, turn into zombies around us brings out the best of us.
We come face-to-face with what we could become, and in doing so, remember what it is we have lost.
Namely, agency over our actions—the only thing we only ever have true agency over.
We see that by giving up agency over our actions, from little moments and habits to full weeks and months, we give up agency over our lives.
So, maybe zombie movies represent our fear of the unknown, our obsession with societal collapse, or are just mindless entertainment.
But maybe they’re a testament to our gradual (and explosively sudden) loss of will and agency.
I choose to see them as a reminder of the complicated, messy, and difficult but ultimately liberating capacity we all have to snap out of zombification, choose our actions, and direct the course of our own lives.
Sometimes (or a lot of the time) we may feel like deliberately zombifying ourselves and forgetting this weighty feat. Taking refuge in stuff that feels good but deadens our souls—even biting others so we feel better about our plight (yum).
But whether in the face of a mob of ravaging flesh-eating zombies or the jaws of pure and insatiable craving, greed, and desire (for pleasure or numbness), no matter how fucked up we may feel and be, we always have the ability to reclaim our agency, remember our humanness, and prevail.
Just like in good zombie movies, the fight is real.
There will be struggle, relapses, sickness, near misses, losses, and lots of crazy scenes that will make you want to just lay down and join the mindless masses.
But instead of being more reasons to give in, we can choose to see these moments as more reasons to consider agency and consciousness as the sweetest, most precious things we have, and thus, that are in need of our constant care, respect, and protection.