Today we’re taking the blog on a trip into modern day pop culture. In the past decade, movies, games and even books have seen a dramatic increase in the incorporation of zombies as important parts of the plot. From Resident Evil games and movies, to comedies like Shawn of the Dead and Zombieland to TV series such as The Walking Dead, this creature has permeated American culture.
Seeing as we handle death from many different angles and our customers not only need help picking out custom urns, but are also looking for a compassionate soul to talk to, we can’t help but pay attention to the many different aspects of death and the way we, as a society look at it. Even if that means that our culture is fascinated with the undead. So, we started to wonder, “What is it about zombies that we love so much?”
After all, there isn’t much that you really can like about a zombie. They have no personality, no thought processes and, well, most of them aren’t going to be winning any beauty pageants any time soon. Zombies go back centuries and can be found in many stories and cultures in many different names, but the term zombie has African and Haitian roots in Voodoo.
Many zombie experts (yes, those actually exist) believe that many of us fixate on zombies due to our increasingly complicated daily lives. From email, cell phones, internet, increased workloads, more family/social activities, our lives are a constant barrage of information and action. Even death is more complicated than ever, with families needing sort through wills, property, make funeral and cremation arrangements, design the “perfect” custom urn, find the right burial for their loved ones cremains and then make sure that the burial meets health and safety standards. It’s overwhelming!
Zombies are simple. Even the “zombie apocalypse” that some people talk about is simpler. There’s no need for an abundance of paperwork. Just survival. Even getting rid of zombies is simple: shoot them in the head. People crave what they don’t have in their entertainment, and, while we’re sure there are very few people who actually want to come face to face with a zombie, people connect with the simplicity that they provide.
While we aren’t exactly staying in on the weekend to catch up on the latest zombie flicks, we can sort of understand why these walking undead creatures appeal to a culture that is inundated with information and activities from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep.
We honestly just hope that none of these zombie plot actually comes to fruition.
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