tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4571055663184272276.post7343448819109488134..comments2023-07-09T07:45:50.552-07:00Comments on Socialism and/or barbarism: Surplus-lifeECWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02142600295759704786noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4571055663184272276.post-56621080470317749172009-09-18T12:09:32.329-07:002009-09-18T12:09:32.329-07:00Well, don't know about all of them, but in a r...Well, don't know about all of them, but in a rather perverse case, for Zombi 2, Fulci used "homeless itinerants and hopeless winos" as his zombies. I'm sure too many of them were used to being treated like the unwanted and already dead. As such, Zombi 2 becomes a documentary of sorts, about those excluded from the system, albeit who can only be "represented" in the terms of the fantastic/horror.ECWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02142600295759704786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4571055663184272276.post-20922503485826842392009-09-17T14:35:13.792-07:002009-09-17T14:35:13.792-07:00How do the actors feel about acting like zombies -...How do the actors feel about acting like zombies - does it come all too easily?stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06964690628169966854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4571055663184272276.post-45192892049480938032009-09-14T14:36:36.611-07:002009-09-14T14:36:36.611-07:00Indeed, I think you're quite right about the m...Indeed, I think you're quite right about the melancholia, the repetition compulsion that marks the genre from the actions of the zombies to the films the industry produces. However, there might be some form of melancholic pleasure at work here, in which the minor differences in repetition outstrip the fact of the same thing again and again. That said, considering these differences occur primarily around different "kills" and ways in which the survivors are variously bad-ass, we might wonder whether this is even the kind of "traversal" of a permanent present we would want. A stakeless struggle of bloodlust.<br /><br />On the bad pun front of stakes, I will return to vampires, albeit briefly, later, to think what Romero's de-vampirization of the undead meant for the question of blame, agency, and how we think our "enemies." And, of course, with the massification of the vampire in the contemporary infection-model of the zombie film.ECWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02142600295759704786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4571055663184272276.post-79969662098223537522009-09-11T21:53:29.634-07:002009-09-11T21:53:29.634-07:00I really like a lot of what you've said in thi...I really like a lot of what you've said in this post, but I'd really like you to talk about this notion of surplus life in the context in which the zombie genre emerged and in contradistinction to the vampire.<br /><br />The one, a feudal anxiety surrounding the vampiric extraction of tithe, rent and blood from one class by another -- a class privilege rooted bloodlines. The other, an anxiety about the undead adapted from vampires but emphasizing an excessive consumption or consumption en masse. Also, zombies' inability to properly die is an interesting melancholic feature of their portrayals, which may explain why the repetitiveness of the zombie genre (whereas vampires eternal lives provide endless backstory). Somehow zombies also institute a perpetual present, an erasure of history and an aborted future.Chris Chittyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11083603307219392867noreply@blogger.com