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One of my favorite television shows is AMC’s The Walking Dead. And I’m not alone. The Walking Dead has the highest ratings of any cable television show (surpassing Monday Night Football by 1.7 million viewers). So why is a show about survival in the zombie apocalypse so popular? Is it just another manifestation of interest in the occult and supernatural (think Twilight)? I think the fascination goes much deeper, and I’m curious to hear what others have to say about the phenomenon.

In the 19th century Karl Marx wrote that religion was the “opiate of the masses.” Although many Americans continue to identify with a particular religious tradition, I believe consumerism has become the dominant creed in 21st century America. But there’s a problem: a growing number of Americans sense that consumerism isn’t delivering on its promise of happiness. They are finding that the excitement and thrill of “retail therapy” wears off fairly quickly, only to be replaced with the desire for something else. And so the cycle continues. Akin to opium, all consumerism manages to do is provide temporary relief to a more existential longing. And as is the case with many an opium user, the addicts themselves know that opium isn’t going to bring them happiness. And yet they don’t know how to escape from the temporary relief it gives them.

Enter The Walking Dead. In the world of the zombie apocalypse, a definitive rupture has been made with the superficial (and ultimately unsatisfying) consumerist world. In the zombie apocalypse, you don’t go to work at a cubicle for 20 years writing TPS reports. You don’t pine after the newest pair of running shoes or designer purse. Your daily life isn’t circumscribed by the hum-drum commute between strip mall, suburban housing development, and soccer field. In the zombie apocalypse, life is re-imbued with a sense of adventure, exploration, and opportunity.
In the zombie apocalypse, your daily decisions matter. You take ownership of your own life and make decisions that have tangible results. You are the master of your own destiny. Your life has meaning because of the action you undertake. Sound familiar?

I think The Walking Dead appeals to the age-old American notions of independence, adventure, the self-made man, unapologetic individuality, and bold action. These same ideas were articulated in one way or another by American luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau.

Perhaps we could say the endurance of their ideas make these authors (wait for it…) zombies in their own right. Could it be that they are the one who truly merit the title of (DUM DUM DUM) The Walking Dead!?

CMF

I think you could definitely argue that TWD could be seen as an argument for a libertarian world view. The government appears to ignore the crisis, then fails to stem it. Note the suicide (well, he stays inside a building he knows will explode) of the last scientist of the CDC, possibly a commentary on the failure of government, the failure of collective science. Those that survive tend to be those who think for themselves, and only look out for themselves and trust friends/family. I could see Ron Paul really enjoying this show, nodding along as every promise of authority fails to deliver.

I think any discussion of contemporary zombie cinema ought to be rooted in the works of George Romero, whose original "Dead" trilogy (Night of the Living Dead in 1968, Dawn of the Dead in 1978, and Day of the Dead in 1985) formed the basis for all zombie films since, and the literature and graphic literature inspired by the genre. The question posed in the original comment of this thread (“why is a show about survival in the zombie apocalypse so popular?”) is easy enough to answer in our current context. Zombies have been popular in the mainstream for over forty years, ever since Night of the Living Dead took the U.S. by storm, and even before Romero invented the zombie tropes that are now so familiar, there were the classic horror films based loosely on the zombies of traditional Haitian folklore (see White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi in 1932), which, it should be noted, are quite distinct from the zombies of Romero, The Walking Dead, and the comic of the same name. Interestingly, it is thanks to vampires in the American Gothic literary tradition that we have the zombies we do now. Night of the Living Dead was based loosely on the great Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend, which featured Robert Neville, a lone Poe-esque protagonist whose mind is unraveling as he struggles to survive in a boarded up house, hunted by hordes of hungry vampires which have propagated due to a virus-like bacterium. This novel, and the film it inspired (nevermind the terrible 2007 adaptation starring Will Smith, with its clumsily rendered vampire-zombie hybrids, lifeless dialogue, and saccharine Hollywood ending) presented a nihilistic vision that was all too relatable for many Americans after two world wars and, in the case of Night of the Living Dead, the escalating U.S. imperial conflict in Vietnam. Night of the Living Dead, progenitor of the contemporary zombie, was a shocking, brutal experience for viewers, depicting the senseless death of every single one of its main characters (sorry for the spoiler but it has been over four decades since it came out). I think this bears directly on the appeal of The Walking Dead. I tend to disagree with the idea that the television series is popular for any sense of adventure, exploration, or opportunity. I think this is a far too optimistic reading of the show. The Walking Dead has really hit its stride the last few seasons with an intense exploration of ruthlessness. The level of debased brutality that the main ensemble of characters (particularly Rick, Carol, Michonne, Daryl, and well... particularly everyone) resorts to in order to survive is, for the viewer, a plummeting descent into moral ambiguity. Is this perhaps reflective of a rising self-criticism of American ideals in popular art, that film watching audiences are tired of static, uplifting representations of themselves (think of the rise of the anti-hero in televised dramas)?

Oh yeah I thought the Vincent Price adaptation was great when I watched it, especially compared to the 2007 version. It at least used the novel's brilliant ending, which is the heart of the whole thing. I love Vincent Price. I didn't bring it up because it didn't feel directly relevant to my focus on The Walking Dead. There was another adaptation as well starring Charlton Heston in 1971 called The Omega Man which I haven't seen yet. I've read that it's pretty mediocre but I'll watch it at some point. Apparently it's really heavy on action, and not in a good way. The poster features Heston wielding some kind of fancy gun (big surprise).

I think what makes The Walking Dead so endlessly fascinating and popular, is how despite the highly dramatic and fantastical situations it describes, it is deeply human. The description of the first volume in the series reads:

"How many hours are in a day when you don't spend half of them watching television?
When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something we wanted?

How long has it been since any of us really NEEDED something that we WANTED?

The world we knew is gone.

The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility."

The world we know is absolutely gone in this series. However, human tendencies remain strong and unbending. Yes, people find themselves capable of horrific acts of murder in the attempt to survive, but what I see in the series is too-human tendencies. These tendencies include finding a group and imposing some kind of communal structure on it, selecting a leader who is adequate and organized, overthrowing that leader when their interests no longer align, finding companions, creating families, etc. There is this constant attempt to impose stability on a world of chaos. Are we not also part of a world ruled by chaos? One could argue society, culture, all those things are constructs meant to distract us and give us some feeling of control. Walking Dead breaks that down in the most terrifying way.

Quote from C. M. Farrell on November 11, 2015, 08:49
In the zombie apocalypse, your daily decisions matter. You take ownership of your own life and make decisions that have tangible results. You are the master of your own destiny. Your life has meaning because of the action you undertake. Sound familiar?[/b]

I think The Walking Dead appeals to the age-old American notions of independence, adventure, the self-made man, unapologetic individuality, and bold action. These same ideas were articulated in one way or another by American luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau.

I think this is an incredibly fascinating point as well. The stakes have certainly changed, but you are still the master of your own fate. Your daily decisions, at this moment, in the real world are what truly matter. Having Emerson and Thoreau at your side may even prove helpful in a Walking Dead scenario. I was never taken by Zombie fiction or film, but The Walking Dead gave it such a human aspect I found myself drawn in. I still wonder sometimes how it gained this much popularity, but everyone's posts offer excellent understandings. It truly touches upon fundamental elements of society and culture that may seem wholly removed from us, who are obviously not living in the zombie apocalypse, but somehow can be proven applicable.

People being the danger is true for the show however I believe that it is the people behind the camera that are the danger and not the new communities being introduced. Instead of focusing on and building a story that relies on their characters and how they develop, they are creating a show that has an incredible amount of cliffhangers as well as character death fake outs to keep audiences coming back. Thats not to say that the cliff hanger has not been used to great effect in the show, for instance the final to season 5 where Rick and his group are trapped in Terminus with no hope of escape was fantastic, it ended the season and its story perfectly while setting up the next and leaving the audience wondering how they are going to escape. However as this show has gone on they seem to be focussing less on quality and more on what can shock people more.This is where I see the danger, as they continue to tease the death of Glen and even go on to not show who died at the end of the season finale, the show has ceased to be about story and all about money. Who can they make more money off of to keep or kill on the show? Well now they have months to decide that instead of having a story completed leaving many fans upset. The show like many others with its popularity is being killed by corporate greed, posing a greater danger to the characters we love than any zombie.

What I'd like to point out (which I believe the original post understands) is that the best zombie tales are actually NOT zombie stories - they are often other stories which use zombies as a metaphor to function within these stories. For example, early zombie films are not zombie films, but political films about the horrors of communism, using zombies as a metaphor for communism. A more specific example would be the 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead, which is in essence a horror story about the fear of capitalism, which uses zombies as a metaphor for mindless consumerism. The most effective horror stories often uses the supernatural as metaphors for us to better understand ourselves. We see this also with the original Godzilla film, which is not a monster film, but rather a disaster and war film about the fear and consequences of WWII and the Nuclear Bomb, with Godzilla being an embodiment of foreign weapons. Cultural and historical circumstances dictate what people find interesting or popular (Godzilla was most relevant in a post-WWII Japan, zombie films were popular during the Cold War / the rising fear of Russia). I think an argument could be made for the Walking Dead's popularity being attributed to the increase in American nationalism and neo-liberalism (the individual, lone survivors rising about the masses as heroes) - very much the opposite of AMC former, highly-acclaimed series Breaking Bad, in which we follow a neo-liberal, self-involved character who functions as a warning against the corrupting nature of neo-liberal narcisism; we follow protagonist Walter White descend to madness and constantly deal with the consequences of his persistently neo-liberal mindset.