Has this happened to you as often as it seems to happen to me?
Some friend who I respect for their taste in culture or their wisdom in general will feel compelled to recommend I watch the latest film or television show that happens to contain an apocalyptic zombie storyline and as they embark on an inventory of all that makes it a must-see they fold in this line:
Of course, it's not really about Zombies.
Recently, I started watching the HBO series, The Last of Us, which has much to recommend it but...
I find myself wondering, episode after episode, why shouldn't this be about zombies? And if it weren't, well, what would that mean, exactly?
Can you imagine someone recommending Schindler's List and offering:
Of course, it's not really about the Holocaust.
It would be jarring to hear someone say that because, for starters, it's hard to imagine a subject matter with less of a need to justify its existence. No one has to explain why the Holocaust is a subject worthy of our human attention. It simply is.
Baked into it are universal human obsessions like: freedom, oppression, hatred, violence, displacement, identity... the list goes on.
So, then, why should it be so important to the selling of a zombie drama like The Last Of Us to qualify it as Not Really About Zombies?
Is it because zombies aren't real?
But aren't they?
If you take out the quasi-scientific details of how the human race turned zombie—because those are the details that change from story to story—the symptoms are pretty consistent:
Something has taken over the brains of the zombies rendering them incapable of human connection, empathy, kindness, love and made them into single-minded devourers. They simply roam from one feeding to another hungry for blood.
The Zombie Lives to Devour. Nothing More.
When discussing the American Economy, pundits on television look to The American Consumer for answers because, we are told:
The American Consumer is the Engine of our Economy.
So, zombies are real. And that's why we love to consume more shows about them.
