The Zombie Employment Apocalypse
You don’t have to look far to find evidence of the decline of a classic character type so recently riding high on television and at the movies.
The screenwriter today might have the hero answer the doorbell and open his home to the washing machine repairmen. The two might chat a moment, then the homeowner will show the repair guy into the utility room and explain what exactly the washing machine is or is not doing.
At no point in the exchange, or indeed over the course of this entire washing machine repair episode, does the repair guy shamble towards the homeowner who, admittedly, has let his attention wander, and eat his brains.
Likewise, to set another scene, Dr. Violet Nightshade, legendary epidemiologist and noted rebel against the establishment, goes down the hallway of the secret facility known only to a chosen few to the cold room where the most dangerous germs of history are stored, sees Steve Blanding, a fellow researcher, in passing and says, “hi, Steve, how’d the weekend treat you?”
Steve, for his part, doesn’t choose that moment to transform into a slavering beast, nor adopt the fashionable shambling walk we have all come to know and love, nor spring on her and then eat her brains. Instead he says, “Can’t complain.”
To take a final example, when the oft-rumored but never-proven Undisclosed Security Council of the United States meets in an underground cavern and a fellow enters and heads directly to where some of the best and brightest in the world are gathered, he doesn’t launch himself upon them as a vegetation might launch into a salad bar and begin eating their brains. He instead says “I’m going down to the break room for coffee, can I get anybody anything?”
Do you see the pattern?
In scene after scene, show after show, premier event after premier event, the zombie has seemingly been erased from the Ongoing Cast of Characters. There are a lot doings on these shows, some of them alarming in their own right, but as to zombie doings, they are as extinct as the dodo.
When casting calls go out there is the usual demand for dewy-eyed ingénues, shifty-eyed lovers, narrow-eyed hit men, and puffy-eyed boxers, but you can look all you want on the list and never see a dead-eyed or even a dangling-eyed zombie sighting.
The way of the world!
These trends rise, and rise, and rise, and there seems no stopping them…and then all of sudden they’re simply gone.
For the longest time everyone you know is playing Texas Hold ‘Em and dancing the Macarena, and then next thing you know there isn’t a deck of cards spread out horizontally into ‘the‘flop,’ ‘the turn,’ and ‘the river’, or whatever the hell was going on with that game, whatever the hell was going on with that game, nor a driving South American rhythm coming over the speakers onto the dance floor at wedding receptions with lots of wriggling and hip-slapping ensuing.
These things are over as if they had never existed, in fact a little worse than that. Nature has examined their contribution to the Great Circle of Life and decided to deselect them for survival. Like the dinosaurs, their time on the planet has come and gone.
And so it is with the zombie.
This is a hard fall from what at one time was a pretty cushy career path.
I won’t say that you could just walk into the field and succeed, nothing is that easy, my friend, but given a willingness to learn how to shamble and an openness to developing a taste for living brains, you could make enough to raise a family and put a down payment down on a little house, even at California prices.
That’s all gone now.
While a boon to humanity at large, the employment bust has been awfully hard on the zombies themselves.
They are difficult to cast in shows outside of the zombie sector of the entertainment world, and despite a few well-intentioned attempts at starring zombies in buddy cop shows, hospital dramas, and warm nostalgic holiday movies set in small town America where, say, a career woman comes back to to her hometown to close down her aunt’s bed and breakfast, strictly as a prudent business decision you see, only to fall in love with the town, the people, and the shambling zombie next door all over again, none of which were well-received by the critics, audiences, or for that matter the stray cast members and crew who got their brains eaten.
This is hard on people, well, on zombies, and their self-esteem is prey to every kind of questioning and second-guessing.
“Maybe I should have stayed in sales,” one might moan to another in that particular style of speaking – half shriek, half moan, and all pre-retching – while another questions the whole ‘follow your passion’ narrative that so many people have embraced these days. “Follow your passion?” he or she might shriek/moan/pre-retch. “Where has that gotten me, tell me? Where exactly has that gotten me?”
It takes a toll on the home front as well. The little lady or the supportive husband doesn’t like to say anything, but now and again they are to be found in a quiet corner sobbing privately to themselves, wondering where did they go wrong? Marrying a zombie seemed like such a sure shot! And now look.
They are in a real fix.
The lines of zombies at the unemployment offices stretch around the block and you never saw such a collection of sad sack half-human slavering shambling beast-things in your life.
Psychologists tell us that it’s the contrast with the previous high-rolling life that is hardest to take.
While the good times rolled the zombies by and large succumbed to temptation and got themselves into a standard of living that they could no longer support.
Every type of electronic gadget, fancy car, boat, big screen TV, the whole financial tap of an overheated consumer culture, they fell right into it, they just had to have it. The old story!
As for the fine people who work at the unemployment office, a certain amount of them got their brains eaten and are now in line themselves, but others who cottoned on to wearing football helmets or other protective head gear to work go about their efforts with the same steadfast dedication as these professionals bring to everyone or thing that walks through the door.
Zombies are sent out to apply for jobs in food services, retail, barber shops, massage outfits, the Post Office, cute little manicure shops, and touring versions of the current Ice Capades, Night of the Skating Dead.
Give everyone involved credit for throwing their hearts and souls and as it turns out sometimes their brains into the effort, but as a training and reemployment effort there were very few success stories. Well, none, really.
Grocery stores seem to always be in need of those fine people who pass out free samples at the ends of the aisles, samples of cheese, popcorn, fruit juices, so that line of work seemed to show promise for a while. Honest work, and gratifying in its own way. You get the interaction with the customer if that is your thing, and the flow of human nature passing by is enough to interest and amuse anyone with half a brain. Or none, as the case may be.
Though the demands are modest – “here, would you like to try this?” – even these were beyond the scope of most zombies. All of them actually.
“So I see here that the grocery store job didn’t work out,” says the employment counselor, speaking a little loudly so as to be heard from within the confines of his football helmet. “That makes 17, no 18, jobs that we thought might just get your rotting foot in the door. But it says here that you ate the brains of every customer you came across. I think we spoke about this the day before you started, didn’t we? Yes? Didn’t we?”
I say again, it is a tough spot to be in. You’ve got the skills you’ve got, but what do you do when they are no longer called for?
So the next time you see a zombie shambling down the street, or worse, standing on a street corner with an open guitar case at his feet and eating his guitar, have a heart. Put yourself in his shoes and think of how at one time he sat atop the entertainment pyramid. Throw a few bucks his way, I say, and consider how changeable conditions are in this world. I mean if a zombie can be taken down like that, who can’t?
I wouldn’t get too close though, and you might consider wearing a football helmet. Old habits and old appetites die hard.
