IV 15 259-261

[Joseph Tracy]

On Nov 18, 2009, at 2:03 AM, John Bailey wrote:


> Re: Zombies. Night of the Living Dead [1968] arguably redefined the
> concept of the zombie in the US, and indeed made it a figure of
> popular culture in a way it hadn't been before. For the P-listers
> around at the time of IV, were zombies really part of the public
> consciousness? I know there's been a massive resurgence in popularity
> lately but are all of the zombie refs in IV appropriate to the times?
>
What I do remember from this time was a widespread interest,  
particularly among the young, in horror movies of all kinds. Where  
vampires were the darkest and creepiest from the European world,  
Zombies were a new world thing and had some credibility  and  
fascination of newness to people. I  also remember a class discussion  
in a history class in the late 60s about voodoo in US cities.

  I and most people I knew weren't sophisticated enough to  
consciously think of the horror movie thing as  addressing the fears  
and nightmares of western consciousness, but it seemed like a way of  
dealing with our own fears. I don't remember Zombies being a big part  
of public consciousness  but they were there at the edges , a  
combination of  death fear, race fear, religious fears, and fears of  
the  "primitive".

To me the 68 timing of Night of the Living Dead relates to the  
Vietnam War, and I think that  and other examples of the master  
voodoo priests of Corporate military imperialism subjecting the weak  
to their control  is the indirect target of Pynchon's reference to  
Zombies. But it has a very large human dimension  having to do with  
what is the controlling influence in one's life and consciousness.  
There is a line in the Torah _ I have set before you life and death.  
Choose life that you may live.

  Paranoia strikes deep
  into your life it will creep
Starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line the man come
and take you away