Zombies still rearing their ugly heads

Oct. 18—While some monsters are brought back to life by mad scientists or are bitten by fangs to transfer their persona, zombies become the undead through bioterroism, voodoo, or plagues.

Christopher Flavin, professor and chair for the Department of Languages and Literature at Northeastern State University, said the talk of zombies goes all the way back to the earliest dates of recorded literature. The "Epic of Gilgamesh" has a scene of Ishtar being insulted by Gilgamesh and Enkidu. She goes to her father, the king of the gods, to have them smited.

After her father said no, Ishtar threw a fit, saying she would tear down the Underworld's gates and let the dead rise up and eat the living.

"These concerns have been there since the beginning," Flavin said. "It's just how we represent our fear of the dead version of ourselves has changed over time."

While this is the first written piece mentioning zombies, Flavin said the first film was "White Zombie" in 1932. In this early film, Flavin said, the representation was to reflect mindless labor, while "The Night of the Living Dead" in 1968 was to show society being more involved in working harder to consume. Flavin said the latter stemmed from what was happening in American society in the mid- to late 1960s, with an in-between of generations of "hippies" to those being pushed to consume.

"You're seeing a lot more mass marketed foods," Flavin said. "You're seeing convenience foods that the previous generation never would have dreamed up. You're seeing an increase in the prices of things, and you're seeing everybody being driven to work harder to buy more stuff."

Flavin said zombies are still popular today, with shows like "The Walking Dead" and the more recent "This Is Us." Zombie movies' continued popularity can be attributed to the primal fear they speak to when civilization and rational thought are stripped away.

"So in 'White Zombie' [when] we strip off the civilization, we are afraid we become these post-industrial machines just for labor. After World War II and the Baby Boom, we're afraid we're just becoming mindless consumers. Fast forward to something like 'World War Z' or '28 Days Later,' and we're afraid we're going to be victims from powers beyond our control that are going to strip us from everything we think we are," Flavin said.

Jennifer Schnitzer, a party and event planner, will be hosting a haunted house and kids' carnival in Tahlequah this year. Schnitzer said she has hosted a haunted house for the past 12 years. While her haunted house has not had many zombies in the past few years, Schnitzer said some spooky houses do when they want to turn up the gore factor.

"I'm sure they are in some of them that really go to the gore, because we are all volunteers — these are not people we pay and we are very amateur. It's mainly either homemade costumes that we have or some of the blackout, store-bought costumes," Schnitzer said.

Schnitzer said she is hoping to add more zombies to the haunted house this year, which she said are one of the easier types of monsters to dress up as, since most zombie costumes only require torn clothes and heavy makeup.

"They're more just humans who have turned animalistic," Schnitzer said.

Too Fond of Books Manager Sierra Salem said zombie-related books have not really fallen off in popularity, but they are not as big as they once were.

"They come and go kind of like vampires and other things," Salem said. "When 'The Walking Dead' was popular, that was a huge trope that was being used, and 'World War Z' was coming out then. It just comes and goes in waves."

Literature over mere hauntings and thrillers have been the main genres being chosen over zombie tomes.

Some of sought-after zombie books at the moment include "This Delicious Death" by Kayla Cottingham, "The Walking Dead" comics, and "World War Z." Salem said when it comes to the cannibalistic undead, graphic novels are often the pieces of literature people prefer rather than regular novels.

"I think it is something that it is just the visuals that a lot of people — I don't if I should say like to say, but it's that visual another component to it," Salem said.

Due to "This Delicious Death" and a new zombie-esque manga series, "Zom 100," about to drop, Salem said, these monsters are starting to rear its ugly head again.

Flavin said he believes the zombie genre will start to plateau soon, but will pick back up in 10-12 years, as that is when they usually come back around. Reboots of classic horror movies and aliens seem to be the main horror type of media being portrayed.