Anyone who knows me knows that I have a longstanding fear of both Nazis and Zombies. This being the case, I cannot even begin to describe my joy in discovering Nazi-Zombies! (Or should the term be Zombie-Nazis?) Either way, they’ve arrived and not a moment too soon.
This will, of course, mean additional strife for our friends Snort-Zombie, and his side-kick Sharon-Zombie, in their never ending quest to rid the world of anti-Zionists because there are no worse anti-Zionists than Nazi-Zombies. (I hate those guys.)
A recent article in Heeb Magazine (I kid you not) discusses Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola’s Dead Snow (Død snø) and the significance of the Nazi-Zombie to contemporary western post-colonial discourse and the reification of the “other” in the Norwegian political economy…
Well… OK… Actually it does no such thing… and I can’t even begin to imagine what that could possibly mean… but it doesn’t matter because the Nazi-Zombie must be the coolest thing ever and it has a direct and immediate appeal to the 12 year old boy who still lives in Karma’s brain.
In one scene, a zombified Nazi attempts to scale a cliff using his own entrails. In another—in which Martin is bitten by a Nazi—his friend Roy tries to reassure him that he won’t become one of the undead: “You’re half Jewish. I don’t think they want you on their team.”
Right on! I mean, really, how can you possibly go wrong with a movie like this?
According to Bowdoin University associate professor of English, and local tiddly-winks champ, Aviva Briefel, the Nazi-Zombies in our midst demonstrate that regular Nazis are no longer sufficiently scary and thus we needed to (or, at least, the Norwegians needed to) ramp up the Nazi image to new levels.
“If you make Nazis into zombies,” she explains, “you’re saying you’re far enough from that trauma to make fun [of the past and] turn it into a monster.” It’s as if Wirkola is saying that Nazis are no longer scary on their own terms and need to be brought back as zombies to be truly horrible again.
I tend to disagree with this assessment… for no good reason, whatsoever… except for the fact that I still find Nazis rather disconcerting. (Especially when they dress themselves up as progressives, but that’s neither here nor there… well, it’s there, but not here, and for that I am more grateful than you can possibly imagine.)
Furthermore, Norwegian filmmakers are not the only ones exploring the Nazi-Zombie theme. The video game Call of Duty 5 also features Nazi-Zombies. In the game you play Ehud, the leader of an IDF commando team high in the Austrian mountains… I do not mean high in the Austrian mountains, I mean… oh, never mind… high in the Austrian mountains, searching out and destroying the vicious Nazi-Zombies who have pillaged the countryside eating human brains.
Here are the questions:
Do you have an irrational fear, as I do, of Nazi-Zombies?
Just how should Snort-Zombie and Sharon-Zombie respond to this obvious challenge to the Zionist dream?
Do you think that the presence of Nazi-Zombies in the cultural landscape signifies anything whatsoever or is it all just good, but twisted, fun?
Do you still have a 12 year old boy or girl who resides in your brain or has that person gone away?
Went to Troya last night. Turkish restaurant.
Delicious!
8 comments:
Hi Karmafish. The "there" link didn't work for me but I think this is the link you meant.
There
Hi Alma,
thanks for the heads-up!
For some reason my tags got all messed up when I transported them from MLW.
Cheers!
btw, I wonder why all the text on firefly is italicized?
Is that intentional, Ria?
You're welcome.
Its probably a little different formatting here. I know I've had to dig out my old cheat sheet for doing real links here. I'd gotten lazy just using copy/paste everywhere. Been a few years since I needed it.
Oh and that 12 year old girl is gone. I did love Hogans Heros as a kid but I don't find either real nazis or zombie nazis funny. (Though I like regular zombies) Too many bad things out there.
karma~
ummm, yeah i did the italics. i like the way they look. they seem softer.... i guess that's silly?
i'm not so keen on nazi-zombies. nazi's are scary enough. my dad & mrD's dad were in WWII, mrD's grampa was in WWI....
but i do like zombies...or at least zombie movies.
while i DO think we (as a nation, i guess) have lost our sense of humour & gone waaaaay too far with the PC BS, well, i think there are some things that should NOT be made fun of. war, genocide, interment camps(for jews or japanese or native americans or ANYone else) are among the things i never find humour in.
i think that is quite a different thing than say.... the black humour of funeral directors or hospital/ER workers.
i'm really not sure just WHAT nazi-zombies signify, but i don't think it's good.
yes. i still have a 12 yr old inside. she pushes the grown-up me aside at times & demands to just have fun. this is a good thing, far as i can see.
leftover pork roast slices, warmed.
baby carrots w/bacon ranch dressing.
praline ice cream....
yummmmmmm!
Jeez, Ria, I'm even worse than you: I don't even like movie zombies. But you know my sf background: horror flicks make me think too much.
Why was the monster in the ground for 200 years and only emerged NOW?
What made these bodies reanimate & become zombies?
Why were all the dead Indian souls quiet between the building of Amityville & when the movie was written?
Etc. Willful suspension of disbelief? Ain't gonna happen: it's like when the stupid teenager hears the monster in the basement: everyone in the audience is shouting _Don't go in the basement!_ and I'm going, another stupid teenager is going to get whacked b/c the filmmaker thinks we're all stupid & has no reasons for the monster's existence whatsoever. I mean, if I'm going to suspend disbelief, I need some reason to do so. It could be as simple as Alice falling down the rabbit hole or as complex as warp-speed drive from Star Trek, but: gimme SOME kinda intelligent excuse to suspend disbelief.
"The ghosts just woke up & they're angry" simply doesn't cut it.
Yer quite right: I am NO fun at horror movies. I only like horror movie parodies, like _Saturday the Fourteenth._ The ones that are supposed to scare me just bring out the science-fiction nerd: Why? Why? How is this possible? and the ultimate: This is entirely too stupid. Bring the popcorn & let's go to a real movie.
Oh, and my dad was in WWII also. He didn't talk about it too much when I was growing up, but: Dad. One of the Greatest Generation. I'm proud of him...I miss him.
Nazis can rot in hell for eternity. I don't really believe in hell, but I hope there's a special one just for them.
nice to know I can look in my sitemeter and still know my own very fan club is linking me.
Heh.
Hating neo-cons is not hating people. You lost your allies by your own reactionary stuff.
Thanks for the page hits anyway.
Love,
D
You remind me of my hubby Youff. He's an sf fan too. And things had better be plausible. Me I do SF and fantasy both. I really like humor added into the story too no matter which genre.
I don't like scary movies, never have. The Ghost and Mr Chicken used to scare me as a kid. LOL
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