There's some memetic shift with that. The original zombie myth in Haiti is the horror of a slave society, the unique fear of an enslavement that even death offers no escape from. The focus is on the threat of becoming a victim of zombification. Then you have the first Hollywood zombie movies, where the zombie is stripped of its black roots, gets externalized and becomes an othered mass of mindless brain-eaters that embody the fear of violent, insurgent collectivism during the red scare era. Then comes Romero with zombies as a critique of consumer culture. Then you have Snyder's Romero remakes, that are just a fascist mix of homophobia and islamophobia. And now we're at stuff like The Walking Dead, were the zombie apocalypse vision focusses on the violent dystopia of societal collapse, but that dystopia is presented in a way that piggiebacks on prepper fantasies of SHTF scenarios and enables sadistic libertarians to see societal collapse as the beginning of a utopia where they can take their treat collection of guns and tactical gear and carve out their little fiefdom and rule as feudal lords.
as i understand it, cultural appropriation is not an inherently bad thing. It often is, when black creators are overshadowed by white copycats catering to cracker audiences, when indigenous art is stolen in colonial contexts or when sacred traditions get turned into commodities. but all culture is appropriative to some degree, that kind of exchange is just part of cultural production, and it can be done respectfully when you try to learn about the culture you're taking inspiration from and treat it in a dignified way.
there's some disagreement about that ofc, some would argue to just let black people from the caribean tell new zombie stories. but i'd say if you avoid racist stereotypes about voudoun, if you understand and pay hommage to the original folk tales and their religious context (voudoun is, after all, a religious practice that is still alive both in west africa and in the diaspora) and when you take that as a starting point to develop the genre of zombie fiction further and use your position to shed more light on its often overlooked origins, there's nothing wrong with that approach.
There's some memetic shift with that. The original zombie myth in Haiti is the horror of a slave society, the unique fear of an enslavement that even death offers no escape from. The focus is on the threat of becoming a victim of zombification. Then you have the first Hollywood zombie movies, where the zombie is stripped of its black roots, gets externalized and becomes an othered mass of mindless brain-eaters that embody the fear of violent, insurgent collectivism during the red scare era. Then comes Romero with zombies as a critique of consumer culture. Then you have Snyder's Romero remakes, that are just a fascist mix of homophobia and islamophobia. And now we're at stuff like The Walking Dead, were the zombie apocalypse vision focusses on the violent dystopia of societal collapse, but that dystopia is presented in a way that piggiebacks on prepper fantasies of SHTF scenarios and enables sadistic libertarians to see societal collapse as the beginning of a utopia where they can take their treat collection of guns and tactical gear and carve out their little fiefdom and rule as feudal lords.
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How would one put the black roots back in without doing a cultural appropriation?
as i understand it, cultural appropriation is not an inherently bad thing. It often is, when black creators are overshadowed by white copycats catering to cracker audiences, when indigenous art is stolen in colonial contexts or when sacred traditions get turned into commodities. but all culture is appropriative to some degree, that kind of exchange is just part of cultural production, and it can be done respectfully when you try to learn about the culture you're taking inspiration from and treat it in a dignified way.
there's some disagreement about that ofc, some would argue to just let black people from the caribean tell new zombie stories. but i'd say if you avoid racist stereotypes about voudoun, if you understand and pay hommage to the original folk tales and their religious context (voudoun is, after all, a religious practice that is still alive both in west africa and in the diaspora) and when you take that as a starting point to develop the genre of zombie fiction further and use your position to shed more light on its often overlooked origins, there's nothing wrong with that approach.
Just bringing zombie fiction back to an allegory for capitalistic slavery would be a step in the right direction.