Who's Monster is that? PART ONE
How American Horror Media Becomes Soulless
It's October, which is probably the best time to have this discussion given the approach of Halloween, a time associated with the horror genre and many monsters in movies and books.
See, I love the concept of horror. Particularly the idea of consensual consumption of media designed to make you uncomfortable. I enjoy reading history as well, and often times I am not prepared for the uncomfortable information I find within said history.
A good amount of horror is, in fact, historical. The roots in ghost stories and folklore are impossible to ignore and utterly fascinating to delve into so that you can fully understand the appeal and meaning behind the creatures that dwell in these twisted tales.
Which leads us to the topic at hand. Given that most horror draws from some real world elements or at least the collective imagination of a time period or culture, it's important to take into account why a monster exists in the first place.
Today's topic is a monster that comes from America that just about everyone has heard of and has invaded popular culture in a multitude of different ways.
But where does it come from and… how did American media do the Zombie dirty? Buckle up because things are going to get really ugly.
Okay so, the very word Zombie is American through and through.
Zombie comes from Zombi, and the first accounts of Zombi come from Haiti. Before I delve into what a Zombi is, it's imperative that one understands a few things about Haiti beforehand.
Haiti was once France's most valuable American colony.
It was, however, a slave colony made up of a lot of Sugar Plantations and most of the population were enslaved people wrestling with their own identities. Eventually a great storm descended upon the island as part of a prophecy, and the enslaved people of Haiti began a violent revolt that would lead to one of the bloodiest conflicts in the region. This revolution would begin in 1791 and end in 1804 with Haiti becoming it's own nation comprised of and ruled by the former slaves. This was a historical first and also incredibly terrifying to all the other colonial powers in the region during that time period.
Then-president of the United States Thomas Jefferson immediately listed Haiti as an enemy of the United States for the threat it posed to the future of slavery in the Americas. This was in addition to the immense bruises to the ego of France as a result of the Haitians defeating the armies of Napoleon and indirectly forcing him to sell off Louisiana to make up for the economic losses caused by Haiti's independence. Haiti was made into a boogeyman to scare white people, and one of the biggest tools to accomplish that was the demonization of the Haitian beliefs of Vodou.
For anyone who doesn't understand what Vodou (Or Voodoo) actually is: The African slaves in Haiti spoke french and even participated in the Roman Catholic faith of the white french colonists who owned them. In secret, however, traditional beliefs from their homelands were still practiced as well. Haitian Vodou was a marriage of both these systems into something unique. To create a wholly new identity of your own choice rather than simply accept the labels of your former masters made the belief system incredibly empowering and as a result it inspired fear in those who worried that their own slaves might seek the same form of independence. Slaves and former slaves across the Americas, likely inspired, would become interested in Vodou and the alleged powers it promised them. This mysterious belief would captivate the minds of many and feed into the collective folklore of dark magics and strange powers from foreign gods. It's no surprise that this would help feed the writings of authors like H.P. Lovecraft who were scared shitless by such things.
For the Haitians, though, 13 years of brutal fighting and immense suffering also created a culture of trauma. There was an unspoken deep-seated understanding that any of the colonial powers might one day return with larger armies and try to retake the island and re-enslave it's populace. This fear manifested in stories about evil sorcerers who could trap your soul so that after death instead of passing on, you would become a prisoner within your own body that would be forced to obey their commands and labor endlessly.
To be trapped as a slave forever, toiling for the profits of another.
This was what it meant to be a Zombi.
This fear would become a reality for the Haitians when in 1915 Woodrow Wilson, (a president known for his support of the 'Lost Cause' mythos of the Confederacy as well as his fondness of the KKK) would initiate the invasion of Haiti at the urging of the financial giant currently known as Citibank. This occupation lasted until 1934 and saw horrific violence and destruction of the Haitian people and nation. This occupation would put Haiti back on the radar for citizens of the United States in a brand new way: The era of film. Movies about Voodoo and Zombi mythos would premier in the United States, earning the white directors and actors who played in them sizeable profits even as the gold reserves of Haiti were being looted and it's populace being demonized and killed for these same beliefs. The white audiences and directors did not understand the purpose of the Zombie. They had no history of being enslaved, they were not being actively oppressed, to them the only real appeal was the dark magic that made a Zombi and how they imagined they could use it on others or paint Haitians as dangerous practitioners of witchcraft.
Despite this the Zombie was still a Haitian creation during this era, even if they saw no profits from any of the media that made use of it to terrify the masses in the country that had invaded them. The zombies most people know today were still simply known as 'living dead' or 'ghouls'. The Zombie was something totally different for most audiences as it was still labeled a 'Voodoo Thing'.
When 1968's Night of the Living Dead came out George Romero did not initially refer to the animated corpses as Zombies at all. It was instead the urging of fans and moviegoers over time to begin calling such things 'zombies' due to association with the previous appearance of lifeless, mindless animated bodies. This was the beginning of the death of the original Zombie and it's reanimation as something else. Something dead and soulless and devoid of purpose.
The Zombie was a creature conjured from the traumatic memory of a people wronged by those in power. An idea captured by those same oppressive powers and exploited for their profit at the expense of it's true parents. An idea killed and brought back as a ghastly shade of it's former self and made to dance for the entertainment of those who looked the other way until its soul had all but vanished.
The very concept of the modern Zombie is a Zombie itself.
This is not to say that there cannot still be movies about the traditional Zombie, nor am I suggesting that the Zombie genre or directors who were part of this process must be cancelled. If you really want to fight against injustice towards the Haitian people I can think of countless better ways to help them.
What I do think should be taken away from this is that it is important to consider not only who does or does not get to tell their own stories, but also who inherits the ownership of those stories and who profits off of them as a result of that perceived authority.
Sometimes it is best to remain silent and encourage others to tell a story rather than taking it on yourself to do so, regardless of how good the intention may be.
