Also, I kind of hope it's just because of the selection bias of the trailer, but the racist imagery in that first clip is pretty disturbing. White rural guy on a horse with a gun saves white women in Atlanta from urban horde of dirty-skinned, brainless monsters?What?
That's a big part of the comic book narrative and the show as well. The narrative intentionally raises issues of race and bigotry, and etc. Will this show present some racist characters and/or view points we disagree with. Of course, that's the point.Well, whether the comic book deals with racial issues, what does that have to do with the interpretation that zombies = black people? Especially since two of the main characters in the trailer were black people?
More significantly, the fast zombie is bereft of poetic subtlety. As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.posted by AceRock at 9:13 AM on August 25, 2010 [3 favorites]
However (and herein lies the sublime artfulness of the slow zombie), their ineptitude actually makes them avoidable, at least for a while. If you're careful, if you keep your wits about you, you can stave them off, even outstrip them - much as we strive to outstrip death. Drink less, cut out red meat, exercise, practice safe sex; these are our shotguns, our cricket bats, our farmhouses, our shopping malls. However, none of these things fully insulates us from the creeping dread that something so witless, so elemental may yet catch us unawares - the drunk driver, the cancer sleeping in the double helix, the legless ghoul dragging itself through the darkness towards our ankles.
Another thing: speed simplifies the zombie, clarifying the threat and reducing any response to an emotional reflex. It's the difference between someone shouting "Boo!" and hearing the sound of the floorboards creaking in an upstairs room: a quick thrill at the expense of a more profound sense of dread. The absence of rage or aggression in slow zombies makes them oddly sympathetic, a detail that enabled Romero to project depth on to their blankness, to create tragic anti-heroes; his were figures to be pitied, empathised with, even rooted for. The moment they appear angry or petulant, the second they emit furious velociraptor screeches (as opposed to the correct mournful moans of longing), they cease to possess any ambiguity. They are simply mean.
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posted by chasing at 11:40 AM on August 24, 2010 [19 favorites]