Thursday, April 18, 2013

Feasting on the Undead


I saw this while walking out of the corner store near my apartment. To an extent, pretty much any zombie film or published story we see was put there to make a profit. I don't have any particular problem with this, nor am I inherently anti-capitalist. However, there is something very odd, and a bit unsettling, to me about the way the "zombie" label and packaging are just slapped on to products like this. There's nothing to separate it in function from any other energy drink, it's just that this is zombie blast, and the other's aren't. I think that this is in some ways just a general style of advertising, trying to get attention without saying anything in particular about what you're selling. It's a mindless kind of product pushing that seems(to me, at least) much more prevalent even in the last couple years. For example, this is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard of:
budweiser bow tie
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/budweiser-bow-tie-can_n_3094549.html

Seriously. It's less beer, it's still Budweiser, and it wastes twice as much metal to produce it...but, I digress.
The original Romero zombie was pretty indisputably a comment on blind consumerism. Yet, now as zombies are reaching a new high in popularity, they are an incredibly profitable monster. It's not that I think the zombie ad is particularly worse or better than other examples of meaningless advertising, but it does feel more blatant. This appropriation/consumption by advertisements of the zombie, one of it's most iconic commentators, seems a little reminiscent of the horror trope where a survivor is 'cruel' enough to a zombie that even if you din't side with the zombie, you at least lose some sympathy for the person.

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