The Zombie Subgenre… means something?

http://www.zombiecommand.com/Zombies/

The Zombie Subgenre… means something?

When I first began reading this introduction I was a little skeptical. I was thinking to myself, really? Zombie movies reflect our society and culture? I don’t think so! But… I found myself more and more interested, mostly because I’ve seen many of the zombie movies that were mentioned, and I liked them all. So it turns out the zombie subgenre really is reflecting serious fears and issues relevant in our post 9/11 world, and an interesting fact I did not know, zombies did not get their beginning in literature like all the other monsters we’re familiar with (ie. Vampires, werewolves, etc.). They became popular through cinema, video games, and graphic novels.

What I learned from this introduction is that zombies have actually evolved from their first appearances in cinema. In the beginning, they were more related to Haitian voodoo with major racist undertones and the fear of communism. Today, zombies are cannibalistic, mindless, creatures that illuminate our fears of terrorism, infectious diseases, and the world coming to an end.

This introduction covers a complete timeline of when zombies first came to be and how they have changed over the years. The common thread throughout is the fact that the zombie stories are always reflecting our society and culture at that time. After all of the reading and research I’ve done about vampires for my final project, it seems to me that the majority of theses monsters that we have come to know and even love really are reflections of our society and how our society changes over the decades.

What I found really fascinating is concerning the study of “Frequency of Zombie Film Production by Year.” This study revealed how zombie movies were quite popular during the social unrest of the 60s and 70s and then in the 90s they had a major decline because everything, in a sense, was going really well, particularly in America. Then after 9/11 the zombie subgenre has seen another major increase in popularity. There have been remakes of the 70s classics as well as whole new takes on the zombies. 

What these modern films have in common is their similarity in showing post-apocalyptic worlds that have been decimated by zombies that are always incredibly contagious and usually created because of some kind of infectious outbreak.

Enjoying many zombie movies myself, I never really thought about or analyzed what they meant, or how they portray our society and culture. I can honestly say I don’t think that I will ever watch a zombie movie the same way after reading this introduction. I think I might even have to re-watch all of my favorites! If anyone has found that they are truly a "zombie freak", I recommend this website I came across, it's pretty much anything you can think of relating to zombies... I had no idea zombies had that big of fans out there!