Zombie nation

Now that The Walking Dead has resumed its second season, let's look at our nation's fascination with zombies.
Back in 1961, when Rod Argent formed the British rock group The Zombies, it was a fairly exotic name. There were some zombie films (White Zombie, cited as the first, came out in 1932), but they had a small cult following. By the time "She's Not There" and "Time of the Season" had come out, Night of the Living Dead, George Romero's classic zombie film and the first of his series, was out, and many more followed.
Now zombies are all the rage. The Walking Dead is hugely popular on TV. And on the bookshelves you'll find such mashups as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Even literary fiction has gotten into the act. Last fall, Zone One by Colson Whitehead, an acclaimed novelist, came out.

What gives? Why this obsession with zombies?
You can easily overanalyze it. Part of it is simply an interest in good stories, or in the genre of scary stories. I remember sitting on our front porch in the evening and telling ghost stories or what came to be known as urban legends, like the man with the hook for a hand. We like to feel scared but safe.
And the zombie films, for one, have evolved into other genres, using comedy and romance to tell their stories of the living dead. Films such as Shaun of the Dead, Braindead and Zombieland have captured our interest.
The Walking Dead and Zone One fall under the heading zombie apocalypse, in which an infestation of some kind has infected most of the population, and a few survivors try to fight off the zombies who want to feed on them.
Interest in this kind of story may reflect a need to escape real fears by imagining a worse one. We live in uncertain times, facing economic, environmental, political and spiritual problems that seem insurmountable. Let's get absorbed in a story that shows us concrete fears that we can face vicariously through the survivors trying to fight off the zombies. There's an appeal in that.
In his American Soundings column in the Feb. 8 issue of The Christian Century (christiancentury.org), Rodney Clapp writes about this obsession with zombies. He writes about "how crowded our world and lives have become." He says that "the multitudinous daily contacts we have with people via television, radio, e-mail and the Internet" can feel like we're being attacked by zombies. Although real people are behind all these contacts, they are concealed. 
He goes on to look at how our politics have moved toward demonization and dehumanization of one's opponents. And zombies, of course, are the ultimate dehumanized demon. 
Then there's the fear of widespread disease, such as depicted in last year's Contagion, a good film, by the way.
Whatever the reason for our interest in zombies, we do carry within us many fears. And these fears affect how we act, how we respond to others. They increase our mistrust of our environment and diminish our enjoyment of life. Our fears, often unacknowledged, can have a dehumanizing effect on us. Facing them honestly is one important step. Another is offering them to our Creator, who embraces us with an unconditional love that casts out all fear.
So enjoy your zombie apocalypses, but don't let the bite of fear infect you.