Well, Who Can We Kill, Then?

You know in the James Bond movies, when the Soviet soldiers were all dressed up in the very same outfit, and they're all shooting at James Bond, and none of them can hit him? And he shoots right back and they all fall? You know in WWII movies, when the Germans or the Japanese shoot at the Americans, and none of them can hit the protagonist, and he shoots right back and they all explode or go down? The filmmaker didn't want you to think about who those people were, if they had families or what have you. And I would imagine that people watching those movies at the time really didn't think about it -- you didn't need to question who those soldiers were. They ought to have died.

I think, though, that that is a sentiment that's lost some traction. Our cinematic milieu has brought in tons of movies that challenge the idea that our enemies were automatically worthy of death. So rather than seeing Mr. Bond bypass obstacles, we have an increased capacity to understand that we just watched a person die.

I think that's why zombie movies have grown in popularity these days. Of course, there's just the fundamental horror element to it -- the adrenaline rush of feeling that we are alone, and must fight to hold onto what little humanity we have left. That's very nourishing to our sense of self, something that we constantly yearn for. If I am the last person alive, well, then damn -- I must be worth a lot!

But that's something you see across the horror genre. We can watch madmen stalk around and kill innocent or sinful young men and women, but that's a very different experience than the fight between a person and a zombie. We might feel some guilt, some empathy, a sense of voyeuristic shame at watching people die in most horror movies. Yeah, we get that adrenaline hit and that reified sense of self, but on some level of our being, we know it's wrong.

And that's where zombies come in. They look like people, but they aren't. Something human about them has been excised -- yeah, they can lumber or sprint around, but they have become less even than animals. They lack any consciousness beyond that needed to kill and consume. And so it is very, very OK for them to be killed. Indeed, they must be killed, en masse. With shotguns. And flamethrowers. They don't feel pain; they're empty shells, less even than animals.

Zombies have replaced our Soviets and Germans. (Inglourious Basterds is a noteworthy case, and maybe I'll get to talking about that. Though I wrote about it some years ago, I don't think I was right on all counts at the time.) They're the only human bodies we can acceptably burn and tear to pieces, because the humanity is gone from them.

But it only occurred to me this morning that there is something else we get out of it. It's not just that they are human bodies. They also capture something imperative about us as a culture -- the sense of dead aggression that they embody.

I feel like I've seen many people, just going around in my day to day life, who have those two qualities -- a sense, on the one hand, of incredible, barely contained anger, and on the other, a lack of awareness, a sense of being cut off, not just from pleasure or beauty themselves, but from everything. I mean, you see it in some people with extreme political views, sure, but I see it even in a lot of teenagers and people that spend a lot of time in front of a computer. There is a weight on them, a heaviness, that walls them off and simultaneously stokes this fire of rage in their body. The language I've used here sounds pretty strong and poetic, but I'm trying to point just to something that I get a sense from the way they hold themselves, and the intensity of their reactions and what have you. It might not manifest in any violent behavior or anything. But it's nevertheless something that I see people carrying around.

And I would imagine that it is very important to these people to watch zombie movies. Most of these people still have their sense of compassion and justice as strong as anyone. So where can their rage safely be directed? Toward itself. And toward others who are filled with rage. Watching zombies -- manifestations of violence -- be subjected to violence allows this.

But rage and retribution don't seem to work that way. If the seed is already inside of you, planting more of the same seed won't get rid of that original seed. That's where meditation's worth can show up, if it's done in an educated way. But, goodness. I can remember feeling my own heart rage and deadness, and I don't know that mine ever approached that which I see in some folks these days. May their fires go out.