What the Zombie Culture Craze is Actually All About

A growing fear of the monsters among us: The Boomers

Our monsters represent our deepest fears.

When I was in fourth grade, our elementary school chorus gave a concert at Memorial Hospital Rest Home. I expected to see rows and rows of grandmothers and grandfathers like mine smiling and clapping for our delightful performance. Grin and bow and leave.

INSTEAD…the sights, sounds and smells I saw there were absolutely terrifying. These people were OLD. In various states of immobility and unresponsiveness. They walked (if at all) in odd, ungainly ways. They didn’t smile; they glared or just plain stared. They mumbled, sighed and even groaned. And they weren’t “put together,” as my mother would’ve said. Not showered and dressed and prepared for the world. They seemed to live in their own world to which they had invited me for a visit. I could now see that accepting their invitation had been the biggest mistake of my short life. I didn’t know if I’d ever get out of there…

First of all, don’t hate me for my being desperately, fearfully biased against an entire group of people as represented by a ridiculously tiny fraction of that group. Next, let me say that yes, I got over it. Sure. Of course. I’m fine these days and not at all afraid of singing before audiences or of getting old. At least, not any more afraid than anyone else on the planet. But the other night, watching an ad for “The Walking Dead,” I had an idle thought:

Zombies are a memorable group. Powerful enough to be a symbol.
So whom or what do they symbolize?

The answer came to me rather quickly. A terrible answer.

This was NOT the answer: fear of aging. Though that is a plausible answer. There’s the thinning hair and awkward gait, wounds that won’t heal, the green-gray pallor and lack of meaningful communication.

Even worse, those gross old zombies just get more and more decrepit as they continue to age beyond death. Their physical bodies deteriorate. Their very identities degenerate to feral, running on all fours: less and less recognizable as human. Just the kind of nasty, repellant old age we all fear, and with good reason. But it has to be more than that.

Consider these particular characteristics of zombies and see if they point to a certain demographic group:

1. There are tons of them, piles of them, countless many of them.

Added horror: an endless supply of these gross oldies is constantly being generated.

2. They are obsessed with their own survival.

Even worse: survival is a strictly competitive game in the z world. Your loss is their gain. If they survive, you don’t.

3. They are relentless.

Though slower and clumsier and way less physically fit than the living, you know damn well they are going to catch you.