Zombie Jesus

Here's how the topic came about: I had read a hilarious David Sedaris essay about David participating in the equivalent of an English as a Second Language (ESL) class, only this one was in France and for non-French speakers. That would make it FSL? Anyway, according to the essay the class was trying to explain (in broken French) the idea of Easter to a non-Westerner. Think about it. A dad allows his son to die a horrible death. The son then comes back to life and visits his friends and family, and we celebrate this with colorful eggs, bunnies (and in France, the flying Easter bell), baskets, chocolates, and fake grass. I was trying to describe the hilarity of all of this to Christine, and as usual the topic became philosophical and serious in a surreal, circusy kind of way. You know. The usual.
ANYWAY, we thought that to people who aren't Westernized, we could be saying that Jesus is a zombie, and to others that may seem strange. We carried the metaphor a little bit further, but our ideas only went so far. We decided that we should consult the Zombie Expert of America, Jamie F. - my dear friend and Christine's dear hubby - for the REAL answers. Christine asked him, “Do you like zombies as a twisted expression of your Catholicism?” His response: “No, I like zombies as a twisted expression of my nihilism.”

Here is Jamie's dissertation on Jesus, zombies, nihilism, and the whole of humanity:

"The Jesus/zombie thing is interesting. I have thought about that as an ironic little funny before. I said to Christine once that Jesus was the ultimate zombie. He came back from the dead, but he did not conform to the mindless flesh-seeking that most zombies seem to. The idea that you and Christine presented, that Jesus is a self-sacrificing zombie who lets his flesh be consumed by the masses, is very interesting. That paints the picture to me of the mindless throngs of the masses (pun intended) mindlessly pursuing the flesh they want to eat, not because of conscious choice, but because of some primitive instinctual brain impulse provided by generations of indoctrination.

Ah ha...now I get it. It is the ultimate zombie movie, but not because Jesus is the ultimate zombie. What Jesus did, probably quite unintentionally, was create zombie-like masses of people who follow and never question.

Here is where the comparison really piques my interest. In zombie movies, there is generally some kind of plague that reanimates bodies. The top-level struggle is usually the remaining living trying to stay alive while fending off the zombie onslaught. What I love about this construct is that the living are doomed. The zombies have an unending supply of soldiers, while the living's numbers wane. The zombies are much less fragile than are the living. I like that it represents the pointlessness of the living's struggle; they try and try to survive and live and create a future, when in reality their own corpses are closing in on them and rendering what they're doing largely pointless.

That's the first level of conflict in the construct. The second is more powerful to me. The living, surrounded by death and the threat of death by former loved ones' corpses with the munchies, always end up causing more problems for each other than the zombies ever do. In Night of the Living Dead, the group shacks up in the farmhouse and boards it up. They are doing a successful job of keeping out the zombies. We, the viewers, know that if they survive until morning they will be rescued. Their undoing is each other, not the zombies. The alpha-male struggle between Ben and Mr. Cooper leads to Cooper's death, while Ben successfully wards off the zombies until morning, the sole survivor in the house, only to be shot by the hick sheriff who thinks he is a zombie.

In Dawn of the Dead the living have holed up in the mall, which is a well-stocked fortress. They are doing great until the motorcycle gang decides to loot the place, letting all the zombies in in the process.

And my favorite aspect is the way love is the downfall of the living. The most common way of otherwise intelligent people getting bitten by a zombie is because the zombie is their brother (Barbara) or their husband, or father, or whatever. The living are unable to separate a corpse from the sentimental attachments they have to the person it used to be.

So, ultimately, the living are screwed. Their world is closing in on them. Death is inevitable. No matter what they do to make life bearable, other living will screw it up through greed. If they love anyone, that will eventually cause them pain and even death. And no matter how clever they are, they will die. It is a huge metaphor for life. All that they can have is hope that they will be delivered somehow. Just as mankind has faith in an afterlife to make this life more bearable. It's not a happy picture at all, but it is fun to watch the living scurry around, and zombies are phat.

San Dimas High School Football Rules!"

Alright. Your turn. Respond please!