During a question-and-answer session with students on February 7, 2014, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Noam Chomsky was asked why there’s a cultural preoccupation with “the zombie apocalypse” in United States.
Noam Chomsky (born on December 7, 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historical essayist, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and an Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is the author of more than 150 books. He has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, and particularly international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. Chomsky has been a writer for Z projects since their earliest inception, and is a tireless supporter of our operations.
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Seems the video is unavailable.
Watch this short movie from this year, it’s on the same topic https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ2t_yNHQs
The social angle was there from the beginning. The seminal Day of the Dead features the mindless hordes drifting around a shopping mall, etc. There, Romero’s over-the-top satire was directed at a public stripped of community, self-awareness and individuality, rather than at some threat-group.
On the fear of outsider-groups writ large: I’d say that a deeper cause is that this kind of stuff allows an outlet for the predictable feelings of threat and anger bought on by the atomisation and insecurity that people are subject to, socially and economically. These feelings are not being widely admitted to and talked out in more constructive ways; here we see them bubbling up. The Walking Dead’s world of extreme threat, uncertainty, and desperation speaks to people in a way that the general depiction of society and everyday life on TV does not. I think that also lies behind the fear of “threat-groups” itself — we all know it’s easier to whip up the more socially insecure people feel.
As Mr. Chomsky says, there is a new subconscious fear in America. Before, the” aliens” represented the Russians, the immigrants, the illegal aliens. In other words, aliens represented a external threat against the American society. Nowadays, the fear comes from inside. It’s about recession, unemployment, poverty, drugs and social trouble. The Zombies represent the desperate poor, the homeless, the junkies we see on the streets.
This phenomena started in a street protests where the zombies represented the apathetic society controlled by corporations. However, this idea was hijacked by Hollywood, and the zombies were associate with the marginalized, playing a different mind game.
Yeah I did a piece on this last summer: http://www.redmoonrising.com/zombieapocalypse.htm