Is It Safe?

Zombie boobs are all right.

Is it over? The apocalypse, I mean. The mass media zombie apocalypse apocalypse. For a while there, it seemed those slow, stupid fuckers were everywhere. I’m not talking about the zombies themselves but, rather, those shitty ass zombie apocalypse renditions in the mass media. It’s like the general public one day just up and declaimed — and rightfully so — that zombies were awesome, and then the next, every unimaginative hack came out of his own patch of the woodwork with his own particular brand of zombie drivel. For a while, there, you couldn’t turn on the television, go to the movies or pick up a book (especially of the comic variety) without seeing it. The zombie apocalypse apocalypse has wormed its way into art (both performing and visual), music and games (both video and board). Some smartass came up with zombie parodies of those trite family stickers people adhere to the back windows of their trite minivans (the vehicle of choice during any zombie apocalypse). There are even zombie apocalypse social movements and activist groups, and don’t get me started on that fucking Jane Austen mashup.

Now, zombies symbolize the mindless banality of a conformist pop culture

If you glean from this diatribe that I hate zombies — well, I didn’t used to. George Romero has always ranked among my favorite directors and still does. The utilitarian killing of a mindless and implacable enemy in “Night of the Living Dead” was metaphorical of cultural outrage over the Vietnam War and of a general Cold War unease. Now, zombies symbolize the mindless banality of a conformist pop culture. I used to love zombie movies. At one point, I even had recurring dreams of the zombie apocalypse. Now, they are so played out that I can stand neither sight nor sound of them. Thanks, general public for even hinting that you liked zombies, thereby fucking up zombies for everyone. And thank you, you talentless, banal hacks who capitalized on zombie consumerism with your mass media zombie apocalypse apocalypse.

“The Walking Dead” is all right, though. That is, unless AMC pulls the same shit they did last season and runs damned near seven episodes before anything even happens. For about six weeks there, I thought I was watching British television.