Zombie Fiction and Toxic Individualism

[Imperator-zor]

I'm going to say this up front: I've never been a huge Zombie fan. I like some things with Zombies in them such as Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead and I don't think that Zombies fundamentally ruin things simply by showing up. Then again, it has some issues which bothers me. First of all it had up until recently over saturated the media with movies, books, games and whatnot. People complain about Superhero movies over saturating the medium. But at the very least there is a big difference between Iron Man and Spider Man or Wonder Women in terms of character, theme, settings, aesthetics and so forth. Most Zombie Fiction's idea of novelty is basically "The Zombies are in Silly Hats", some novelty like them being faster or somewhat smarter, are animated by Fungus or are Nazi Zombie (this is a rather literal one as the thing which made the Nazis evil are very human, so making them into Zombies strips them of what defines them leaving you with zombies who are only discernible from other Zombies by outfit) and people taking the whole "Zombie Apocalypse" thing WAAAY to seriously and need to read about the Battle of the Somme about how the military would fare against The Walking Dead. But here I'd like to talk about a specific point to the played straight Zombie Apocalypse narrative.

A key thematic point of Zombie Apocalypse Fiction is this vision of rugged self reliance. The world has gone mad as most people have been reduced to mindless murder beasts while the powers that be were unable to stop it. Don't bother about saving the world, that ship has sailed. But you can survive as you are clever and adaptable and know how to outsmart and outwit the Zombie Horde and are able to kill individual zombies. Distant yourself from others besides maybe a few exceptionally close friends and family as they are liabilities more than assets. Those that band together against the Undead are going to use the situation to become tyrannical and will eventually fall from their hubris. The only one you can count on is yourself.

Besides the stupidity of the military failing to wipe out an mob of shambling dead fuckers frankly there is some rather unpleasant thematic stuff in this whole set up. It's a highly antisocial worldview, possibly to the point of sociopathy. Individualism taken to the extreme of rejecting a pillar of humanity on par with intelligence, cooperation. No one human built society, it was build by myriad humans working in concert for thousands of years. Being able to make metal tools is a great skill to have and especially for a group of humans to have, but to do so you need ore, fuel, a forge and food on hand so you can master your skill. It's also hypocritical as Zombie Survivalists don't run into the woods and hunt deer with stone tipped spears. No they scavenge foodstuffs from shopping malls, ammo from gunstores and whatnot. Things that were made by an industrial society which could only exist because millions of humans get along.

I know that feminists have grouped some of the stupid shit which is caught up in traditional ideals of masculinity (over aggression, pissing contests, letting emotional baggage fester, avoiding anything which would mark them out as being weak or worse, feminine, etc) as being Toxic Masculinity. Likewise I feel that a fair bit of the Zombie Fiction's subtext leads towards a concept of Toxic Individualism.

Zor

[Karha of Honor]

I'm going to say this up front: I've never been a huge Zombie fan. I like some things with Zombies in them such as Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead and I don't think that Zombies fundamentally ruin things simply by showing up. Then again, it has some issues which bothers me. First of all it had up until recently over saturated the media with movies, books, games and whatnot. People complain about Superhero movies over saturating the medium. But at the very least there is a big difference between Iron Man and Spider Man or Wonder Women in terms of character, theme, settings, aesthetics and so forth. Most Zombie Fiction's idea of novelty is basically "The Zombies are in Silly Hats", some novelty like them being faster or somewhat smarter, are animated by Fungus or are Nazi Zombie (this is a rather literal one as the thing which made the Nazis evil are very human, so making them into Zombies strips them of what defines them leaving you with zombies who are only discernible from other Zombies by outfit) and people taking the whole "Zombie Apocalypse" thing WAAAY to seriously and need to read about the Battle of the Somme about how the military would fare against The Walking Dead. But here I'd like to talk about a specific point to the played straight Zombie Apocalypse narrative.

A key thematic point of Zombie Apocalypse Fiction is this vision of rugged self reliance. The world has gone mad as most people have been reduced to mindless murder beasts while the powers that be were unable to stop it. Don't bother about saving the world, that ship has sailed. But you can survive as you are clever and adaptable and know how to outsmart and outwit the Zombie Horde and are able to kill individual zombies. Distant yourself from others besides maybe a few exceptionally close friends and family as they are liabilities more than assets. Those that band together against the Undead are going to use the situation to become tyrannical and will eventually fall from their hubris. The only one you can count on is yourself.

Besides the stupidity of the military failing to wipe out an mob of shambling dead fuckers frankly there is some rather unpleasant thematic stuff in this whole set up. It's a highly antisocial worldview, possibly to the point of sociopathy. Individualism taken to the extreme of rejecting a pillar of humanity on par with intelligence, cooperation. No one human built society, it was build by myriad humans working in concert for thousands of years. Being able to make metal tools is a great skill to have and especially for a group of humans to have, but to do so you need ore, fuel, a forge and food on hand so you can master your skill. It's also hypocritical as Zombie Survivalists don't run into the woods and hunt deer with stone tipped spears. No they scavenge foodstuffs from shopping malls, ammo from gunstores and whatnot. Things that were made by an industrial society which could only exist because millions of humans get along.

I know that feminists have grouped some of the stupid shit which is caught up in traditional ideals of masculinity (over aggression, pissing contests, letting emotional baggage fester, avoiding anything which would mark them out as being weak or worse, feminine, etc) as being Toxic Masculinity. Likewise I feel that a fair bit of the Zombie Fiction's subtext leads towards a concept of Toxic Individualism.

Zor

I think everyone should do better than labelling shit toxic in this toxic humanity.

[CharlesPhipps]

Is there really that many examples of such?

The Walking Dead long since moved past that in the show as well as comic books while most zombie movies do not show survival as an option. The original Night of the Living Dead was about how order broke down and the survivors failed miserably.

[FaxModem1]

Zombie fiction can be anything, from Romero's "Humanity is evil and needs to die", to the film Fido's "Conformity and denial of differences are bad", to Snyder's............... but mostly, zombie fiction is 'civilization ending disaster, only this time it's zombies'. This can lead to various types of stories, but the one that found it's audience is, "Being prepared will make you survive".

Essentially, preppers.

There is an appeal to the individualism of the zombie apocalypse. The air is still the same, the water is still the same, the food is still there, and there's no radiation. Heck, all the electronics and modern conveniences still exist as well. You are still competing with the population, but now you can get away from them and enjoy life how you want to. You don't have to deal with the numerous paperwork, or working a 9 to 5. If you want, you can just conquer a mansion, grab some supplies, build some walls, and boom, you're king of the mountain.

At least, that's the appeal of the fantasy. In reality, if such a thing happened, you're probably one of the countless millions who are already dead and a zombie.

Why is this appealing?

Because in reality, they seem to lack agency. They're either in a dead end job, or a student, or settled down somewhere. And the best they can do is working a dead end job to pay the bills. It's an appeal to frontier fiction, only with it being possible in modern day. Same way that westerns were the heyday programming of the 1950s and 1960s.

Now, whether this is toxic or not is debatable. But I think it's a symptom of a rather sizable group of people being unsatisfied with their lot in life, and not seeming to have the possibility to make a change in it.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I like some zombie stuff, but I'm not a huge fan. A bunch of soldiers against a bunch of mindless, possibly slow-moving, unarmed enemies just doesn't work for a lot of reasons, which is why a lot of zombie fiction tends to skip, or at least skim over, that part of it. So civilization is pretty much a necessary casualty.

Once you reach the intended "small group vs. mindless horde" scenario, there's still room for a lot of different themes/messages. Individualism is one of those, but just as often the message is the value of cooperation and community.

[Yukaphile]

Not a big fan of zombies either. Not unless he's got a Sith lightsaber and is spewing stuff at you about how he's going to kill you because he hates his former master.

[PapaPalpatine]

In any zombie apocalypse survival setting, rugged self-reliance is necessary. Civilization is tits up and taking on water, so anyone who isn't smart, tough, and self-reliant will either end up Purina Zombie Chow or get themselves killed in any of a number of other ways. Remember, the zombies aren't the only danger in such a setting; there's also the elements, wild animals, and even other humans to contend with.

[Yukaphile]

I dunno. There's other ways to test people in survival situations past zombie apocalypse. I prefer stuff like TDK.

[Deledrius]

In any zombie apocalypse survival setting, rugged self-reliance is necessary. Civilization is tits up and taking on water, so anyone who isn't smart, tough, and self-reliant will either end up Purina Zombie Chow or get themselves killed in any of a number of other ways. Remember, the zombies aren't the only danger in such a setting; there's also the elements, wild animals, and even other humans to contend with.

The funny thing is, it's always a dead-end. The real solution is to rebuild communities and group up and fix things. But most zombie tales which try flirting with this always have the Rogue Defector character who ruins it for everyone, even though it invariably is a death-sentence.

Zombie stories are self-contradictory morality plays which these days are an excuse for anarchy and gore-porn, not social commentary on conformity vs. individualism.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I get what you mean. I think the toxic individualism is more part of the Post Apocolyptic genre, and it shows up a lot because of where zombie fiction intersects that.

The fact is, most prepper-types would die even quicker because of their antipathy for anything that's not manly enough. You can't shoot disease. You can't intimidate humidity. You can't outmuscle crop-eating pests. These Butch Hardbody types might give thought to food and water, but in a post-apocalyptic wasteland they would be one cat-bite away from slow horrible death. They can't make clothes, so the winter will kill them eventually. Ammo isn't the biggest concern for survival when the infrastructure you depend on dissolves.

The zombie fantasy changes things by letting the capacity to fight and kill, to make "hard choices", be a more valuable trait than the making of food, the sewing of clothes, and all the things we rely upon.