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Universität Hildesheim Institut für englische Sprache und Literatur

Master-Studiengang für Lehramt an Haupt- und Realschulen

The Zombification of – from religious reality on Haiti to postmodern pop cliché around the world

Abschlussarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Master of Education (M.Ed.)

Vorgelegt von Peter Handke

1. Betreuer: Dr. Daniel Schäbler

2. Betreuer: Dr. Volker Pietsch

Hildesheim, 12.10.2020 Abstract

Zombies are omnipresent in the media landscape, and what was once a brutal revolt against mainstream cinema has now zombified itself in the mainstream as cliché. Even social structures are often compared with a metaphor. The of the undead, however, is an ancient human concept that was not first encountered through the zombie.

It should not be overlooked that zombies and zombification are real, religious phenomena practiced by Haitian black called that are much more than just superstition and folklore with the bokors using poisoning to “resurrect” the (apparent) dead. These stories came to Hollywood through travel reports and quickly became part of the cinema world. The origins were quickly forgotten through the countless reinterpretations of zombies.

Therefore, in this master’s thesis, I will compare the first White Zombie (1932), directed by , with the current work (2002), directed by ; a different approach to the representation of zombies is the popular cultural perception of the undead. This Master's thesis also provides a selective, yet representative, profile of worldwide and cross-epochal undead and zombie phenomena, motifs, symbolism and offers explanations for the human involved. combines cultural and historical approaches with ancient, early modern, and (post)modern examples and is useful in the scientific fields of Cultural Studies, Literature studies and Film studies.

Keywords: zombie, zombies, zombification, Haiti, horror, abjection, folklore, mythology, culture, undead, , archetypes, origin, symbolism, postmodernism, art, film history, literature, revenant, , White Zombie, 28 Days Later, Romero, , trauma. Table of Contents

1. Introduction ...... 1 2. The undead origins ...... 3 2.1., epidemics, – the undead as an abject and a paradox ...... 3 2.2.Revenants and the undead of the European Middle Ages ...... 5 2.3.Apparent as a rational explanation ...... 7 2.4.Undead and revenants in art ...... 8 2.5.The undead in non-European cultures ...... 9 2.6.(Contra)Diction of the undead ...... 12 2.7.Fantastic foes and where to find them ...... 13 3. Zombies – religious reality on Haiti ...... 15 3.1.The origins of zombies ...... 15 3.2.Studies by Wade Davis ...... 20 3.3.The traumas of slavery & influence of the bokors in Haitian politics ...... 23 3.4.Criticism of Wade Davis’s studies ...... 25 3.5.The medialization of zombification ...... 26 4. From Haiti to Hollywood ...... 27 4.1.Analysis: White Zombie (1932). Directed by Victor Halperin ...... 28 4.2.The zombie becomes cliché ...... 35 4.3.Fears change the zombie – fake blood and red communism ...... 36 4.4.The (post)modern danse – when the G falls off from “Graveyard” ...... 38 4.5.Post mortem; postmodern ...... 39 5. The 9/11 trauma ...... 42 5.1.Analysis of 28 Days Later (2002). Directed by Danny Boyle ...... 43 5.2.From “evil ” to “mad scientist” ...... 50 5.3.The multiplicity of zombies ...... 52 5.4.To be or not to be a zombie ...... 54 6. Conclusion and a perspective on future zombie aspects (the third genesis) ...... 56 7. Bibliography ...... 64 8. Appendix ...... 72 9. Declaration of Authorship ...... 81 1. Introduction

Zombies here, zombies there, zombies are everywhere – from the Haitian tropics to the American film tropes. The zombie joins the postmodern Hall of Fame of horror icons right next to , aliens, kaijus, , witches and . Like all the other horror icons, the zombie has undergone several transformations in recent years and has been given new facets again and again, but due to the postmodern cycle and the resulting recitations in parodies, mainstream media and even media suitable for children, the zombie ultimately fell into a cliché. The zombie cult spreads rapidly in pop culture – virally, as modern zombie films would portray it. However, the zombie and the phenomenon of the walking dead are older than one might assume, even if the “zombie media boom”, which has been constantly pervading the media landscape since 2002, suggests this (cf. Bishop 2015, 5; Dendle 2007, 1). Death wanders between the living every day, the undead dominate the mentality and consumption of the living – transience and entertainment go hand in hand with the phenomenon “zombie”. So it is not surprising that pop icons like ask for a danse macabre, we can use zombies as emoji1 in our messenger apps, we can drink a “ zombie” at the local cocktail bar, that terms like “zombification” or “zombie companies” have arrived in business language2 , that annual events like the Zombie Walk3 draw more and more public attention or Disney programs like Gravity Falls (2012, created by Alex Hirsch)4 pay homage to George A. Romero’s (1969) as a casual gag. The cannibalistic, rotting phenomenon has already arrived in elementary schools – colorful and set to cartoon sound effects in the fight against plants on the smartphone5 , in the popular open world construction game Minecraft (2009), as fashion doll for girls6 or as the first antagonist in the cartoon classic Scooby-Doo7. Nowadays we can focus on two zombie clichés: Slowly shuffling and moaning with outstretched arms under the control of a sorcerer, priest or necromancer or foaming with rabies, with bloodshot eyes, running athletically through the urban dystopia spreading a deadly virus. The zombie’s aim stays the

1 See APPENDIX, Fig. 1. 2 Hugh Pym, 'Zombie' companies eating away at economic growth. BBC.co.uk, 2012. Retrieved October 7, 2020 from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20262282. 3 “more than 50 cities worldwide participate in World Zombie Day including New York, , Paris, Hong Kong, , , Dallas, , and Tokyo.“ – Official Website of World Zombie Day, . Retrieved October 7, 2020 from: https://worldzombieday.co.uk. 4Gravity Falls – Season 2, Episode 1: Scary-oke. (August 2014). 5Plants vs. Zombies series by PopCap Games and Electronic Arts (2009). 6 See APPENDIX, Fig. 2. 7 Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998), directed by Jim Stenstrum. 1 same, its mindless state longs for the most important things in humans: the brain – an organ for self-determination, rationality and morality; all that the zombie no longer has. What remains are aggressive consumption impulses and sugar-sweet zombie treats, as a matter of course in “brain form”8 . The zombie as motif of baseless consumption ends up in mainstream consumption – film, television, computer and video games, or the most popular forms of literature – comics, survival guides for the to mash-up novels like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009, written by Jane Austen/Seth Grahame-Smith) or bloody High School Musical mash-ups like (2017, directed by John McPhail) – the zombie is an omnipresent, clichéd icon of horror, immortal through black and immortal through postmodern trend and permanent recitation in mass media. The positive portrayal of the zombie, for example as a criminal investigator9 , as a romantic figure10 or even as a pet11 make it clear that the postmodern development of the zombie is similar to that of the : The undead become part of society and world of the living. The undead share our “life”style, but nobody seems to question the concept of zombie or the meaning of the word anymore. How did the media change the portrayal of the zombie? Zombies are barely considered in scientific research, although they are real phenomena and not a Hollywood myth or pure folklore. Hence, they can be discussed controversially. The purpose of this Master’s thesis will be to work up the origins of the undead, to explain the religious practice of zombification on Haiti, and then to show the postmodern evolution of this phenomenon using selective examples from modern media. In the next chapters I will trace the original roots of the undead in worldwide folklore, in European medieval revenant forms and in the Gothic literature of the 18th century, right up to the religious reality on Haiti and the processing of this in the first Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s. Subsequently I will analyze the genesis of the modern zombie, established by George A. Romero, who “ misappropriated” and redefined the original image, using social currents, fears and postmodern processing. Here I also define the complicated interpretation of the buzzword “ zombie”. Zombies and other undead entities, in the modern sense, have no fixed appearance and share the same issue of categorization, thus cannot be clearly described or classified. In the final conclusion I give a possible explanation to the question of how the zombie can leave

8 See APPENDIX, Fig. 3. 9iZombie comic series (2010-2012) created by Chris Roberson and Michael Dalton Allred, published by Vertigo. 10 As portrayed in Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament (2009), written by S. G. Browne, or Warm Bodies (2010), written by Isaac Marion. 11 Fido (2006), directed by Andrew Currie. 2 its clichéd existence behind and how the genre of “zombie apocalypse” could be revived. The zombie zombifies itself – it becomes the victim of media decay, as it rarely represents a real icon of horror and anymore. In the saturated media the zombie cannot satisfy its eternal hunger anymore. Its representation is sucked dry like the skulls of its victims.

2. The undead origins 2.1. Putrefaction, epidemics, burial – the undead as an abject and a paradox

The fear of death is as old as humanity itself, and this is not limited to , the pain of loss, uncertainty about the , or the process of dying. Death involves a natural, biochemical process – putrefaction. The process of putrefaction attracts many bacterial cultures, insects, and scavengers and therefore also an increased potential for epidemics; following this threat, the sight of decaying bodies is an immediate impulse of disgust for people. Therefore, early in history, people made efforts to bury the dead far away from civilization or to cremate corpses, but also the metaphysical aspects play an important role considering burial rites (Lieberman 1991, 163).

Burial ceremonies for the transition between the material world and the spiritual world play a major role in almost all world . Already Neanderthals built barrows for their dead around 70,000 BCE (Gargett 1989, 157-190); have already been documented in the Neolithic era (Trautmann 2006, pp. 11); the Maori buried their dead in cave systems (Tohunga 1937); cave graves were also found in Qafzeh and Skhul in Israel and are 90,000 to 120,000 years old (Stringer 1989, 756-758, Vandermeersch 2002, 65-70); sky on mountains are still represented in Tibet and Mongolia today (Xinhua 2012). With a growing population, urban development and denser living space in a confined space, burial not only became a lucrative craft, but also the cultural norm for burying the dead changed; mass graves in the form of , mausoleums and crypts were established. Earth burials are held with shrouds or coffins, and the process of to avoid epidemics is becoming more and more popular in many cultural circles, including the Christian-influenced area, which explicitly refused cremations for centuries, since a physical of the dead is

3 anchored in the creed. This caused millions of during the Spanish flu in 1918 (Klein 2020) and during the cholera epidemics in the 19th century which increased the fear of being buried alive (Tien, Poinar et al. 2010, 756-760). However, cremations prevailed especially during major epidemic episodes in the course of human history, such as during the plagues. Nevertheless cremation stays forbidden in Islamic and Jewish cultures.

In conclusion to that, revenants in the form of returning, walking can only occur in cultures that have a form of burial as only ashes remain in a cremation and cannot form such an explicit object as a corpse. The undead not only break the natural cycle between life and death but also break ethical and moral laws and taboos, often in regard to grave desecration, stench and miasma, disease transmission, cannibalism and gluttony (Wagner 2019, 23). Revenants mingle with the world of the living and threaten it, not only through their unnatural return on earth, but also with their biological process of decay: corpse wax, corpse poisons, blood, pus, open maggot-infested necrotic wounds, and their flesh scraped off the bones. This morbid sight is a basic feature of abjection that causes horror and revulsion in people.

Most dictionaries define the word abjection as a “degradation – a low and downcast state” (Merriam-Webster.com 2020). This description fits the appearance of the undead, but abjection encompasses far more concepts of human aversion, disgust and tabooing. Barbara Creed defined the attributes of abjection as, “The abject threatens life, it must be radically excluded from the place of the living subject, propelled away from the body and deposited on the other side of an imaginary border which separates the self from that which threatens the self” (Creed 1993, 65). Indeed an appropriate description for death, decay and the corpse itself and thus for the cross-border entity of the undead.

The term abject was coined by Julia Kristeva in her essay Powers of Horror: An Essay On Abjection (1982) and is used in a scientific context to interpret the abhorrence of death and decay. Kristeva’s treatise is also suitable for the undead, as the abject combines a strong physical component on an individual psychological level, as well as serving the aspect of liminality and is therefore essential for the investigation of borderline horror figures (Wagner 2019, 22). Abjects trigger both fascination and disgust in the viewer, but also “horror” as a reaction in people, often so strong and impactful that the viewer has to vomit and an abject of himself or herself is created. Kristeva described it with the word jouissance (Kristeva 1982,

4 9-10); The distinction between subject and object, between oneself and others, is abolished or broken (ibid, 3-5, 14-15). Wounds and decay also emphasize a “fragile and fallacious chance” (ibid, 3), that invades our life; the viewer becomes aware of his own mortality.

All these abjects trigger traumatic states that reflect our own mortality and our own unsightly degeneration and corruption. According to Kristeva, the corpse is particularly powerful at triggering these abject reactions in us: “The corpse, seen without and outside of science, is the utmost of abjection. It is death infecting life. [The abject is] what does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite” (ibid, 4). Kristeva’s abject theory can therefore be applied eminently to the walking dead which, as and sickness, interferes in life and exceeds our rules and boundaries. The undead are an abject and therefore a threat to the subject. The subject in turn becomes aware of its own mortality and reflects on its own identity; therefore the subject does not want to be connected with the abject or even become an abject.

Several forms of revenants, vampires or zombies are abject and liminal entities. They are existences in the between – between subject and object, life and death, functioning body and decaying body, between humans and animals, order and chaos, drive and control (Wagner 2019, 23). In later zombie films there is also the fact that you can not only be bitten by a zombie, but also become one yourself through the transmission of the zombie virus. Kristeva also addresses this dichotomy in the paragraph, “I am afraid of being bitten or I am afraid of biting?” (Kristeva 1982, 38).

2.2. Revenants and the undead of the European Middle Ages

The idea of the deceased returning to the world of the living is represented in many cultures around the world. What separates the wiedergänger (from German: one who walks again), revenants (Old French: to come back, to return) and the undead in general from classic ghosts and spooks is their physical appearance. These wandering cadavers are mostly evil- minded towards the living; they cause fear and terror, distribute curses or epidemics or even become physically violent and even intend to kill. Reasons for this are disturbance of the peace of the dead, desecration, grave robbery, revenge or resentment or non-redemption of the . For example, through improperly applied or disrespectful , or the abuse and breaking of traditions (Bane 2010, 107, 121, 136).

5 In ancient Rome, a vengeful, destructive and life energy-absorbing figure was chosen in the form of the lemures, who are resurrected due to incorrect burial ceremonies (Thaniel 1973, 182-187). This phenomenon can be found in almost all cultures. , the spirit is prepared for an unobstructed transition into the vast hereafter; if these rituals and traditions are disregarded or broken, the grudge-ridden soul is pushed back into a revenant form and interferes, discontented with the world of the living (cf. Chapter 2.5).

Many revenant stories are found in the European Middle Ages, especially in German, Scandinavian, English and Old Irish Celtic mythology (Tomaini 2018, pp. 24). The English Abbot of Burton told the story of two peasants who were buried in 1090 with an unknown but were seen walking through the village late in the evening with their coffins on their shoulders. They knocked on other peasants’ doors and asked them to come along. Shortly afterwards, the residents became sick and died. The revenants were exhumed, their heads and hearts were removed, and the rampant epidemic was also wiped out through this procedure (Bartlett 2000, 613).

The Welsh clergyman, writer and chronicler Walter Map also tells a similar story in the 12th century, when a revenant roamed the streets of Hereford calling out the names of the residents who would get sick and die in three days. The bishop Gilbert Foliot also ordered that the body be exhumed, beheaded and sprinkled with holy water (Map 1914, Book 2, Ch. 27). That the undead in the European Middle Ages were often harbingers of death and were associated with epidemics and diseases can also be observed in the artistic representation of the danse macabre (see 2.4). Ultimately, these reports and forms of representation of the European revenants were so varied that the French medievalist Jean-Claude Schmitt examined the image sources from the 12th to the 16th century and categorized the undead in three types of representation: Revenants, Lazarus types and Soul & types (Franz, Nösler 2016, pp. 76).

In Scandinavian folk beliefs, especially from Norway and Iceland, and written down in the sagas12 , the draugr is represented, whose dead body gains new life force in its burial mound and continues to exist from then on. Often draugrs are associated with supernatural powers, and some are said to leave their burial mound and threaten people and cattle. The draugr could not be wounded with normal weapons, so their head must be separated from the torso, then

12 eg. in the Laxdœla saga, Hrómundar saga Gripssonar, Grettis saga or Eyrbyggja saga. 6 put to their bottom and finally the whole body had to be cremated. The remaining ashes were buried far away from human habitation (Simek 1984, 73). The fear of these revenants was very common in medieval Scandinavia. Many amulets with protective spells and grave slab runes were found that ordered the dead to stay in their graves – these runic inscriptions were also directed towards the dead (Mitchell 2011, 22-23). Draugrs were also implemented in the Norwegian horror comedy Dead Snow (2009, orig.: Død snø. Directed by Tommy Wirkola), here in the form of undead Nazi soldiers.

2.3. Apparent death as a rational explanation

A rational explanation of why there are so many reports of the undead is the medical inability of this time to determine the exact occurrence of death. Most doctors were not familiar with the medical phenomenon of apparent death or suspended animation: People who were declared dead and buried that were actually still alive (Bondeson 2001, pp. 13, Neuberger 2009, 9). keepers and visitors perceived the muffled screaming from the coffins and were left frightened. They considered it as a supernatural paradox and the return of the living dead. In 1357, for example, a woman is said to have risen from her grave in a cemetery in Cologne when someone tried to steal her grave goods (Bondeson 2001, pp. 35). The reason for such reports is also the fact that the biochemical process was not yet sufficiently documented. Therefore, many old reports can be found which tell about moving corpses spitting blood, grave noises such as smacking and grinding teeth or the appearance that the dead body’s hair and nails continued to grow (Ranft 1725).

Resultant of these observations, stories about revenants and nachzehrer (One who feeds after passing) were very actively distributed because all these physical phenomena could not yet be ascribed to the fermentation gases and the overall process of putrefaction and decay. To combat the undead and nachzehrer (or from today’s perspective, to combat the apparent death), the heads of corpses were usually cut off (Bondeson 2001, 78) or the corpe was pierced with a sharp nail, hot irons or was treated with other ruthless methods (ibid 32-33, 55-57). In the course of time, however, it was realized that the people were not monstrosities like vampires or revenants, but simply people who had not yet finally breathed out their last.

From this point on, new concepts developed such as the open grave hole, or spades, axes or ladders were placed in the grave and coffin. The funeral bell and safety coffin were an

7 innovative invention which were patented during the 18th and 19th century to save lives. The funeral bell was tied around a finger or toe with a thread; when the body was moving, it triggered the bell to ring. A system of tubes transported the ringing directly to the cemetery keeper, and the excavation could begin (ibid, pp. 118).

The concept of the , especially the waiting mortuary, in order to be able to observe the dead for a longer period of time and to verify their actual death, was a fairly new concept that was first practiced in Weimar in 1792 by Dr. Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (ibid, pp. 100).

2.4. Undead and revenants in art

As early as the 14th century, many revenants and undead were artistically depicted walking among the living and even performing complex actions, such as playing the violin13 , carrying their own coffin lid14 or dancing15 . This dance of revenants is often understood and interpreted as the processing of death and misery in the Middle Ages. It is an allegory of inevitable degradation – whether king or pawn, Death unites them all (Caciola 2016, 227-228).

The fear of epidemics, the Black Death, famine, social unrest and war had its peak in Europe of the 14th century (Schulte 1990, 54), and was therefore often depicted in the art of that time in the form of the danse macabre – the dead rise from their graves and mingle with the living world, often through dancing. To this day, the word “macabre” is understood as a synonym for “gruesome,” or for a joking but uncomfortable way of dealing with death, illness and transience. The artwork The Dead Lovers16, also known as The Rotting Pair from around 1470 should also be mentioned, which very explicitly depicts a decaying revenant couple. The artist is so far unknown but probably comes from Swabia or Upper Rhine in (Musées de la ville de Strasbourg, 2020). The oil painting can be assigned to Gothic art and shows the decaying couple, who are infested with all kinds of animals such as snakes, toads, flies, dragonflies and worms – animals that are generally attributed to pathogens, death or the devil and . This artistic representation also shows humility before the abject and like the danse macabre, is to be understood as a memento mori – a reminder of one’s own transience.

13 See APPENDIX, Fig. 4. 14 See APPENDIX, Fig. 5. 15 See APPENDIX, Fig. 6. 16 See APPENDIX, Fig. 7. 8 The countless reports about undead and revenants from the 14th century, which are probably based on apparent death, were later taken up again in the popular Gothic horror novels in the 19th century; e.g., the Death of Halpin Frayser by Ambrose Bierce, first published in The Wave on December 19, 1891. One of the interpretations of this story is that the protagonist, Halpin Frayser, is killed by his in revenant form. even predates this story. In his work, The Fall of the House of Usher from 1839, the protagonists also became victims of an undead family member. Usher’s buried sister returns after a few days and attacks him violently.

The foundation for revenant myths was thus laid early on and is based on real fears, disease and epidemics and metaphysical beliefs and was processed frequently in the Middle Ages until these art forms and reports of undead were taken up again in popular horror stories and Gothic novels in the 18th century and 19th century where people experienced another peak of fear of being buried alive (Neuberger 2009, 1-3).

2.5. The undead in non-European cultures

The concept of the undead is also common in cultures outside of Europe. The vampire for example is also a classic form of revenant in Asia and even predates the European stories.17 Before the buzzword “zombie” was established, which still shapes the modern media and portrayal of living corpses today, there were many types of revenants and undead in the folklore of different cultures until the zombie gradually became the dominant headword for the undead. Mixed forms of spirit and material revenants are also possible in some cultures; The pocong from Indonesia and Malaysia a is a ghost that manifests itself in the culturally customary long shroud kain kafan and ultimately allows the entire corpse to rise and move around in the shroud (Bane 2016, 235). According to traditional , the soul of a deceased stays on earth for 40 days. If the cords and knot of the shroud are not released after 40 days, the soul cannot pass into the hereafter and manifests itself as pocong. If the shroud is removed, the pocong is usually described as ugly and smelly (Tam 2012). Since his feet are tied together with the shroud cords, it moves around hopping and shows great parallels to the

Chinese hopping vampire jiang shi (Chinese: 殭屍).

17 Vampire stories can be found in the Vetala Panchavimshati dating back to the 11th century. 9 Another well-known form of the undead is the wendigo of the North American indigenous people, particularly the Ojibwa, and the Cree (Brightman 1988, pp. 339). The wendigo is also a spirit of revenge that can take possession of a human body and drive it into insanity and cannibalism (ibid, 337-379). Its appearance is composed of bloody lips, ash-gray color, sunken eyes, “desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones”, and with a decay-like stench (Johnston 2001, 221). Many legends tell of the transformation to a wendigo if the victim is bitten to satisfy its eternal hunger (Fee, Webb 2016, 3198). European settlers and reported executions of allegedly wendigo-possessed people in the early 19th century (ibid, 3198-3199). Parallels to modern US American zombie patterns are particularly evident here, especially in the form of cannibalism and the transformation after a bite or death; therefore it is entirely possible that George A. Romero was inspired by old Native American stories or the novel The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood, published in 1910. also used the wendigo in his famous novel Pet Sematary (1983).

The dorotabō (Japanese: 泥 ⽥ 坊) comes from Japan and takes form of an old man who has worked his way to death on his rice field. He takes revenge on his successor and other heirs who do not care enough about the field work and harvest endeavor. He climbs out of the wet field mud at night and scares the new owners with complaints and wailing. He demands his property back until the successors take proper care of the fields or sell the cursed land to someone who appreciates rice farming more. (Freeman 2010, 72).

In English horror media, the term ghoul is almost interchangeable with the “zombie”. In modern media, ghouls are treated as a zombie subcategory and are often assigned with poisonous18 or radioactive attributes19 or are portrayed as underground dwellers20 to differentiate themselves from their putrid “voodoo cousins”. These impressions on the ghoul are also chosen arbitrarily. For the English audience, however, the ghoul is no stranger, as the word ghoulish is established in parlance, and serves as a synonym for “shocking” and “ ( ُﻏــــﻮل :gruesome” situations or characters (Merriam-Webster.com 2020). The ghoul (Arabic originally comes from the Arabic-Persian region and is derived from the word “ghala” (to seize) (Connors 2007, 244). The ghoul is also known in other countries where the Muslim culture has been introduced. Usually it lives in cemeteries and eats corpses and carcasses

18 eg. “Ghouls” and “Ghoul saliva” in the Dungeons & Dragons role playing games. 19 eg. “Ghouls” in the Fallout computer game series. 20 eg. “Ghouls” in the Risen computer game series. 10 (ibid). Originally, the ghoul is not a classic revenant either but is more of a kind of demon or djinn, who can transform into human shape in order to mislead, kill and eat unsuspecting victims (ibid, 244-45). As a shapeshifter, he can also take the form of a (ibid), which in many African cultures are symbols of death (Lynch, Roberts 2010, 10, 54), and witchcraft (Peek, Yankah 2004, 244). The ghoul is often depicted with dog-like features21 or, in the Filipino culture, with a goat’s head (Ramos 1990, 68-69). The ghoul was introduced to the public through the translated works of Thousand and One Nights and thus inspired a number of other literary works, such as William Beckford’s Vathek (1786), Edward Lucas White’s poem The Ghoul (1897), H. P. Lovecraft’s Pickman’s Model (1927), Ray Russell’s Sardonicus (1961) or various series of the German John Sinclair horror magazines22 (1980-1989). The use of the term “ghoul” in feature films was first taken up in the British work The Ghoul (1933). Here, plays the eponymous revenant. From then on, the term was also used in later works such as ’s Night of the Ghoul (1959) or the (1984, directed by Joe Dante) offshoot, (1985, directed by ), from the 1980s. The Harry Potter (1997, directed by J.K. Rowling) universe also includes ghouls, but uses no zombies, because their clichéd media image has already changed so much since 199723 that they are already defined as a modern, (biological-medical) phenomenon (see Chapter 5.2, 5.3). In order to still be able to serve the classic revenants in the Harry Potter universe, the so-called inferi were chosen, which are a rotting undead in the classic sense that rises from swamps, lakes and rivers. Here, however, the zombie does not serve as a model, but actually revenants from Slavic folklore called utopiec or vodníks, which can sometimes take on fish and frog-like features and, also serving as a classic boogeyman figure, should prevent children from going to dangerous areas with water and playing there alone (Rose 2000, 384).

The ghoul seems to be used interchangeably in the media whenever the more well-known word “zombie” should be avoided. The ghoul is also used in media if the focus should lay on scavenging or mutilating dead bodies or when the undead should have an Arabic or desert- themed touch. Even the “Father of the modern zombie film”, George A. Romero, actually used “ghoul” instead of “zombie” in many production papers for Night of the Living Dead (Balfour 2008), but the word “zombie” continued due to the great popularity of Voodoo in the

21 See APPENDIX, Fig. 8. 22 eg. Totenchor der Ghouls, Ghouls in Manhattan, Ghouls in der U-Bahn. 23 First publication of Harry Potter in Great Britain. 11 and the already established trope from the era. From a cultural and historical point of view, ghouls are more of a malicious category of djinns and therefore are shapeshifters and bear some intelligence and free will, in contrast to most zombies. Ghouls eat corpses and cadavers and live in graves and cemeteries, while zombies and revenants rise from graves and cemeteries and stalk the living. So it would be technically possible for a ghoul to nibble on a zombie. This would certainly result in exciting mash-up concepts for the postmodern era.

2.6. (Contra)Diction of the undead

Whether Romero has chosen the word “ghoul” instead of “zombie” does not matter, as both words are wrongly chosen from a cultural and religious point of view. Ultimately, these words were chosen because they were already used in the English language for undead phenomena and were shaped in the mainstream by media such as 1001 Nights, H.P. Lovecraft’s works or the zombie films of the ‘30s and ‘40s. A similar change in name and perception also takes place with witches, whose term is generally used as a description for

.from the Jewish culture (גולם :old, evil women with magical powers or the golem (Hebrew Originally a religious guardian figure made of clay (Idel 1990, 296), it became, through many new interpretations in modern role-playing games, a which is usually portrayed as a “summonable elemental” in Incredible Hulk form24 . Such diction is not very sensitive to cultures and religions, if neutral formulations such as “undead”, “living dead”, “revenants” or “wiedergänger” are relevant options, but such nomenclature is part of the inevitable mechanics of (post)modern media. (Post)modern media takes up old stories and images, reinterprets them, deforms and transforms them. A new, modern folklore is created. Many authors and directors who are familiar or involved with zombie media are also aware of the religious origin in Haiti, and explicitly avoid the word “zombie” in their works. The undead in the Walking Dead series are called “biters”, “walkers”, “lurkers”, “muertos”, “infected” or “ empties” by the surviving people. The zombies in the game Left 4 Dead (2008) are categorized according to their attributes and forms of attack in subspecies such as “ Commonly infected”, “Boomer”, “Hunter”, “Tank”, “Smoker” or “Witch”. Nevertheless, consumers, journalists and even wiki writers group all these names under the category “

24 eg. “Golem“ types from the Magic: The Gathering trading card game. 12 zombie” because this word is already so common and stands for “undead beings of all kinds.” Here it becomes clear that the undead are very difficult to define and that the word “zombie” is already being used from a completely new point of view in the common language. For this purpose, I explain the religious categories of Haitian zombies and the scientific point of view in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 I will explain the most common media portrayal of zombie species beyond their religious reality. Ultimately, this change in diction is also part of a fictitious reprocessing with fantastic aspects, clearly perceptible in postmodernism, but actually an ancient narrative tool in human history.

2.7. Fantastic foes and where to find them

Mankind has always been fascinated by supernatural, fantastic concepts. , demons, angels, supernatural heroes, ghosts or primal forces always represent an important component in folklore, mythology and . In stories and sagas, they usually take on the role of the antagonistic entities, deadly and destructive enemy images which represent an exaggerated and fantastic side of the creative human narrative. All of these creatures stand in opposition to mundane and basic real-world problems, which can actually be just as deadly, dangerous or threatening but nevertheless are everyday occurrences. For this conflict narrative, humans seem to prefer fantastic metaphors in form of dragons, undead and demons instead of mundane concepts like disease, war, drought or the drug-confused homeless person with a broken bottle. The fictional worlds and creatures that are created in this way blend in with our reality and can influence it creatively. Conflict and chaos irritates people, but if these threats are mixed with the charm of the foreign, the unknown or the unusual, it becomes a form of art. Our postmodern pop culture has now devised an estimated billion of fantastic creatures, some based on ancient mythologies and folklore, and conceived and presented them in media that pursue antagonistic roles – their whole existence is limited to death, fear, suffering and injury.

Since the beginning of human history we have been fascinated by unknown and life- threatening powers and the discovery of new forms of life. This can already be seen in cave paintings or in the development of medieval bestiaries, where snakes became dragons or whales were portrayed as humongous, spiked sea monsters25 . The modern, safe and

25 cf. Carta Marina by Olaus Magnus (1539). 13 scientifically developed world gives us a mundane, analytical view of our surroundings. The ancient dangers and adventures in uncharted terrain are long dead and forgotten. Creatures of horror from that time now have a scientific name such as Harpagornis moorei, Smilodon fatalis, Ursus arctos or Physeter macrocephalus. Dragons turned out to be dinosaurs or religiously charged venomous snakes. Spirit beings and curses turned out to be physical and mental illnesses and infections caused by microorganisms. Real dangers today have a common name, can be grasped, processed, reflected upon and explained.

People therefore long for new, fantastic stimuli and fears, a piece of superstition and longing for expeditions in a modern society. We share the mundane view of a species that is at the top of its enlightened world, that we direct, analyze and network within. We recite the real fears of our ancient ancestors, with an unenlightened map of the world, with a completely different flora and fauna and medical care that today would fall into the dirt pharmacy and witchcraft category. Our stories and fiction are based on the past and a different perspective of reality. If humans lived in the microcosm of insects, we would have so many horrific monsters and antagonists in everyday life that legends and horror stories would be secured for the next few centuries. In the western world, however, we are ringing in postmodernism and are on the daily search for something attractive and new that tickles us from our glorified, boring security. Therefore, concepts such as vampires, undead or other shadow creatures are experiencing a revival, as we long for a classic David versus Goliath fight, as western society and view on reality seems inviolable, rational and invincible.

On the Eastern island part of Hispaniola, Haiti, where superstition prevails and the fantastic is an important part of religion, the fears and the struggle for survival are still completely different than in our western, modern society, although we still share the fear of the undead and understand it as a cultural-universal concept. The fear of the undead is not limited to the zombie or Haiti Voodoo26 . Abjection and the fear of one’s own transience and disintegration are age-old concepts, medical phenomena such as apparent death were not previously understood, death has always been part of life. But how did the zombie ultimately become the pop icon of this ancient concept? For this purpose, I will analyze the actual Haitian zombification, and how this concept, which originally did not occur in West African

26 Vodou in Haiti. I use the spelling “Voodoo“ as international hypernym for all forms of these religions. 14 Voodoo, ultimately spread to the USA and thus to Hollywood, where the revenant form of the zombie was going to re-shape the image of the undead permanently.

3. Zombies – religious reality on Haiti 3.1. The origins of zombies

In order to understand the modern zombie phenomenon, I will examine in this chapter the cultural-historical and etymological roots of the zombie. Henning Christoph was available to me during a visit to the Soul of Museum in Essen, Germany and Oliver Gauert for exclusive questions and an interview.27 Henning Christoph is one of the most important experts in the fields of Voodoo and ethnology and founded the Soul of Africa Museum in Essen in 2000. Oliver Gauert is currently the curator for special exhibitions at the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum in Hildesheim. He organized the special exhibition “Voodoo,” which took place from October 19, 2019 to September 27, 2020 at the RPM. With 1,200 objects it was the world’s largest of its kind. For this project he conducted research in and Haiti in 2019 and also focused the research on the topic of zombies.

What is only briefly explained in a few sentences or even incorrectly documented or interpreted in many studies of media works about zombie films are the origins of the zombie myth. The origin of the zombie is often shifted to Africa or is interpreted as Haitian Voodoo superstition about the undead and is relocated to folklore (cf. Ackerman, Gauthier 1991, 468). However, the zombie has a religious reality that is still practiced in Haiti today. This misinformation and the general media processing of the zombies, which suffers from many western clichés and stereotypes, does not do justice to the full-fledged world religion of Voodoo with more than 60 million followers (Guynup, 2004). The religion even experiences a bad reputation, as many interpret Voodoo as a black magic or reduce everything to curses from voodoo dolls or zombies.28 In Benin the people even suffer from these tourists’ accusations.29

27 See APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview. 28 cf. TV Trope’s “Hollywood Voodoo“ section: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ HollywoodVoodoo. 29 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview, p. 17. 15 Zombies neither have their origin in the , nor are zombies part of a folklore but are an actual, religious phenomenon exclusively in Haiti.30 Due to the cliché processing of the zombie phenomenon and Voodoo rites by Hollywood, the general view of Voodoo has also changed and is still experiencing a wrong perception and interpretation as only individual elements are taken out of context, misinterpreted or shown in an inaccurate way. Real practices and elements of Voodoo ceremonies, such as the use of blood , trance and contact with spirits, or the use of voodoo dolls, were taken ad absurdum. The West African countries and Benin are considered to be the cradle of Vodun and the vernacular “Voodoo”, which is more popular and used internationally (Christoph, Schiemann 2019, 166). There is not only one Voodoo belief but different orientations, different practices, different pantheons and forms of syncretism, which have developed through slavery in the

Caribbean and North and . In short, the diaspora (Blier 1995, 23).

The term Vodun appeared for the first time in print in the Doctrina Christiana in 1658 and can be translated as “God” or “” (Christoph, Schiemann 2019, 166). Vodun is much older and can be traced back to the Yoruba tribes from 500 BCE (BBC World Service, 2020). Nevertheless, written testimony is rare as it is an orally transmitted religion (Christoph, Schiemann 2019, 166). Voodoo focuses on protection, healing, defense against dark forces and the veneration of the ancestors. In fact, the proportion of so-called “black magic” or harmful spells is low compared to healing practices and spiritual guidance and is only used to sanction crime within society (ibid, 170). The gods or spirit beings and their influence in our world are representative forces in nature and the plant world and are implemented with traditionally transmitted rituals and recipes (ibid, 168). Priests and their adepts are highly respected, as they gain a status of power within society with their knowledge of natural medicine. The colonial powers were unable to drive out or proselytize this ancient and special knowledge in the course of enslavement. Medicine men and priests were particularly proscribed by the colonial rulers because they embodied potential rebel leaders who ultimately had power over the community. This generated great fear and defiance among the white oppressors and this defiance has been reflected since the beginning of the 20th century in the negative image that surrounds Vodun to this day (ibid, 168-70).

30 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview, p. 11. 16 The triangular trade between Europe, Africa and America brought millions of slaves into the new world; the French colonial rule in Haiti wrote a particularly dark chapter. The Haitian colonies were considered brutal, so that Voodoo there developed equally dark and brutal components. Country, belief and the population still have to cope with a religious psychosis to this day. Gauert sees this historical development as a fundamental element for Haitian Voodoo. For example, the neighboring country of the Dominican Republic, which was under the colonial rule of Spain, practiced peaceful Voodoo, and the Spaniards were less brutal than the French during the slave era; therefore concepts such as the zombie are not known here.31 Due to the darker aspects of the Haiti Voodoo, especially the Petro nachon, and the great influence of black priests, so-called bokors, zombification was only practiced here.32 Haitian Voodoo is divided between Rada and Petro by gods and spirits. Rada is “gentler” and influenced by West African Voodoo, while Petro focuses on “hot-blooded”, “more aggressive forces” and originated in Central Africa (Christoph, Schiemann 2019, 250-252).

The concept of zombies is also known in Cuba, but the fear of them prevails over the fact that people are actually zombified; therefore no verifiable zombie sightings have occurred in Cuba so far. The people have rather adopted the fear and the concept from Haiti.33 The fear of zombies has also been transferred to the USA via Haiti, but here zombies are more part of the general myth or a pop culture phenomenon. Zombie-themed items can be usually found at the neon-lit voodoo shops in Louisiana, which are, however, also designed for tourism.34 A study conducted by Susan Cusack found out that priests and priestesses in New Orleans know the term “zombie”, but zombification would not be possible in practice, since the dead are generally embalmed. Gauert also emphasizes that the idea would not even exist in US Voodoo since the religion never had to change as in Haiti.35

There are disagreements to when the word “zombie” was first mentioned in written form. Often Robert Southey is mentioned, who in a history of in 1819, mentioned the word for the first time (Warner 2002). The problem here is that Brazil’s Voodoo currents , Candomble, or do not know any zombies or practice zombification. In addition, the word was mentioned in relation to an indigenous chief who

31 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview, p. 9-12. 32 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview, p. 9-12. 33 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 12. 34 See APPENDIX: Fig. 9. 35 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 12. 17 explained this word as “ from Angolan tongue” [ibid]. Here we are on the etymological aspect of this word. Many Central African religions, including the Kimbundu culture from Northern Angola, know the word nzambi, a spirit of the dead and nzúmbe – the god of the dead and its associated cult of the dead.36 So there are no physical components like the zombies in Haiti. In the original West African Voodoo or in the Congo religions, the concept of revenants or physical undead does not exist, since entities after death leave the visible, material world (in Voodoo: ayé), pass over into the transcendent world (in Voodoo: órun) and lead a new existence in the form of spirit beings (Ritz-Müller, Müller 1999, 263). The religions are therefore centered on the “other side”, and the notion of physically recurring bodies does not exist.

According to Gauert there are always attempts to prove a revenant origin in Africa, including some secret cults in Cameroon, which supposedly believe in revenants. Real evidence has not yet been scientifically produced, and if these cults should exist, their idea of revenants will be very different from ours as the focus will probably be on apparent death, a phenomenon that is known worldwide, and not on artificially produced living corpses.37 Many linguists agree that for the actually practiced phenomenon in Haiti, an attempt was made to find a word in the African roots that describes this ominous state, and thus they came up with the original “spirit of the dead” or “god of the dead”. Through a change of language and mixing of the many dialects, the word ultimately became “zombie” (Russell 2014, 11). So it is more likely that 17th century reports and novels about Haiti are the actual first written mentioning zombies, even if they were only mentioned as a passing sensation.38

The Christian burial rituals and the Christian concept of resurrection are also often held responsible for the fact that zombies have developed (cf. Bishop 2015, 7), but earth burials were already known before the Christian or Muslim influence in Africa.39 There are African Voodoo rituals in which people are actually buried alive and after hours are exhumed again by the practicing priest, but these are healing ceremonies and have nothing to do with the zombification of Haiti, even if this impression can occur to outsiders. The medical phenomenon can be compared with the Fakir methods from India and Nepal.40 A well-known

36 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 7, 11. 37 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 11-12. 38 eg. Pierre-Corneille’s Le Zombi (1697) or Moreau de Saint-Mery’s Haiti (1797). 39 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 14. 40 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 13. 18 example of such a ceremony was documented by Henning Christoph (Christoph 2013, 11-12) and shows how the famous and legendary priest Sossa Guédéhounguè buries a woman who has been suicidal because of lovesickness for several hours with the help of an induced trance and wrapping her in an unknown plant. After several hours she was exhumed again, was alive and without memory and a death wish; she was cured (Ritz-Müller, Müller 1999, 241). Here, however, neither poisoning by a zombie powder was involved, nor was it about depriving a person of his will, as it would be with zombification.

Zombification is about someone being put into a status of apparent death and eliminating the consciousness. Also the legends of Haitian natives, the Taíno, tell about the living dead so it stands to reason that the African slaves obtained the knowledge about zombification from shamans of the Taíno.41 William B. Seabrook published his travelogue, The Magic Island, in 1929 and made his zombie sightings public for the first time to a larger readership. Seabrook described his zombie sightings as lumpen and horrible figures, “like automatons ... [with] the eyes of a dead man, not blind, but staring, unfocused and unseeing. The whole face ... was vacant, as if there was nothing behind it” (Seabrook 2015, 101). The Magic Island is considered to be the of inspiration for the first zombie film White Zombie from 1932

(Bishop 2010, 48).

In 1937, Zora Neale Hurston described the phenomenon of zombification. She documented the case of Felicia Felix-Mentor and wrote the first ethnological-analytical results in her book Tell My Horse (1938). She also describes the appearance of the zombies, similar to Seabrook, “Felicia Felix-Mentor” who had a “blank face with ... dead eyes. The eyelids were white all around the eyes as if they had been burned with acid” (Hurston 1990, 195). She is also one of the first persons to propose the theory that the bokors on Haiti most likely put people into a kind of trance and apparent death with a poison (ibid, 237).

From 1961 to 1981 Larmaque Douyon documented numerous zombification cases at the Mars et Kline Centre de Psychiatrie et Neurology in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Gino del Guercio 1986, 32). In 1981 Clairvius Narcisse appeared, one of the most famous zombies, whose death and burial is well documented and who was also approachable (Davis 1988, 1-2). Narcisse was zombified by a and forced to work on sugar plantations for years. When the bokor was murdered and could no longer force Narcisse into a hallucinogenic, unconscious state with a

41 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 6-7. 19 datura paste (Gino del Guercio 1986, 35), Narcisse regained parts of his mind and returned to his village after sixteen years of “death” and two years of zombie slave work (Davis 1988, 80). Clairvius Narcisse became a research subject for Wade Davis, who researched the zombie phenomenon and the zombification process by bokors to a great extent. Current research by Gauert or Christoph also shows that zombies actually still exist in Haiti today.42 Christoph was even offered one of three zombie slaves from a plantation in exchange for a middle class car. Christoph humorously rejected; the justification that, “We couldn’t get him through the customs” (Christoph 2013, 250-254).

3.2. Studies by Wade Davis

Dr. Nathan S. Kline, project leader of a large US pharmaceutical consortium and known to this day as the “Father of Psychopharmacology” (Ruffalo 2019), had the theory that a drug was responsible for the zombification process, which extremely reduces metabolism so that the poisoning victim appears dead. Research into this drug would achieve new anesthetic substitutes and a great breakthrough in the field of anesthesiology. So he commissioned Wade Davis in 1982 to confirm the existing hypotheses and to research samples of the zombie poison as a possible narcotic for the western pharmaceutical industry (Davis 1988, 1-3). Wade Davis actually succeeded in this field study. In 1988 he published his scientific paper “ Passage of Darkness. The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie”. His results confirmed the tetrodotoxin hypothesis; a strong, difficult-to-dose puffer fish poison that bokors use for zombification (Davis 1988, pp. 145). Wade Davis’s research on the just reappeared Clairvius Narcisse and personal contacts in Haiti brought him very deeply into the secret societies and hierarchical structures of the bokors (ibid, 214). It turned out that bokors used their knowledge about natural medicinal components to produce a zombie powder – the so- called coup poudre (ibid, 278-280). To do this, they used various natural poisons and sedatives, mainly the tetrodotoxin of the puffer fish, eg. Diodon hystrix or Diodon holacanthus (ibid, 110). The tetrodotoxin, a non-protein poison, blocks the sodium channels between the nerve endings and reduces the metabolism in an extreme manner; heart rate and breath become flat and barely detectable; body temperature and blood pressure drop; it paralyzes the peripheral spectrum and can lead to complete loss of consciousness. The victim

42 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 3, 16. 20 can fall into a comatose state, and does not react to stimuli (ibid, 7, 157). Poisoning victims stay paralyzed until they die, but often remain conscious (Kheifets, Rozhavsky et. al. 2012). This would be an overdose as death from the poison would counteract the desired zombification process. The zombification process is aimed at putting the victim in a state of apparent death with a near-lethal dose. Finding this exact dose, however, is a very difficult undertaking as complex variables and parameters influence the toxicity. Even with modern medical means, the chance of hitting the exact point between the threshold value and LD50 (lethal dose) would be very low. Factors such as body size, body weight, constitution, blood values, the exact breakdown processes in the liver and spleen, the creatinine values and glomerular filtration rate of the kidneys, all these influence this process and are, of course, not analyzed by a bokor beforehand.43 Zombification remains a risky “game of chance”, in particular for the victim. Therefore, more victims die from attempted zombification than actually become a zombie. The death rate in Haiti is very high. The country is generally dominated by the subject of death, and so far only about thirteen zombies have been documented in a scientific way.44 To this day, they wander, disoriented through Haiti, especially in the Artibonite Valley or are housed in mental hospitals.45 It should also be noted that the tetrodotoxin does not produce the zombie per se. Due to the reduced metabolism, the person is declared clinically deceased and is buried on the same day. The puffer fish poison is mainly used for this. After a few hours, the bokor has the supposed corpse exhumed again (Littlewood, Douyon 1997, 1094). The lack of oxygen in the coffin causes damage to the victim’s brain, the actual goal of zombification. The brain damage causes the victims to be disoriented and suffer from a loss of identity (Davis 1988, 95). For all not involved or uninformed persons, the bokor seems to embody and control an incredible power that goes beyond death.

Bokors also use other substances for post-treatment, e.g. toad toxins (bufotoxin), deliriants and atropine-containing plants such as or plants from the genus Brugmansia, which have strong hallucinogenic effects and can lead to loss of memory and self-control (Littlewood, Douyon 1997, 1096, Gino del Guercio 1986, 34-35). These poisons are often mixed with seemingly random ingredients that resemble a classic dirt pharmacy. For example, human body parts such as parts of an umbilical cord, bones or

43 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 7-8. 44 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 8. 45 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 16. 21 fingernails (Christoph 2013, 252; Davis 1988, 112) or other animal material such as , spiders, pulverized ’s claw, or substances such as ground glass (Davis 1988, 110, 130-133). The confinement of the dirt pharmacy probably provides a medical buffer so that the chance of a functioning dose can be created. The bokors believe a metaphysical connection to the realm of death is established through the organic component (Christoph 2013, 252) and that two types of zombies are created in the zombification process – the zombie astral and the zombie (Davis 1988, 60, 181).

In Haitian Voodoo, the human part of the soul, which also defines personality and individuality, is classified as ti ange. The ti bon ange is floating over a corpse for several days, and during these days various rituals and ceremonies must be held for the deceased. If this does not happen, the ti bon ange turns into a baka, an evil spirit, which harms people and can be bribed by a bokor.46 Again, incorrect burial ceremonies, which I discussed in Chapter 2, are used as grounds for revenants and resentments of the soul. The bokor can also catch a ti bon ange directly in a bottle and seal it, creating a zombie astral, which is known as a “zombie bottle” in Haiti. By opening the bottle it can be released and take over certain tasks for his owner. Such zombie astrals can be compared to a genie in a bottle, as it also appeared in stories from the Orient (Christoph 2013, 250-54). The zombie cadavre, on the other hand, is the walking corpse, a soulless shell without free will (Davis 1988, 60). The zombification is therefore a very complex process comprising medicine, belief, power structure and psychology. Western science distinguishes, meanwhile, between three zombie classifications:

• Pharmacological zombies: People poisoned by a bokor, put into a state of apparent death, buried alive and exhumed again. Brain damage and / or post-treatment with other poisons leave them in an apathetic state, and they are forced to do slave labor (Davis 1988; Littlewood, Douyon 1997). • Psychological zombies: Roland Littlewood postulated the existence of psychological zombies. Due to psychological phenomena like autosuggestion and the nescience of the eventual scientifically medical practice of the bokors, the buried victims actually believe that they have died and have become a zombie through the power of the bokors (cf. Littlewood 2009, 241-252). The post-treatment of the bokors with hallucinogenic substances reinforces this belief. There is also a phenomenon called “Cotard’s delusion”, which is also known as “Walking Corpse Syndrome”. Jules Cotard

46 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 11. 22 (1840-1889) observed this clinical picture in which the patients are convinced that they are dead, decaying, no longer exist or that they lack organs (Grover, Aneja 2014). He himself called the disease délire des négations (delusional belief in one’s own non- existence). Patients are documented who are convinced that they no longer had a brain or requested a burial (Young 2013, 150-151). This delusion often occurs as a result of severe brain diseases and shows parallels to the Haitian zombification. • Social zombies: People who pretend to be zombies in order to take the place of the actually deceased. They can be considered as “legacy hunters” who are using the circumstances of actual bokor poisonings with subsequent death or successful zombification for themselves (Charlier 2017, 94-105).

3.3. The traumas of slavery & influence of the bokors in Haitian politics

Bokors have a great impact on society and politics in Haiti. Originally, zombification served as a sanction against serious criminals and emerged from the ideology of colonial slavery (Davis 1988, 196). The zombie can therefore be seen as a symbol of colonial sanctions47; a living memorial; “a body without freedom and autonomy” (Bishop 2015, 7). The originally Spanish island of Hispaniola assigned the eastern part to France with the Treaty of Rijswijk in 1697. Under Spanish rule there were only a few slave colonies. The French, on the other hand, imported hundreds of thousands of people and established an inhumane reign of terror in the colonies, which also influenced the slaves’ Voodoo practice. An alleged slave named Don Petro is said to have founded a sect that became a subgroup of Haitian Voodoo called the Petro nachon. These spirits are violent and reactionary in nature and offer bokors the ability to do both good and bad deeds with their power and energies. In Haitian Voodoo this is called “acting with the left and right hand”. The priests were a central element and ultimately initiators of the slave revolts and liberation struggles in Haiti, as they had a great influence on society. They organized the riots and armed the slaves. Their power was so great that even unarmed slaves could beat Napoleon’s troops with their bare hands. In 1803 Haiti was liberated from the French occupation. Unfortunately the people were traumatized and uprooted from slavery, violence and war crimes. The freed slaves began to exploit themselves. Ultimately the priest networks suppressed the slaves again and over the decades a broad,

47 See APPENDIX, Fig. 10. 23 mafia-like network developed that even influenced politics and state powers, as many bokors were also instrumentalized.48

Particularly noteworthy here is François “Papa Doc” Duvalier (1907-1971) and his paramilitary police unit called Tonton Macoute (Uncle Boogeyman; Uncle Ogre). Before Duvalier established a dictatorship in Haiti and spread fear and terror with the Tonton Macoute, he was originally very popular among the people as a person in the medical profession. He defeated the frambesia, among other infectious diseases, which were a common health problem. Duvalier suffered a stroke and developed schizophrenic and paranoid tendencies as he increasingly believed he was “”, the loa of the dead in Haitian Voodoo. Duvalier himself was deeply involved in Haitian Voodoo. Through his paranoia he founded the secret police Tonton Macoute, which was initially used to crush rebellions against the dictatorial system, and in which many bokors of the Petro nachon were involved. However, the Tonton Macoute abused their power and tortured, kidnapped or killed people to disport themselves.49 Bokors of the Petro nachon were involved, and kidnapping victims were often part of zombification attempts (Davis 1988, 214).

Duvalier probably recognized the terror potential of the bokor, which they already used for themselves in secret societies of the 19th century. With their terrible deeds, the few bokors cover up the actually good work of Voodoo that the many (white priests) practice in Haiti. The tactics of bokors are about spreading fear and thereby gaining power over society.50 Research on this topic turns out to be very difficult, as bokors practice in secret societies that are difficult to enter as an outsider. The Haitians do not want to talk voluntarily, and when then only when they feel unobserved. They never talk about such topics in French, but mostly only in Spanish or English as they are afraid of being betrayed by informers.51

48 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 9. 49 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 9-10. 50 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 10. 51 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 2. 24 3.4. Criticism of Wade Davis’s studies

Wade Davis’s research results have generated a lot of criticism and controversy in academia. Often his results were dismissed as simply wrong or as unscientific, bad research because his field research only lasted two weeks. The Bo Holmstedt of Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm stated: “It is not deliberate fraud. It is withholding negative data. It is simply bad science” (Booth 1988, 274). The biggest criticism was in the zombie powder itself, as the samples collected by Davis either contained little or no tetrodotoxin, meaning they were under or overdosed so that the zombification process did not take place (Wilson 2005, 2). The problem here is that Davis collected eight samples from four different regions of Haiti. All ingredients were not completely uniform, but showed, among other things, the puffer fish poison as a common component. Davis also pointed out the extremely complicated dosage and threshold that would lead to accurate zombification. Obtaining one out of eight samples, which contains the exact dosage for a zombification, is stochastically very low.52

According to Gauert53 , the reason for the harsh criticism was also the envy and resentment of the scientific community, which Davis ultimately provoked himself. He was very extroverted and ultimately sold his book rights to the Hollywood-famous horror Wes Craven54 , who picturized Davis’s experiences in the and the Rainbow in 1988. This of course fueled the dubiousness of the studies, but one has to emphasize that really decisive people supported his theses, which is why Davis received his PhD at Havard. Nathan Kline did not invest in research in vain. On the other hand, critics could not find any better explanation so far to explain the phenomenon of zombies in Haiti as scientifically plausible.55 Current research results also support Davis’s previous studies. William Keegan demonstrated that the Haitian indigenous people of the Taíno already knew of the puffer fish and its poison and shared this knowledge with escaping African slaves (Keegan, Carlson 2008, pp. 142). In 2016, the French forensic scientist and paleopathologist Philippe Charlier confirmed this theory, as he examined several zombies in Port-au-Prince and found tetrodotoxin in remaining samples.56 Gauert’s current research results from 2019 also coincide with Davis’s reports. Often, previous publications on this phenomenon are no longer up-to-date, and in the next few

52 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 4. 53 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 4. 54 Director of Last House on the Left, (1972); The Hills Have Eyes, (1977); A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984). 55 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 4. 56 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 15. 25 years it is very likely that new medical breakthroughs will occur on the subject. So far, the topic has remained controversial, and in order to obtain 100% scientific and medical evidence, one would have to document how a bokor resurrects a zombie from the grave. However, nobody has yet succeeded in doing this.57 Nevertheless, it is possible to encounter zombies in Haiti, wandering through the forests and mountains or even in psychiatric clinics. This phenomenon has been described for centuries and is therefore more than just folklore or fiction.

3.5. The medialization of zombification

In reality, zombies are anything but terrifying monsters, but rather tragic individual cases and even pitiful. The real monsters here are human nature and power structures (Bishop 2015, 7). Zombies are not brutal, carnivorous, murderous monstrosities or even undead. They are victims of religious abuse; traumatized, disoriented people with mental illnesses, sometimes without consciousness or memory of their old “self”. These individuals end up with pronounced apathy or severe depression in psychiatric clinics, so far without medical remedy; some are abducted from their families and abused for slave labor on plantations. The modern form of the zombie, like a plague of locusts, is an all-consuming entity with vampirism-like behavior and is thus a post-modern interpretation of an actually occurring phenomenon; an unfortunate exception, an unique incident and not a threatening, blood-thirsty horde. The fear is not of the zombie itself, but the influence and misuse of the bokors and being able to become a zombie at any time.

The actual zombies that served as the template for the old zombie films do not seem to interest filmmakers anymore. Only Lars von Trier’s Riget (engl. The Kingdom) from 1994, in which the Haitian zombie powder plays a secondary role in an attempted poisoning from a medical point of view, is really worth mentioning, and of course ’s The Serpent and the Rainbow from 1988, which takes up Wade Davis’s research report of the same name in the popular version from 1985, before he published his scientific doctoral thesis under the title the Passage of Darkness in 1988, the same year as Wes Craven’s film. Davis was not satisfied with the end result and even wanted to legally prevent the publication because he did not want any added fantastic or horror elements in the film, which Wes Craven had

57 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 3. 26 nevertheless incorporated as dreamlike sequences. The film also takes further liberties. Davis was never really threatened by the Tonton Macoute or even buried alive by a bokor.58 Beside this artistic freedom, the film shows very authentically the atmosphere of Haiti and how bokors practice zombification. The French drama Zombi Child by Bertrand Bonello from 2019 deals quite authentically with the zombie phenomenon on Haiti and focuses on Clairvius Narcisse.

It seems that only a few media publications deal with the real zombie reality on Haiti, although bokors or a zombie powder is often portrayed. Unfortunately, the actual context is blurred or incorrectly used. Rather psychologists, anthropologists, physicians and ethnographers focus on the original form of the zombie. The pop culture phenomenon of carnivorous zombies, zombie viruses and zombie apocalypses has spread so much in the media over the last few decades that the actual religious reality of zombies has been pushed out of the consumer’s consciousness. Through my experience as a museum guide at the RPM during the Voodoo exhibition, I noticed that younger visitors no longer associate zombies with black priests, rituals or Voodoo in general. They only know the modern image of the virus- infected masses, but how did this media development take place? In the following chapters I compare White Zombie (1932), one of the first zombie films, and 28 Days Later (2002) which reinterpreted the phenomenon of zombies with modern fears and social influences. In addition, I selectively go into some noteworthy publications and try to interpret the changeable, postmodern phenomenon of the iconic zombie. I am opting for short, exemplary analyses of the two film examples with regard to their conception and aesthetics.

4. From Haiti to Hollywood

Undead and revenants were a well-known concept in the USA due to popular Gothic literature, but until the publication of Seabrook’s The Magic Island in 1929, hardly anyone had heard the word “zombie” outside of Haiti (Dendler 2007, 45-46). The publication and nature of exaggerated observations of this travelogue aroused sensationalism and the interest of the western public. Voodoo was interpreted as an occult, foreign and exotic concept, and

58 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 5-6. 27 the zombie as a new horror figure became popular (ibid, 46). Seabrook himself lived with his family in Haiti for a long time and collected many stories and reports about Voodoo ceremonies and the zombie phenomena (Bishop 2010, 48).

Interest in this ominous figure increased during the 1930s and Seabrook’s reports thus became the basis for the Broadway show Zombie (1932) by Kenneth Webb (ibid, 64). Loosely based on this show was the black and white horror film White Zombie (USA, 1932), directed by Victor Halperin, which went down in film history as the first zombie film and inspired a multitude of other media focusing on Voodoo and zombification. As the first zombie film, it is particularly interesting how the source material was handled and how this served as a blueprint for other films of this type. In the following chapter I will analyze59 the focus on how the zombies are represented, which aspects are congruent with actual Haitian zombification and which cinematic aspects were also processed in later zombie media.

4.1. Analysis: White Zombie (1932). Directed by Victor Halperin

Plot synopsis:

Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer), with his magnificent property on Haiti, invites his friends Madeleine () and Neil (John Harron) to use his halls as a wedding location. This generous gesture is not without selfish ulterior motives. Beaumont ultimately wants Madeleine for himself and to entice her away from Neil. To do this he hired a black priest named Legendre () to turn her into a mindless zombie. Legendre himself runs his sugar mill with zombie slaves. When Beaumont realizes that the zombification has turned Madeleine into a characterless, emotionless shell, he also realizes Legendre’s evil intentions. Neil and the local Dr. Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn) set off to free Madeleine from Legendre’s captivity. Legendre and his zombie slaves die in a showdown. Madeleine’s curse is lifted, and she regains all her feelings and becomes her old self.

59 For the following analysis I use this public domain YouTube upload: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=cy4rXrgm7qE. Uploaded by ARF on 21 December, 2018. Retrieved October 8, 2020.

28 Sound and music:

White Zombie is an early “talkie”, which gradually replaced the silent films. However, only short sequences of classical music dominate the film. The famous Wedding March (written in 1842 by Felix Mendelssohn) is played on an organ during the wedding scene (19:47). The “ bar scene” (26:26) is a diegetic usage of background music. The film is often characterized by dialogue, some ambient noises or even silence. The first thing heard are the African chants and drum beats during the film’s introduction credits which set the foreign setting (00:27). Natural ambient noise (47:14) is often used instead of musical compositions. The rainforests and swamps are set to the “music of frogs” (28:20) rather than a looming orchestral piece. The screaming of Legendre’s vultures is very striking (49:53). No real vulture screams were used here but rather distorted, high-pitched human screams. This break with the gloomy and rather calm atmosphere creates a certain terror element and emphasizes the sense of surrealism and distorted reality. These distorted vulture screams are ultimately the sound design, which modern zombie films use as a terror element for their zombies, since the original film zombie was a rather quiet or quietly moaning figure for decades.

Camera, narrative speed:

As with many films from this period, the narrative speed is very slow, as the focus is placed on a clearly perceptible atmosphere, scenery and dialogue (14:23, 28:20). The atmosphere of the old black and white horror films of this era often embody typical Gothic aspects, such as the “twilight”, the “in between” or “looming danger” in -like or nightmare-like scenarios which can also be traced back in the German horror films like (1922), directed by F. W. Murnau and the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), directed by Robert Wiene. The fact that Madeleine seeks contact and help with Neil in a dream sequence after her funeral (27:08) or during her zombification (51:40) emphasizes that she is trapped in a twilight state, in an intermediate world.

White Zombie is often compared to a fairy tale (Bishop 2010, 73) because it uses fantastic elements, the protagonists go through a ’s journey, a “quest to the underworld”, with moral lessons, and in the end, despite a lot of death and loss, everything turns out for the better. From today’s production perspective, one would criticize the harsh cuts between camera perspectives, dialogue and usage of sound and background music (37:52). There is

29 also a clear contrast between day and night scenes. The film plays with almost black scenarios (30:26) or bright white daytime scenes (46:55). The color white also appears overexposed in the darker scenes (32:30). Nevertheless, it experimented with ambitious and creative camera settings and effects for its time: One take shots with a moving camera (32:50), various cross- fade effects (47:00, 59:42), split screens (51:40) and a POV shot (01:04:38). Legendre’s close-up of his hypnotic eyes are a striking scene. The eyes can even move around on the screen thanks to a zoom effect and semi-transparent layer effect (02:50).

Setting and scenery:

The studio scenery tries to emulate the dark post-colonial Caribbean atmosphere, similar to The Magic Island, through stage props, nature backdrops and glass paintings (05:35). The film lives from its jungles, plantations, swamps and cemeteries (28:12). Legendre’s creaking multi-storey sugar mill has a zombie-powered rotating mechanism (12:23), including a grinder made of sharp blades (13:07). The last act takes place in Legendre’s castle complex on a sea cliff (37:58). It is possible that props from Universal’s (1931, directed by Tod Browning, Karl Freund) were reused (cf. International Movie Database 2020) and by using this film set, the Gothic atmosphere of the film is emphasized again, and parallels to the well- known Dracula franchise are triggered in the audience (38:20) . The power of the Haitian bokors is also emphasized, who use their dark arts through personal enrichment or allow themselves to be politicized and who ultimately can afford better properties and their own plantations compared to other Haitians. Haitian kings and dictators also lived in magnificent buildings, such as Henri Christophe (1767-1820) in the replica of Sanssouci.

Legendre:

The film uses the previous success of Universal’s Dracula (1931) and places Bela Lugosi again in the role of the antagonist: Legendre, a practicing bokor in Haiti. Lugosi’s level of fame through Dracula is almost shamelessly repeated in the film for its promotional purposes. White Zombie is a classic love drama with horror elements, where the evil force, embodied by Legendre, destroys a pure love affair between the protagonists and tries to seize and to own the white, female victim. Legendre represents no typical Voodoo elements, but through his facial expressions and costume evokes dark and mystic traits from ,

30 Rasputin, Trilby or even Mephisto from Goethe’s Faust (1808).60 Storywise there are indeed strong parallels to Faust. When Beaumont turns to Legendre to seize Madeleine, the pact with the devil is made (17:57). The myth of zombification in order to create mindless slaves for plantation work is taken up in the film.

An actual poison is used to turn Madeleine into a will-less, emotionless zombie. What is a plot device here, and probably comes vaguely from travel reports or hearsay, has actually turned out to be realistic in future research. In 1938, six years later, Hurston suspected the connection between a poison and zombification as the first scientifically recorded connection (Hurston 1990, 237). Until more than forty years later, Wade Davis was able to locate actual samples of zombie powder. Legendre plays his client Beaumont, and Madeleine’s zombie status turns out to be an emotionless, frigid shell. Character, personality, love, warmth and also her sexuality have been taken away. The pure relationship between her and Neil has been broken, and Legendre ultimately takes control of her.

For zombification and his black magic curses, Legendre uses not only poison, but also objects and rituals that are partly based on actual Voodoo practice. Legendre, for example, uses a stolen scarf (03:56) from Madeleine as a personal object, to establish metaphysical contact with her (Christoph 2013, 252). Objects as a connection point to the metaphysical world are widespread in Voodoo but are also used in many other religions. He also uses a wax voodoo doll (22:50, 24:35). The voodoo doll has become the cliché that many people immediately think of when they think of Voodoo. These dolls are rarely used in real Voodoo practice, are commonly found in ancient Europe and were probably brought to Haiti by European settlers (Németh 2017, 20-26).

Legendre’s hand gestures (30:00), which are supposed to trigger a spell or telepathic command, or his hypnotic eyes (03:23) are also often displayed throughout the movie, which also remind the viewer strongly of Count Dracula. Hypnosis and the resulting auto-suggestion also play an important role in ceremonies. The Voodoo priest Guédéhounguè, legendary in Benin, was known for his charisma, his hypnotic gaze and persuasive powers.61 Vultures were chosen as Legendre’s animal servants, denounced as natural necrophages and thus as messengers of death, they are the ideal pets for a character who resurrects the dead, but here we have come to a striking point of the portrayal and attributes of the film’s zombies.

60 See APPENDIX, Fig. 11. 61 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview, p. 13. 31 The portrayal of the zombies:

At the beginning of the film, the future bride and groom witness a Haitian Voodoo funeral ceremony that takes place in the middle of a road (01:46). The devout coachman explains that this public place is chosen so that corpse thieves do not get easily to the graves. This observation is also close to the reality, which has now been documented (Davis 1988, 112). Wakes are held in Haiti to this day so that bokors cannot actually access the corpses. Later, Madeleine and Neil witness the first zombies standing apathetically by the roadside (03:32). Their portrayal is pale, shabby, with sunken, empty eyes which corresponds to Seabrook’s descriptions.62 The coachman explains that (04:50), “They are no man. They are dead bodies. They are living dead.” Here it becomes clear that the depicted zombies are seen by the locals as “living dead”, resurrected dead bodies – a catchphrase that George A. Romero took up again in his classic Night of the Living Dead (1968).

The bokor Legendre creates zombies to receive slave workers for his sugar mill. This exploitation of zombies as plantation workers was mentioned in the first Haitian zombie reports and is indeed a form of real-life practice (Seabrook 2015, 100-101). At (13:18) a zombie falls into the sugar mill’s grinder and is torn to pieces. None of those present care about this event. The other zombie workers are apathetic and show no emotions, and Legendre and his servants are embodied in a cold-hearted and evil way. The sugar mill is not only a symbol of colonial slave labor but can also stand as a metaphor for the Great Depression in the USA, which began with Black Thursday on October 29, 1929 and continued through the 1930s. This whole sugar mill scene can be interpreted as slow-moving, apathetic workers forced into a brutal, never-stopping industry which is designed for a higher authority to make itself even richer (Bishop 2015, 8).

The criticism of capitalism can already be identified in the first zombie film and not only in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) whose shopping mall setting is a prime example of mindless mass consumption depicted in zombie media (Bishop 2010, 130). The zombies move slowly, seem out of place and blindly follow orders from the higher authority – in this case, Legendre. Legendre, as black priest, also has an opponent: Dr. Bruner, the enlightened, European scientist, missionary and local priest. Again, Dracula parallels are awakened by the

62 See APPENDIX Fig. 12 32 duality of Van Helsing and Count Dracula, but unlike Van Helsing, Dr. Bruner is not convinced of vampires or the undead; he doubts the “living dead” (32:50).

It turns out that the zombies are actually just poisoned people who are abused as slaves by Legendre. Later the protagonists meet the old witch doctor Pierre (Dan Crimmins), who was himself a zombie under Legendre until the poison finally subsided (47:20). Here the film takes up the fact that the puffer fish poison actually wears off, and bokors often use other drugs on the zombies in order to make them compliant for longer periods of time. Madeleine’s zombification process is also authentically depicted (cf. Gino del Guercio 1986, 31). After the poison has worked and she is buried, Legendre and Beaumont climb into her grave and steal the alleged corpse, with the difference that the actual lack of will is initiated by hypoxia and the post-treatment with other drugs.

During the final showdown, the zombies are shot at, but apart from a bullet hole (01:03:30), they suffer no further injuries and continue to stagger towards the protagonists. The fact that zombies are invincible, that they can survive even bullets from pistols and rifles, and that usually only a targeted shot in the head guarantees their final , is meanwhile a trope that has also prevailed in later zombie media63 . This can be derived from African Vodun ceremonies. Henning Christoph described ceremonies in which priests and adepts were protected by strong spirits and were in a deep state of trance that participants in the ceremony actually shot the priest with pistols without causing him any damage (Christoph 2013, 10). Even during the Haitian slave revolts, the slaves received enormous strength through the influence of Voodoo priests and, in some cases, defeated Napoleon’s armed troops with their bare hands.64

Reception and impact on future media:

White Zombie was an independent production in its time, but it nonetheless laid some important foundations for the later zombie films, even if the criticism and viewers’ reception was mostly mixed. From the 1930s until the end of the 1950s, zombie films used many tropes regarding voodoo and zombies based on White Zombie. Particularly noteworthy here is I Walked With A Zombie (1943), directed by Jacques Tourneur. Inspired by The Magic Island

63 cf. Night Of The Living Dead (1969) or The Walking Dead (2010, created by Frank Darabont). 64 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 9. 33 and also by White Zombie, this film also chooses the dark Caribbean islands and jungles as the setting and also plays with dream-like twilight states for the film atmosphere. This premise that zombies are unwilling slaves under the control of a bokor is therefore very closely anchored in the actual zombie myth. In addition, White Zombie or I Walked With A Zombie try to create a completely different atmosphere and narrative structure which nowadays would no longer be considered for the zombie horror genre.

These are classic early works with influences of Gothic, the surreal elements of German art film that collide with non-European scenery of the West Indies – a play with light and shadow; the use of drums and chants and elements of the fantastic. These films deal with alterity, the supernatural and the in-between worlds. A sequel to White Zombie was planned for 1936 under the title Revolt of the Zombie, but the Halperin Brothers ran into legal problems here. Amusement Securities Corporation, which helped fund White Zombie, had patented the word “zombie” as their exclusive property (International Movie Data Base 2020). Here it becomes clear that zombies were a novelty at the time. No dictionary understood this word so that it could be patented like a brand or a company name.

Compared to today’s zombie films, the depiction of violence and the death count by zombies is also very low or hardly given, but it increased significantly in the 1960s. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) can be named as avant-garde, which clearly depicted violence and blood to the mainstream audience, a trend that Romero even reinforced in Night of the Living Dead (1968). White Zombie is also often accused of cultural ignorance or imperialist racism. Through the zombification of white women, a threat from primitive, African-American religions is displayed which ultimately also threatens American society by enslaving the former oppressors. (Bishop 2015, 8) According to Bishop, the film can be interpreted as bringing enlightenment to the black, superstitious Haitians, as Dr. Brunner, as a missionary, does not believe in their “voodoo” and argues with scientific rationality. It would have been more authentic indeed, if Dr. Brunner would have been replaced with a local .

Nevertheless, I am not assuming that the filmmakers’ main intention of White Zombie was to display pure racism or spread imperialist values, but rather it was a product of early, naive filmmaker innocence. White Zombie is not a “blackfacing” medium nor an enlightenment allegory as Heart of Darkness (1899, written by Joseph Conrad) or Lord of the Flies (1954, written by William Goldling), but an attempt to quickly portray the success of the Magic

34 Island as a film.65 and to secure success in cinema and audience while using parallels to the former blockbuster Dracula. Dr. Brunner can also be interpreted as a neutral, scientific spirit of research who tries to rationally explain old myths and folklore. This approach has ultimately proven that zombies do exist, but are no revenants but actually victims of bokors and their use of poison. White Zombie therefore unconsciously has a lot of scientific truth and facts in it, even if at that time they were still random fantastic elements from various travelogues.

4.2. The zombie becomes cliché

Where I see cultural insensitivity or even imperialistic values is in the development of the zombie film over the next few decades as a whole. The focus is often on foreign lands, foreign cultures and foreign religions, which are often portrayed as brutal and primal. Voodoo is perceived as black magic and an occult sect. The morally superior white actors from the Christian culture are victims of this primitive power and the zombies, which have meanwhile given way to be portrayed as real undead. This is where the foundations for the voodoo cliché were laid by using random elements of Voodoo and in order to create the most impressive possible antagonists – black priests, evil witch doctors and necromancers, bloody rituals, drums and dances and voodoo dolls for killing and resurrecting people as zombies. All these tropes were implemented in popular zombie films until the late 1960s.

Not surprising, after all, Voodoo had long been established from the Caribbean to Florida and Louisiana. Racism and the history of slavery were still deeply anchored in the US population, so it represented an excellent combination to fuel the horror genre and frightened the mainly white cinema audience. There was always an aversion by white American Christians, as the peaceful Voodoo religion was equated here with a black magic sect, satanic cults and witchcraft. A large part of the American voodoo ceremonies are therefore still held secretly today. The zombie became the new horror film icon, like the vampire for Transylvania, the for dark German forests, the resurrected for Egyptian burial chambers or the humanoid fish monster from the swampy depths of the Amazon jungle. In 1968 the zombie film was to change significantly with Romero’s Night of the Living Dead because social fears have also changed over the past decades.

65 There were three years of production time between book and film publication. 35 4.3. Fears change the zombie – fake blood and red communism

While the first zombie films played diffusely and subtly with the fears of the economic crisis and later focused on post-colonial, imperial structures and the assessment of the influence of alien religions and ethnicities, the fears of society changed steadily in the course of World War II and the post-war period. The new enemy images were now communism, the threat of losing western freedom, advancing technology, time economy, the atomic bomb. Computers, televisions, faster cars, faster travel, jet planes, and assault rifles. The beginning of the technological singularity began. World War II, the Korean War, the – the Cold War against communism could turn hot at any time, and such a “cold” war also required “cold-blooded” horror productions.

The USA of the 1950s and 1960s was characterized by a fear of the Soviet invaders; blood-red communism was the looming everyday threat (Bishop 2010, 207). Long-range bombers at supersonic speeds could drop thousands of troops and hundreds of bombs on home soil within hours. The atomic bomb that ended World War II ultimately threatened the USA itself, when the Soviets in 1961 tested their novel hydrogen bomb “Tsar”, which was an even more terrible weapon of mass destruction. A race between economy, space travel and the military industry began. It is not surprising that the horror films of the “Atomic Age” were shaped by lethal radiation, fear of invasion and widespread destruction – whether aliens66 , radioactive giant animals67 or even giant women68 that attacked – the new threats and fears also changed the horror icons and therefore the zombie.69 Meanwhile, Japan had to cope with its own atomic bomb trauma. The shockwave victims of August 6 and 9, 1945, so-called hibakusha, created real-world zombie70 motifs (Payne 2014). Disoriented, traumatized people with burned flesh and outstretched arms shuffled whimpering in agony through the bombed- out cities. Some pieces of modern Japanese zombie media are still associated with fire or incineration.71

66 eg.Earth vs. Flying Saucers (1956). Directed by Fred F. Sears. 67 eg. Tarantula! (1955). Directed by Jack Arnold. 68 eg. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958). Directed by Nathan Juran. 69 eg. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, directed by Don Siegel; 1978, directed by Philip Kaufman), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959, directed by Ed Wood), (1959, directed by Edward L. Cahn), Earth dies Screaming (1964, directed by Terence Fisher). 70 See APPENDIX, Fig. 13. 71 See APPENDIX, Fig. 14. 36 One of the biggest changes in the zombie was initiated by George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in 1968. In contrast to the old voodoo zombies, a flesh- eating zombie apocalypse is emerging here, based on the fear of invasion at the time. A radiant space probe resurrected the undead from their graves; this “extraterrestrial radiation” also made the dead walk back on earth in Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). It is a holdover from the 1950’s B-movie phase of Hollywood, paired with the “” against the Soviet Union of its time. The “living dead”, as metaphor for will-less communists, brutally attack the unprepared Americans and dismember them in a graphically explicit way. Being bitten means to become part of the collective (Bishop 2015, 9).

The “flesh-eating zombie horde” was born as a trope. While “Haitian zombies” represent a singular case that do not consume and are controlled by a superior force, “Romero zombies” appear in hordes, eat large amounts of human flesh and are generally driven by . Blood and gore, visible entrails, cannibalism, and the zombies can only be destroyed by a headshot, directly through the brain. Romero redefined the aesthetics of the drastic; destroyed the hitherto intact American family life of the 1950s (ibid, 10). The film was released before the MPA film rating system was founded which is why many young people and even children saw this film in the cinema, and it affected them significantly – their mood quickly changed. From entertained, loud thrills to devout silence. Sometimes the scenes were too graphically shocking (Ebert 1969).

The year 1968; a year of revolution – love, peace and flower power, on the other hand trauma of war and more brutal, faster media. Romero’s bloodthirsty zombie horde not only affected the young cinema audience, but all subsequent zombie media immensely. Romero selected EC Comics for depicting the undead and Richard Matheson’s (1954) as sources of inspiration (Bishop 2010, 95). In I Am Legend, much of humanity died from a mosquito-borne pandemic that ultimately resurrected the dead. The infectious zombie bite also shows characteristics of vampires and werewolves72 , which in some cultures are also categorized as classic revenant types.

Belgian comic artist Peyo released Les Schtroumpfs Noirs (The Black Smurfs)73 in 1963, where a Smurf is bitten by a mosquito, turns black, shows aggressive and primal behavior and bites other Smurfs in the village, which in turn also become “Black Smurfs”. Whether I am

72 cf. The Wolf Man (1941). Directed by Curt Siodmak. 73 See APPENDIX, Fig. 15. 37 Legend was also an inspiration here, or classic werewolf stories or infectious diseases such as rabies, malaria or African sleeping sickness, can only be guessed. The tropes of the infectious zombie bite, only headshots can kill a zombie, and the cannibalistic zombie horde will now exclusively be attributed to Romero.

Another parallel can be seen in the British Hammer Studios production Plague of the Zombies (1966) which used the classic established Haitian “voodoo zombie trope”, but also connects them with a plague. This film also set the visual standards of a modern zombie film and probably also inspired Romero’s work (Hearn, Barnes 2007, 101). Previous fiction was already there, so it was just a question of reinterpretation, and Romero embodied the “brutal zeitgeist” with Night of the Living Dead. He then inspired countless other horror filmmakers. The zombie was transformed several times over the coming decades, and its Haitian Voodoo origins vanished into obscure background knowledge.

4.4. The (post)modern danse macabre – when the G falls off from “Graveyard”

The zombies were having fun The party had just begun From my laboratory in the Castle East To the Master Bedroom where the vampires feast The ghouls all came from their humble abodes To get a jolt from my electrodes – Bobby “Boris” Pickett – (1962)

The new era of zombies not only re-inspired the horror genre, the first wave of horror parodies in the 50’s and 60’s can be observed, and thus classic film monsters found another way into the mainstream. Even in music the first postmodern currents were taken up here in order to compose a new danse macabre. Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s Monster Mash from 1962 imitated Boris Karloff’s distinctive voice and celebrated a party of all the “classic monsters” of the Universal film series in a “catchy” Rock ‘n’ Roll Novelty song. Songs like Monster Mash, Skully Gully or Transylvania Twist can be understood as a

38 postmodern danse macabre by musically processing the morbid elements of horror and combining them into popular music. These musical pieces were so crucial that modern bands of the genres “Horror Punk” and “Horror Rock” still combine these aspects of old horror films and B-movie aesthetics with doo-wop and rock of the 1950s and surf rock of the 1960s.

The “dance of dead” and the post-modern processing of horror films in other media was given early on and continues to this day, often under the sign of the zombie.74 Michael Jackson also served the classic danse macabre of the European 14th century with his interpretation in 1982. Here, the perfectly choreographed masses of the undead danced to “crisp”, modern dance beats. Nowadays, several YouTube memes use Walt Disney’s Skeleton Dance (1929) from the Silly Symphonies and remix it into modern “Electro Swing”.75 Rhythm-based computer and video games such as Crypt of the NecroDancer (2015) make use of the morbid medieval concept of the danse macabre and combine modern dance music with the primal fear of death.

4.5. Post mortem; postmodern

The comedic interpretations of the zombie apocalypses, e.g. by (2009, directed by Ruben Fleischer), (2004, directed by Edgar Wright) or Anna and the Apocalypse, suggest that the zombie phenomenon has only “lived” through its postmodern processing for a few years (cf. Dendle 2007, 1). You can already see a high phase of these parodies in the 1980s and 1990s. The Return of the Living Dead (1985) by Dan O’Bannon took the Romero established zombie tropes already to extremes. Here, a shot in the head was no longer sufficient to annihilate a zombie for good.76 A chemical substance brought everything dead back to life – even , butterflies in display cases or severed body parts. Cremating the zombies turned out to be unsuccessful; the ashes rose into the atmosphere and infected even more people as a toxic downpour.

This film combines postmodern humor with Romero’s zombie horror. This was also the first film that let zombies talk77 and made them fixate on the human brain (Bishop 2015, 14).

74 See APPENDIX, Fig. 16. 75 Spooky Scary Skeletons Remix by The Living Tombstone. Uploaded January 30, 2015, by AnotherButter. Retrieved October 8, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYsfIYUV4Gk. 76 Freddy (Thom Mathews): “You mean the movie lied?” as he realized Romero’s headshot trope does not work. (Film quote). 77 Zombies: “Brains!“; “!“ (Film quote). 39 It clearly shows the paradox of a zombie apocalypse: The voodoo magic was scientifically, economically and pop culturally disenchanted, yet the curse of the undead remains in the world of the living. Zombies have to eat, but have no metabolism of their own. Zombies therefore represent an abnormality beyond the natural cycle. They consume flesh from living and so act like a predator but without contributing anything to their own metabolism or the potential preservation of their offspring by consuming prey. Zombies also tend to not take care of themselves or other zombies (cf. ibid, 6). Here it becomes clear that the modern zombie’s form of behavior is based on the human ego. Even unnatural paradoxes and mystical primeval powers are dependent on humans as a resource. The human being, as the highest form of life, the crown of creation, has a significant value on which even soulless, primitive primal forces depend. Since Dan O’Bannon’s The Return of the Living Dead this dependency has even been extended to the brain. The soulless zombie is dependent on the highest, humanistic organ that thinks, guides, reflects and evaluates – all the skills that a zombie cannot do. This is the paradox of the undead: They do not have to consume or kill at all because they can no longer sustain life and no longer have any physical functions. Nature, as the oldest legislative, decisive authority, would even have such an abnormality immediately removed, since the natural act of decomposition and utilization by bacteria, insects and other scavenging animals would reintegrate the zombie into the natural cycle within a few days, where it actually belongs. The zombie acts in a senseless, destructive and wasteful existence, which was taken up as a consumer criticism of US lifestyle (ibid, 10) in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978). The zombie takes lives without being able to satisfy its hunger or achieve the feeling of satiety and, conversely, it does not give anything back to the world.

The zombie is also a “danger of multipliers”. Zombies act like plagues of locusts that have already been interpreted as a biblical, apocalyptic punishment from God. However, locusts are part of nature and also fulfill a function according to the rules of nature. One locust does not yet make a swarm, but two are the beginning of the end. The locust can become a catastrophe of biblical proportions through multipliers, whereas a zombie alone has the potential to trigger apocalyptic scenarios through its aggressiveness, border crossing and the risk of infection. Mankind itself becomes part of this unnatural army with no meaning for the entire universal set of rules.

40 Another post-modern approach is to portray the previously apathetic, instinct-driven or externally controlled zombie to appear as thinking, talking or even friendly. The Cryptkeeper from Tales from the Crypt (1989, created by William Gaines, Steven Dodd), based on the EC Comics series of the same name, is also a very distinctive postmodern form of the revenant. In contrast to his mute and apathetic colleagues, Cryptkeeper is very aware of his existence as a zombie. He is sophisticated, masters black humor, uses costumes and props and serves as a self-aware host of his own horror series. He is therefore an “intelligent zombie” similar to Big Daddy from (2005), also directed by George A. Romero, who leads a zombie army against humans. He can communicate, focus on tasks and make use of tools (ibid, 13).

The Simpsons (1989 - today, created by ) parodied various zombie tropes in Dial ‘Z’ for Zombie in Treehouse of Horror III (1992). Another Monster Mash took place in highschool ( in , 1990, created by ), and ’s Tiny Toon Adventures (1990-1995) parodied with Night of the Living Pets (1994), both Romero’s classic and Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (1983). Before Peter Jackson became popular for his Lord of the Rings film epic (2001-2003), he set new violence and fake blood standards in his comedic Splatter zombie film Braindead (1992) and let some zombies even mutate grotesquely. The undead here were fought with kitchen blenders, garden gnomes and lawnmowers.

Zombie media parodies are not just a trend that has been followed since the mid-2000s. A post-modern treatment becomes particularly evident when previous antagonistic characters are suddenly transferred to everyday settings, are given friendly, social character attributes78 or even represent a figure in romances. What already happened to the vampires79 now happens to the next undead horror figure: The zombie. Classic love and horror stories have often been processed in the media, and while werewolves and vampires are considered to be established common figures in this genre, the zombie slowly fills in this gap, although their presence is more expected in the urban and apocalyptic setting (Wagner 2019, 20).

In postmodern mash-up novels like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Elizabeth marries Mr Darcy and Jane marries Mr Bingley despite the raging zombie epidemic. Even classic

78 Like Billy Butcherson in Hocus Pocus (1993, directed by Kenny Ortega) or Randall Skeffington in Ugly Americans (2010-2012, created by Devin Clark). 79 cf. Twilight series. 2005-2008, written by Stephenie Meyer. 41 German literature is not spared from this resurrection and mutation, like in Die Leichen des jungen Werther (2011, written by Susanne Picard), a mash-up of Goethe’s the Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). A zombie Werther elopes here with his beloved zombie Lotte (ibid). A horror icon that has become faster and more brutal over the years is now being processed back into the past and into sacred, historical cultural assets. Something new can arise. From original travelogues from Haiti to postmodern monster mash-up novels, here classic literature, which represents romantic, innocent, nostalgic ideas, meets the brutal, infected, tearing modernity, represented by bloodthirsty undead creatures (ibid, 17).

Romero himself also established the so-called “Hero Zombie” (Bishop 2015, 13) in his canon. “Bub” (Sherman Howard) from Day of the Dead (1985) remembers the social norms and manners of his former human existence. Similar postmodern reworking can also be found in Warm Bodies, Wasting Away (2007, directed by Matthew Kohnen) and The Cured (2017, directed by David Freyne). The boundaries between what is human and what is undead are clearly blurred by such characterizations. In iZombie (2015-2019, created by Rob Thomas, Diane Ruggiero-Wright), a zombie works as and forensic doctor, thus fulfilling the area of expertise with human scientific experience, but also by eating (and therefore analyzing and profiling) the brains of the dead casualties. Societal change not only changes the fears that ultimately change the zombies, but also their abstract, postmodern transformation and portrayal in media. In this chapter I have taken up the most important zombie media from the beginnings (1932 – 1968) to their first postmodern approaches (1985- 1990s). Since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, another social change has influenced our everyday life, which has also changed the zombie media for 20 years later.

5. The 9/11 trauma

The invasion fears of the previous zombie films have been reactivated, this time it is not by the communists, but by Islamic terrorists who dominate the new fears of society in the 21st century (cf. Braudy 2016, 107). September 11th changed contemporary history significantly. Empires can fall again; terrorists have the potential to bring down emblematic buildings and landmarks of western societies. It was the first attack on American soil; the resulting

42 American trauma turned into global terrorism (Bishop 2010, 9). Safe cities could turn into dystopian settings at any time. This was followed by tightening of security controls, strengthening of surveillance and the executive branch. A new wave of racism and terrorist paranoia was triggered in an even faster, even more digitized, globalized world. Middle East conflicts turned into joint NATO wars on terrorism. Pacifists realize that soldiers and terrorists taking and executing orders unreflected, killing people and invading countries in the process. A general or terrorist leader can symbolically be compared to a bokor.80 Terrorist attacks were carried out in crowds around the world. These attacks are carried out covertly and quickly in crowded spaces so a mass panic is triggered. Mainstream news and everyday life was dominated by explosions, collapsing buildings, rubble, blood, arbitrary violence and spontaneous use of weapons.81

Terrorism relies on fast, reflexive, brutal moments, and this aesthetic drama is implemented in the modern zombie film through clear depictions of violence, fast and drastic camera work, jump-scares and the focus on crowds. Mass events, crowded public transport or narrow cities are permanently accompanied by the fear of a violent break with the familiar, structured everyday routines. One of the first zombie films with the aesthetic portrayal of the 9/11 trauma was the British film 28 Days Later, released in 2002 and directed by Danny Boyle. In the following analysis, I present a selection of stylistic devices and scenes on the basis of film aesthetics that pick up on the 9/11 trauma which has meanwhile become a new standard setting for zombie media. Here, too, I take up features of the new zombie interpretation and name features that distinguish it from previous representations.

5.1. Analysis of 28 Days Later (2002). Directed by Danny Boyle

Plot synopsis:

Animal activists accidentally release a deadly virus when trying to free chimpanzees from a research laboratory. Twenty-eight days after the virus was released, Jim () wakes up from a coma in the hospital. He notices that London is completely abandoned and wanders through the deserted metropolis. In a church he is suddenly attacked by an infected

80 A zombie serum to create “super soldiers“ is also used in the 2007 film Wasting Away by Matthew Kohnen. 81 cf. The primate experiments in 28 Days Later, triggering the “rage virus“. 43 priest. More attacks by the zombies follow. Jim is saved by Selena () and Mark (Noah Huntley). It turns out that those infected can transmit the disease through saliva or blood within a few seconds, and Mark falls victim to this circumstance. During the life- threatening journey through dystopian London, they meet Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). The four survivors make their way to Manchester where a small military unit searches for survivors and has the alleged answer for the disease, but when he arrives there, Frank also falls victim to the “rage infection”. The incoming military force turns out to be a completely new danger, as they ultimately want to control and kill people through military power structures and rape and impregnate women seeking shelter. The infected ultimately attack the military complex, killing the soldiers. Hannah, Jim and Selena can escape. In the last scene, they live in seclusion in the English countryside and continue to try to make contact with other survivors.

Politics, society, humankind – internal and external powers

Just as the World Trade Center should convey stable global trade, a stable capital system and security, this security and stability can be destroyed by powers from the outside or inside. When financial stability, the government, infrastructure, police and military fail, society threatens to despair and even vanish. Panic and violence break out, which in turn challenges human values in general. Should values and security ultimately just be concepts and illusions? This movie attacks precisely these values and the supposed security of scientific and political institutes on a metaphorical level (cf. Bishop 2010, 9).

Horror films use Kristeva’s theory of abjection to analyze internal and external factors in order to penetrate boundaries and to injure. 28 Days Later still uses these internal and external forces but also projects them onto sociological and political systems. A virus penetrates from the “outside”, as an infected person ultimately becomes an “inner” danger in society as a result of this fact. A concept which is similar with terrorism: September 11th was an attack from the outside, but sleepers and terror cells also pose a potential threat from within, inside society. This trust in national institutions offers society protection and security, causing it to work for the system itself. Ultimately the criticism of this system, in the form of animal protection activists, ensures that the former safe system collapses and turns humanity into a drastic and horrible consequence.

44 In 28 Days Later there is no longer any form of government. The film is an anarchist struggle for survival in a zombie-infected apocalypse. Symbolically, the church can be mentioned in the film, which turns out to be the place of the first zombie encounter for Jim. A church is supposed to be a meeting place to strengthen the community and represent a refuge. Instead, the priest, his and his institutional power were destroyed by science in the form of a virus experiment. The grace of charity is replaced by a primitive urge of destruction. The role of the military is represented in a similarly symbolic manner in the film. Soldiers and their armed base represent the last functioning form of civilization and therefore a hope for humanity in this zombie apocalypse. It turns out that the military with its strict hierarchies, power structures and violence wants to maintain civilization with similar concepts of control, that ethically even make the zombie apocalypse appear as a “neutral event”. The soldiers plan to take in like-minded people and to rape and impregnate women like the two protagonists Hannah and Selena in order to ensure the continued existence of “humanity”. Jim is perceived as weak and should be eliminated as he is not a function in this institution. Ultimately, Jim himself becomes an outside force and breaks the established system, again leading a horde of the virus into the military base.

Setting:

The main setting is London in an abandoned, post-apocalyptic existence. The otherwise booming metropolis is now deserted, quiet (09:20). It remains unclear whether residents were evacuated or died from the virus. The historical London, as the capital of Great Britain, represents the headquarters of the government (House of Parliament), the financial system (Bank of England) and also as a cultural identity place (St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Bridge / Big Ben, crashed double-decker buses). All these previously crowded spaces are now abandoned – all forms of order and security through civilization, the military, disaster control or the police no longer exist. It is very striking that all these buildings are still intact, i.e. not destroyed, but destroyed buildings would explain the apocalypse and indicate a war or accident. The horror and tension is created here by the assumption that suddenly several million people have disappeared without a trace. The almighty, secure buildings of the empire no longer fulfill a purpose and display the vulnerability of a country and its government – the system needs people. Institutional buildings were destroyed in 9/11 to annihilate people and

45 their function. In 28 Days Later this collapse takes place metaphorically, where the building structure remains intact, but the institutional function is destroyed by making society part of the terror as virus-infected zombies.

As an island, European trading center and its past in colonial rule, Great Britain is particularly susceptible to epidemics and economical collapse. Jim wakes up from his coma in an abandoned hospital. Everything seems to have been evacuated. This “sudden awakening” in a dystopian world can be interpreted as the “sudden awakening” of the attack on September 11, 2001, when mankind became aware that everyday life can be destroyed by terrorist attacks at any time. Security was just an illusion; peaceful times are gone; a new era of terror awaits. The terror in the case of 28 Days Later is represented by the brutality of the infected zombies. The waking-up scene in the hospital, like the deserted setting in general, is strongly based on The Last Man On Earth (1964) which is based on the novel I am Legend, where a sole survivor also wanders through the abandoned, apocalyptic remnants of former society and is confronted with a new form of terror. The post-apocalyptic setting conducts the entire film, only the military camp initially seems to offer some “security” since it is a functional building in which people are active. The last scene takes place in a small country house. The post- apocalypse is still active, but since this is far away from any big city, a feeling of rural idyll and even peace is conveyed here.

The portrayal of the zombies:

As in I am Legend, Braindead or , the reason for the shown zombie apocalypse is a virus when environmental activists came into contact with laboratory monkeys. Virus disaster films such as 12 Monkeys (1995, directed by ) or Outbreak (1995, directed by Wolfgang Petersen) also serve as models here. In addition to these formats, further real-world inspiration probably comes from the fact that Great Britain repeatedly fell victim to large foot-and-mouth diseases (Bates, 2016) and BSE infections (BBC News 2018) between 1990 and 2001, and millions of cattle had to be slaughtered and disposed of as a result. Several anthrax attacks on media companies circulated in 2001 (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2020), combining the fear of terroristic consequences of the 9/11 attack; bioterrorism and uncontrollable epidemics laid the foundation for the new zombie apocalypse. The zombies depicted in 28 Days Later break with

46 previous zombie tropes. Due to the so-called “rage virus”, living people show a complete loss of identity and only display primal forms of behavior (Bishop 2015, 11). They act instinctively and show rabies-like and very violent symptoms. If they are killed, those infected remain dead and do not resurrect again, as previous revenants or zombies have done. In addition, the infected can run, avoid obstacles and even walk up and down stairs. This ability has hardly been taken up in previous zombie media82 , since zombies were often depicted as slow, shuffling figures to underline their decaying state.

Transmission through blood is considered a particularly fast infection factor. This allows natural, explicit representation of violence through bites and scratches and offers enough display options for abjection. The zombies also make loud, distorted, animal-like screaming and hissing noises which are intended to emphasize their primal, instinctive existence. So not only are the zombies fast, the danger of becoming one is also rapid. Spontaneous reflexes, intention and impulses replace self-reflection and rationality. The cannibalism of the previous zombie films is no longer taken up. It is only about the virus transmission; what these “living people” feed on or how they maintain their metabolism is not clarified. Nevertheless, loss of control is the main intention of the film, be it one’s own self-control throughout the infection or the loss of political control. In addition, former zombies could be immediately recognized due to their rotten appearance. In 28 Days Later the transformation into a primal beast can be accomplished through saliva or blood contact, which is shown particularly drastically when Hannah loses her father (01:05:25); Zack Synder’s Dawn of the Dead remake (2004) also uses a similar portrayal in its opening scene. This drastic incision is also a post-9/11 traumatic stylistic device – the infected person is like a “sleeper” – an enemy who is not immediately recognizable and who waits within the crowd for the right moment of terror.

Sound and music:

The music was composed by . The hard, distorted, loud indie or post rock music is striking, which in turn is replaced by calm piano or even choral music, but the rock pieces based on power chords combined with distorted electronic samples and modern drum beats always stand out. A full orchestral score was deliberately avoided in order to do justice to the modern, threatening setting and to emphasize the fast and harsh narrative style and the

82 The Sega arcade game House of the Dead (1996) introduced fast zombies as enemies. 47 imperfect, gritty image. The sound design is on the industrial standard of a modern horror film: In the primate research laboratory the monkeys roar and scream constantly; visual and audible stress is generated. The zombies also screech, gurgle and hiss. Jump-scares are tonally supported and intensified. The background music and soundscape support the film’s aesthetics and can thus be described as non-diegetic usage.

Camera, narrative speed:

The movie 28 Days Later was a $10 million indie production that was partially recorded guerrilla style as most locations did not get a filming permit or recording lockdown (Mitchell 2003). Cost reductions were also achieved through the fast producing and editing of digital video. In the beginning of the 2000s, digital cinema film was not a norm and was rarely used as early digital technology had a very unstable, sometimes blurred image with artifacts. The used Canon XL1S MiniDV (Bankston 2003) and the digital post-production repeatedly created motion blur, aliasing, chromatic aberration due to intensive wide-angle settings, exaggerated bloom effects (49:13) or artifact formation (53:08). The film feels grainy, dirty, amateurish, and that is by design. The composition of the film appears as if a third person is documenting the apocalyptic scenes with a digital handheld camcorder. Here, too, an aesthetic analogy to 9/11 becomes clear, as eyewitnesses recorded the attacks and the collapse on the Twin Towers with their camcorders; only here, London is staged during an apocalyptic scenario and a certain found-footage aesthetic is created as the Last Broadcast (1998) and the Blair Witch Project (1999) already successfully did.

In addition, it seems that a film was made that will not age well on purpose, an undead (early digital) medium was chosen; times are in upheaval, as are digital progress and the global world in general. The gritty aesthetic of the film can be observed in the opening scene which shows the activist group in the animal laboratory. The film uses freeze frames and “ shaky cam”. The camera work relies on fast, dynamic, unstable camera settings. The action scenes are cut very quickly and are partly layered with strobe effects which emphasize the fearful stress. In order to dynamically and effectively stage the attacking, fast virus zombies, their running scenes are sometimes fast-forwarded. Creative close-ups and POV scenes, such as from the primate’s point of view (04:20) or even from the perspective of a falling drop of blood that carries the virus and ultimately causes Frank to mutate (01:05;10), are distinctive

48 and meanwhile standard settings for modern horror and action cinema. Earlier zombie films staged their shuffling zombies with staid shots to emphasize the slowness of the undead, while Boyle’s modern zombie interpretation conveys rapid cuts, whip pans and a confused, threatening feeling of being “right in the middle”. The viewer is not just the “outside observer”, he is part of the apocalypse, inside of the chaos. For the film’s last scene, which takes place in the English countryside, the classic 35mm was chosen (IMDB 2020), which suggests that the previous modern chaos is resting and that familiar viewing patterns for the audience are being taken up again.

Reception and impact on future media:

The film 28 Days Later was largely positively received by critics and viewers and revitalized the zombie genre. There was a comic offshoot, and in 2007 the sequel by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was released. The beginning of the film, where the protagonist wakes up alone in a hospital and perceives the dimensions of the apocalypse, appears later in the Walking Dead series, also in an opening scene, like a homage to Boyle’s work. The attack of the zombie masses, which Romero made suitable for the mass-market, was taken up again after a few decades in the confusion of the 9/11 trauma and were imported to Europe. To this day, new media such as 28 Days Later or the Walking Dead inspire the prepper community to prepare and hoard for the incoming apocalyptic and dystopian end-time scenarios which can also be traced back to the Last Man by from 1826, where a pandemic wiped out all nations and humanity stands before collapse. Fear has become global – not only in fiction, but also in real life.

The movie 28 Days Later also brought back the found footage style of camera work. The grainy digital camera look, “shaky cam”, as well as the fast, dynamic cuts were also adopted in the Spanish zombie film REC (2007, directed by Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza) and its US remake Quarantine (directed by John Erick Dowdle) from 2008. Cloverfield (2008), directed by Matt Reeves, also relied on this narrative style of the camera and the 9/11 traumatic invasion setting in New York, but here by a colossal, extraterrestrial monstrosity. It also established the running, infected zombies in the mainstream, which trope is particularly often used in modern computer and video games.83

83 eg. Dead Island (2011), Dying Light (2015) , Left 4 Dead (2008) , The Last Of Us (2013). 49 This shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples that wage war against Jerusalem: their flesh shall rot while they are still on their feet; their eyes shall rot in their sockets, and their tongues shall rot in their mouths. Zechariah 14:12-14 (NRSV)

The modern zombie is designed for masses, speed and infection, as is the economy, society and media. Modern zombie films play with fear of terror, loss of individuality, military invasions and also with the fear of immigrants, which are the logical consequence of global- fought wars. World War Z (2013, directed by Marc Forster), takes on the trope of the fast infected zombie and enhances them with simple problem-solving strategies. Based on “ legionary ants” which are able to build towers, pontoons and bridges with swarm intelligence and algorithms, the infected zombies can also pile up, for example, to storm the Wall of Jerusalem. In addition, it takes place in a global scenario, the eponymous “world war”. Here, too, tendencies of 9/11 trauma can be interpreted. Modern zombie hordes not only threaten rural shielded locations, but also international cities and countries; the virus zombie becomes cosmopolitan.

5.2. From “evil priest” to “mad scientist”

What can be observed in the development of the zombie since Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is that the classic bokor-controlled voodoo zombie is rarely used in modern media84 but often only appears in niche products or computer games. Meanwhile the “ scientific zombie”, especially the viral one, has almost completely replaced the “religious zombie”. The fear of religious oppression turns into modern fear – the fear of failure or abuse of science and industry. Zombies are now more than just a fictional monster. They have embodied real fears since the 9/11 era. In a globalized, networked world, there are fears of disease transmission, biological warfare or the distrust of technocracy, so religious, occult factors hardly play a role anymore, as the western, educated, rational person questions religions and superstitions. The majority of the western world population has “become” a “Dr. Brunner” from White Zombie (cf. Chapter 4.1), except that the “new enlightenment” now questions religions per se, since they no longer meet a cultural, scientific norm of knowledge. Genetically manipulated laboratory animals, such as the clone sheep Dolly or the Vacanti

84 Classic “voodoo zombies” can be found in Grimm’s episode The Waking Dead (2013, directed by Steven DePaul) or in Season 3 (2013-2014, created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk) of American Horror Story. 50 from 1996 let the hubris of science flare up again in society. Will we be slaves or zombies of scientific progress? Due to globalized networks, new diseases or mutated pathogens such as SARS, swine flu, bird flu or EHEC threatened the world population continual (Braudy 2016, 107). Supernatural phenomena or classic revenants are therefore pushed into the or parody area since they no longer trigger elements of horror for the enlightened viewer. Fear has been scientifically demystified; rationality explains old fears.

A major shift in “scientific” zombies can be seen in Japanese computer and video games as early as the 1990s. Capcom’s Resident Evil series (Bio Hazard in Japan, directed by Shinji Mikami and Mitsuhisa Hosoki) focuses on virally mutated creatures, so-called BOW, which should serve as biological weapons and military use. The zombies are therefore the result of a failed military virus experiment that infected its own scientists and ultimately civilian cities. Here, too, corrupt governmental organs such as the military or science institutes are used as instances to drive the apocalypse forward. In the end, the state or the military cannot ensure the security of their people either, and the collapse begins. Tokyo was just the victim of a terrorist attack with poison gas on March 20, 1995 (BBC News 2018). Influences like these also flowed into the dystopian aesthetic of the game. The first part of the series, published in 1996, was very successful and founded a wave of other “” games including the successor Resident Evil 2, whose commercial was directed by none other than George A. Romero. Romero even originally wrote the script for a Resident Evil which remained unused (Chernov 2016). In 2002, the film was handed over to Paul W. S. Anderson. It grossed $18 million on the opening weekend and earned over $100 million in total (Bishop 2015, 12). With the 9/11 aesthetics serving the new fears and the success of proving that films can also be good and successful, a new zombie hype began. Zombies have become popular again, film studios have given the green light for similar scripts, and this is how a whole series of mainstream zombie films were created.85 So one can say that the film studios and media also act virally like zombie bites. Between the thousands of zombie mass products in the film, book and game genre, there are perhaps only a few hundred usable, artistically valuable media (Metz, Seesslen 2012, 7). First the zombies consume the mass; then the mass consumes the zombies.

85 eg. House of the Dead (2003, directed by Uwe Boll), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004, directed by Alexander Witt), Dawn of the Dead (2004, directed by Zack Snyder), Land of the Dead (2005, directed by George Romero). 51 5.3. The multiplicity of zombies

Types of zombies are often transformed and reinterpreted due to postmodern processing, the ever increasing fast pace and globalization of the world and due to the still-lasting trauma of 9/11. A “multiplicity of zombies” (Bishop 2015, pp. 5) can now be observed, which hardly emphasizes the old, Haitian origins. Zombie types have literally exploded, as there are now exploding zombies that sometimes even spread poisonous corpse gases.86 Over the decades, several attempts have been made to give the walking cadavers new facets before the zombie cliché bores the masses. Nevertheless, the zombie still clashes with its set characterization limits – mainly to be undead. One-sidedness in the multitude of postmodern media. The zombie remains a contradiction in terms, a paradoxical entity. Still, simple rule or cosmetic changes are often enough to keep the zombie fans entertained. Voodoo has been gradually replaced by viruses, radioactive radiation, scientific experiments and even poisoned chicken nuggets.87 Slow zombies became fast zombies. Easily fragile revenants who were just decomposed skin and bones can now also be muscle-packed, decaying giants with enough strength to tear down walls or throw cars.88 The zombie was gradually transformed, and with all the different representations there are almost infinite forms of categorization. Objectively speaking, however, all of these zombies can be roughly divided into two categories:

Revenants & the undead:

Revenants and the undead are ancient concepts in human history (see Chapter 2.2, 2.5). They are actual corpses that are resurrected by supernatural powers. This can happen in the traditional sense through curses, spells, desecration of the grave, false burial ceremonies, divine intervention or spirits. Many old zombie films follow this classic scenario in which the world religion Voodoo was often portrayed clichéd, with Voodoo priests resurrecting the dead and more likely adopting the image of a necromancer. Animals can also fall under this category.89 Corpses can also be resurrected by modern aspects, commonly through scientific experiments90 or external influences, e.g. resurrected by extraterrestrial radiation, chemical

86 eg. the “Boomer“ in the Left 4 Dead (2008) computer game. 87 As seen in Cooties (2014), directed by Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion. 88 eg. the “Tank“ in the Left 4 Dead (2008) computer game. 89 eg. Pet Sematary (Stephen King’s book release: 1983. Film release: 1989 by Mary Lambert, 2019 by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer.), Return of the Living Dead (1985), directed by Dan O’ Bannon. 90 eg. Curt Selby’s I, Zombie (1982) or H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West–Reanimator (1922), 1985 cinematic release Re-Animator (1985) by Stuart Gordon. 52 substances or a viral infection91 . The focus is on the supernatural (magic, ghosts, aliens), chaos and uncertainty (unknown diseases, substances) and the hubris of science. In the base of zombie enthusiasts, the discussion constantly arises, if “modern zombies” of the running and mutated by a virus kind, can be classified as “classic zombies”, since they are not really dead, but only infected people. However, this debate should be viewed purely in terms of media and film history. Even the original zombie from Haiti is not a real undead, but a victim of poisoning. The Haitian zombie is a phenomenon of apparent death; the victim was never really dead. This is also implied in the first cinematic zombies of White Zombie. The zombies in Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead indicate a break with the classic “voodoo zombie” in terms of film history, although Romero’s concept is actually based on a classic revenant as people there can only turn into a zombie after their death. The situation is similar with the zombies from The Walking Dead: Humans become infected with an unknown virus, they die from it, and ultimately become “walking corpses” again through the infection.

“Living” beings influenced by environmental factors:

This category often includes infected organisms that mutate or transform during their infection to show the typical abject-oriented appearance of classic revenants. The focus is on modern, social problems, shock and disgust. The external influence of the environment has a direct influence on actual life and the loss of identity and self-control. The dead, as a soulless and will-less entity, takes over the still living “shell” which, however, also gradually decays. Typical environmental influences for this category are:

• Viruses, bacteria, biological weapons: eg. 28 Days Later (2002, directed by Danny Boyle), World War Z (2013, directed by Marc Forster), Resident Evil (2002, directed by

Paul W. S. Anderson), or Black Sheep (2006, directed by Jonathan King).

• Poisons, chemicals, toxic waste: eg. White Zombie (1932, directed by Victor Halperin), Zombeaver (2014, directed by Jordan Rubin), or actual Haitian Voodoo

practice.

91 eg. Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), Terence Fisher’s Earth dies Screaming (1964), George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead (1968), Frank Darabont’s The Walking Dead (TV series: 2010). 53 • Fungi, lichen, plants, spores: eg. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, directed by Don Siegel; 1978, directed by Philip Kaufman), or the video game The Last of Us

(2013).

• Technical implants, frequencies or radiation: eg. Cell (2006, written by Stephen King), Sirens of Titan (1959, written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.), The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004, directed by Stephen Hillenburg) or the computer game

System Shock 2.

• Hypnosis, brainwashing, overstimulation: eg. They Live! (1988, directed by John

Carpenter)

• Toxic rain or fog: eg. One Rainy Night (1991, written by Richard Laymon)

• Contaminated food: eg. Bio-Zombie (1998, directed by Wilson Yip) or Cooties (2014,

directed by Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion)

• Parasite infestation: eg. video games like Resident Evil 4 (2005) or Dead Space (2008), or actual parasites such as Toxoplasma gondii, Spinochordodes tellinii oder Leucochloridium paradoxum.

5.4. To be or not to be a zombie

Androids, robots (cf. 6.0 Conclusion), automatons or golems would excluded from these categories because although they represent similar “shells”, the undead and zombies still have to possess a natural, organic component. In addition, the intention is also decisive here whether a guard, a slave or a worker is fabricated, and whether it can still decide and think for itself or is completely without will. Apart from these examples, all previous zombie media should fit into the above two categories.

But will Frankenstein’s monster, one of the most famous undead horror icons, fall into one of these categories? Frankenstein’s monster can be categorized as “scientific” revenant and Dr. Frankenstein could embody the hubris of science, a form of modern bokor. However the motivation for zombification is completely different. The deiform Dr. Frankenstein wanted to create life from several dead parts of the body. The resulting living being should also have feelings and human ways of thinking – the result was the so-called “monster,” as this scientific experiment only worked partially. The monster was nevertheless alive and

54 possessed emotions and partially a free will. In the case of a zombification, the focus is on a living person. A bokor tries to create something dead from something alive which shows no feelings and no way of thinking. In conclusion, Frankenstein’s monster cannot be classified as a zombie. It would be similar with the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park.92 An attempt was made to “resurrect” living beings from dead remains by filling the DNA gaps. Ultimately, the scientific hubris created “monsters” that have nothing in common with their former authenticity. Jurassic Park therefore has parallels to Frankenstein, and no one would call raptors or a T-Rex from this franchise “zombies,” even if something “dead” is being revived here. Is it due to the concept of dinosaurs being animals? A zombie doesn’t have to be humanoid anymore; undead animals have often been processed in zombie media. In the fantasy genre there are also “zombie dragons”93 , but the creation process and the motivation are different, so that Frankenstein’s monsters or the genetic engineered dinosaurs are not directly categorizable here.

Another interesting aspect is the cultural view of what defines a zombie. If a zombie is a returned undead, it is reduced to purely supernatural elements and is therefore part of folklore and fiction. If one considers the Haitian zombification, the zombie can get a symbolic- interpretive meaning outside of this category. The zombie, as a will-less and characterless figure and worker, can also be used for other facets of human culture: Teenage smombies94, the factory worker at the assembly line, the bureaucrat, the drug addict95 , the lobotomy patient, the “white trash” watching TV all day long, “it girls” and celebrities addicted to consumption, social media influencers, Black Friday shoppers or the orderly soldiers who are killing people and invading countries. Here too, facets of the zombie can be recognized; the living, the human being, can be mentally “dead” and controlled. What ultimately unites all zombie types is the loss of self-control, self-reflection, one’s own personality and will and the perception and realization of other people that they can be manipulated / infected and become one of them. (cf. Metz, Seesslen 2012, 7). In this cultural interpretation, even living things can be a zombie.

92 Written by Michael Crichton in 1990. Film adaptation: 1993 by Steven Spielberg. 93 eg. in the Warhammer series , in the Final Fantasy series or in Season 8 of Game of Thrones (created by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss). 94 A portmanteau word of “smartphone” and “zombie”. 95 With Rudy “Miami Zombie“ Eugene as an extreme case. 55 Zombification – it remains a rare, atrocious religious reality on Haiti, but what remains of the original horror? Political-economic art revolution against media censorship? A fast, overstimulating jump-scare fest after the 9/11 shock? Currently, zombies no longer shock and eke out their “living” existence in the zombie tropes established in early 2000s. The zombie was clichéd in its second genesis. While the zombies in the Walking Dead were still a threat in the first few seasons, they became more of an annoyance in the course of the series; humankind turns out to be a true terror in dystopia. In most computer and video games, too, the zombie is a slow threat, an “entry-level monster” or remains unimportant mass cannon fodder. Did the zombie medium have its last genesis after the 9/11 attacks.

6. Conclusion and a perspective on future zombie aspects (the third genesis)

When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth. – Dawn of the Dead (1978)

This thesis shows that in the media, perception, the religious origin and even reality have mixed with fiction and modern fears. The undead and the zombie in particular have a problem of definition that is hardly manageable due to the many diversified types of the media and their interpretations. Zombies are a cliché; clichés have many names and profiles; the word is indifferent, arbitrary, ambivalent, postmodern. A “brand name” for an empty but still alterable shell (cf. Metz, Seesslen 2012, 7-9). The undead and revenants, in spite of their clear senselessness in the material world and their profane abjection on us living beings, still harbor a lot of subtle and subliminal charms and astonishment for us.

For example, extended or even eternal life. The undead contain a medical miracle cure to reduce suffering, fighting diseases or even defeating death, per se. We could gain more life in a world that is economically planned and fixed on work and successful output: The miracle of the undead are an infinite “work-life-never -balance”. We no longer have to accept death culturally and spiritually and can fight it technically and scientifically. We can be grateful to the undead when they walk in our world, and this is not an abstract philosophical thought (cf. 56 ibid, 12). Nathan S. Kline and also the current medical research on zombies by Philippe Charlier have exactly this ulterior motive – to research the undead, the betwixt reality, the niches of nature, and use it for the living, even if we have to start with a new form of narcotic. What was once called Haitian folklore, was confirmed as reality. It will now again become part of our modern processing, and therefore in the future it will become western folklore itself.

The zombie phenomenon is difficult to define and very multifaceted, depending on the perspective, the media presentation, and the target age – the zombies are dependent on our cultural changes to “survive,” be it from a cultural-historical or religious perspective on the Haitian origins or a cultural-scientific perspective on the media portrayal. Due to the zombie’s nature of cliché formation by the postmodern media, the search for new Voodoo topics and zombie types will actually aggrieve the Voodoo faith, and communities will suffer from the created reputation and portrayal. The Santería community in Cuba, a very peaceful, syncretic religion with Yoruba influences (cf. Barnett 1997), also fell victim to this sensation-addicted medialization, in which ceremonies and rituals were taken out of context and the whole community was interpreted as a black magic and satanic sect.96

In parodies or kid-friendly media, zombies are often portrayed as stupid and clumsy characters.97 If you consider the Haitian reality, this portrayal is not exactly sensitive to the poisoned victims, as these are helpless, disoriented, traumatized people with severe depression, trauma and lobotomy-like consequential damages. Bishop stated that zombies are an “American fear” full of racism, colonization trauma and fear of invasion (cf. Bishop 2010, 23, 59, 92; Bishop 2015, 8). He defined the zombie as “a creature born directly out of folklore, new to the twentieth century, and fundamentally American in its origins” (Bishop 2010, 5, 12). Here I have to contradict, since zombies are, strictly speaking, not folklore but a real practice of Haitian Voodoo which was triggered by the brutality of the French colonial power. So it is a European impulse, like the danse macabre; fundamentally created by the triangular trade and the resulting slavery. The zombie is a creation of power structure, ideology, exploitation, violence, instrumentalization, wealth and missionary work. The fear and portrayal of the undead, revenants and the rational explanation of apparent death is also older than the zombification of the Haitian colonies; the concept of the undead was already

96 eg. The Believers (1987) by John Schlesinger; Santeria: The Soul Possessed (2012) by Benny Mathews. 97 eg. in Hotel Transylvania (2012, directed by Genndy Tartakovsky) they are portrayed as inaptly bellhops. 57 established in antiquity and could be even older. The ancient impulses of fear remain the same: abjection, uncertainty, nescience, loss of own identity, fear of one’s own disintegration – all these remain the decisive factors for the creation of revenants, no matter what name they have, what culture they originate from or whether they act as a slow, single entity or appear as a rapid, virus-infected horde. These fears, which are almost archetypically deeply anchored in humankind, will not change in the next few years. So how can the zombie evolve from its existence of clichés? The postmodern cycle has already produced parodies, commercials, mash-ups and scenarios in which slow voodoo zombies and fast virus zombies share their world. What is the next cultural step that will change the zombie, too?

The year 2020 is the year of the coronavirus pandemic. Almost the entire world was under a lock-down to reduce the number of infections. The question is whether this event will inspire the film world or if it will be completely ignored since the pandemic has already become part of reality, and such scenarios have already been dealt with extensively in fiction, be it through early works such as I am Legend (1954) or new interpretations like Outbreak and 12 Monkeys, Contagion (2011, directed by Steven Soderbergh), or 28 Days Later. Dystopian literature and film dealt with the topic of infection and pandemic early on due to a broadly interwoven, globalized society, based on real events such as the plague and other epidemics in antiquity, the Middle Ages or modern times like the Spanish flu. The danger of biological weapons has also often been taken up as a zombie trigger. So the question here is whether the Covid-19 pandemic will really play a major role in a modern zombie lore?

However, it cannot be denied that the current Covid-19 pandemic shows dystopian images that influence directly the world’s population: Virus-infected dead bodies are stored in public places like parking lots, shopping centers or sports facilities that are being converted into improvised temporary mass graves and mortuaries (Córdoba, 2020; Murrer, 2020; Zhao, 2020). Death is no longer “screened off” in cemeteries or crypts but directly in public places of interest, downtown, at the pulse of the living. If this topic is taken up in future zombie media, the coronavirus will be used directly to advertise and promote this medium as boldly as possible. Such topics will also be presented in the style of World War Z, with global scenarios that address the worldwide lock-down as globalization criticism, or the coronavirus will be the cause of scientific experiments or biological weapons. Future zombies will attack

58 more frequently on a global scale instead of limiting the scenario to a single country, a city or even just a barricaded house.

Much more interesting for the creative sector are the geopolitical aspects that happened incidentally with the coronavirus, especially various conspiracy theories that have been vehemently opposed by the mainstream media and have been distributed to a broad mass (Schraer, Lawrie 2020). Examples of such conspiracy theories are the spreading or amplification of the virus through 5G transmission towers or that future forced vaccinations will be achieved through microchips under the skin or global operated programs like ID2020 (Goodman, Carmichael 2020). Even if 5G towers do not spread or amplify a virus, these conspiracy theories and fake news reports in the mainstream media naturally offer an excellent scenario for creative future zombie media. Smartdust, nanotechnology or implants that ultimately turn people into zombies through transmission beacons activate technical zombification or control the zombie stream; forced vaccinations where the serum, hidden nanobots or smartdust causes human cells to mutate.

I see great potential here in the so-called “techno zombies”. Techno zombies (Stevens 2011) have so far been a synonym for “smombies”; the generation of young people who show increased smartphone consumption or dependence on technology, which in some cities actually have an impact on the urban structure as extra “smartphone lanes” were established for pedestrians who barely perceive their surroundings (Benedictus 2020). This “ technological determinism” will turn people into “technological zombies” who leave their work to computer algorithms and machines without focusing or their own independent thinking (cf. Chandler, 2014). The next step in the development of these techno zombies would be mindless cyborgs who are ultimately controlled externally by their technical implants. This would close the zombie definition circle to its Haitian origin as Nathan S. Kline, who commissioned Wade Davis for the zombie poison research, is also the originator of the word “cyborg” (Clynes, Kline 1960, 1), and the external manipulation by substances such as puffer fish poison is now replaced by implants, microchips, nanotechnology or neural updates. The affected people, similar to the actual Haitian zombies, are alive, but due to the influence of the incorporated technology, they are still made into mindless slaves. Technological zombies have not yet been picked up often by the media and still form a niche existence; Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan (1959) and Curt Selby’s I, Zombie (1982)

59 should be mentioned as similar examples, as well the the technologically processed zombies in House of the Dead (1996)98 or the “Cyborg Midwives” from System Shock 2.

In 2006, Stephen King published Cell which introduced zombies which were activated through mobile phone frequencies. The affected people displayed aggressive behavior and lost their identity. The external and superior power for zombification is also given here: Who is interested in creating and directing these mindless slaves? Who programs and manufactures these implants? The , the black priest was replaced over the years by scientific and environmental factors like radiation and viruses. Now science itself, as a technology producer and technocratic, global political system, becomes the leader and superior force. With all the creative, fictional possibilities, one must not ignore the fact that 5G actually harbors a real danger, namely the dependence on technology through “always online life” and the associated restriction of privacy, data protection and human rights.

Society will face new issues considering permanent tracking, blind trust and influence of AI algorithms and the consequences of lucrative data sales. A broad and international 5G network is required for a total networking of people and objects with the internet, mMTC (Massive Machine Type Communication) forms the main area of the internet and enables economical mass data processing with little energy consumption (cf. Gigabyte 2020). It is also used for larger mass surveillance, object and person tracking, AI processing and future brain-machine interfaces (Schneider 2020; Taulli 2020; Rossi 2020). Ever more powerful monopolies which directly influence politics with a focus on surveillance and tracking already provide the basis for typical dystopias and scenarios in which controlled, mindless techno zombie drones track down and convert the last free-thinking humans. By penetrating the old, pure human body, a serum or implant is used to integrate people into the “new society”.

Even in this futuristic scenario the fear of the abject would still be relevant. A decaying human body is an ancient concept that we can realize by now. Through a hybrid form with technology, however, the abjection will take place on a further meta-level. In addition to the opening of the human, pure body by an alien entity embodied by physical decay, this entity also places alien technology inside the freshly opened body to keep the future decaying body “alive” and under external control. The abject is formed by penetration of the skin, thus

98 See APPENDIX, Fig. 17. 60 creating a wound. Another abject is formed by the implemented alien technology that will take away all self-determination. The abject of the corpse and putrefaction is now amplified through implants, microchips, cables that can trigger similar disgust and shock due to its complex technology and programming which the common man can hardly understand: The heart is a power adapter, the brain is just a storage medium. Open wounds show circuit boards; vein mesh is replaced by cables; blood mixes with other, indefinable cooling and maintenance fluids.

This kind of “forced body modification” was also explicitly graphically represented in the Japanese cyberpunk film Tetsuo: The Iron Man from 1989, directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. Man and iron gradually merge into an uncontrollable man-machine hybrid, to turn the whole world into “metal and rust.” Similar processing in Japanese media can also be seen in series (1989, created by ), 964 Pinnochio (1991, directed by Shozin Fukui), (: 1992 by Tony Takezaki, Anime adaptation: 1994 by Koichi Ohata) or in computer and video games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. In Western media similar concepts can be found in the Terminators (Terminator, 1984, directed by James Cameron) which are controlled by the Skynet AI and try to annihilate humankind. Another very close example would be the intelligent, cybernetic beings known as the Borg from the Star Trek universe which assimilate creatures and are under the control of the Borg Queen. The mindless mass needs control – where human politics fail, the future AI will calculate and guide the optimal human fate. Original zombies have a purpose, namely labor, even if it is carried out with force and without will. The second genesis of the zombies serves no purpose. If all living beings are killed off or are infected, the virus itself can no longer reproduce. They rot away, create nothing new and have no higher aim. The third genesis, in the form of technological zombies, would combine both previous geneses and still fulfill a purpose: Assimilate the unnecessary human life and integrate it into a system for one’s own survival and expansion: Human resources like the aboulic sugar mill slaves in White Zombie or the recyclable soldiers in the Sega game Zombie Revenge (1999). If necessary, these zombies can also take on quick assimilation tasks in the sense of an “assault unit”. This is done through rapid reprogramming or script changes. Similar to an ant colony, there is a queen (bokor, hive mind, elite, AI, ruling class) and workers and soldiers, whose tasks can be carried out interactively by one single body. These will be executive forces combining industry and the military.

61 The real horror here is no longer the “stupid” and “slow” zombie or the immoderately “all consuming”, “fast” zombie, but pure AI-controlled calculation; intelligent and therefore even faster, not mindlessly consuming, but assimilating. Humanity’s superfluity ends in its own death and revival as a technology hybrid. The zombie horror genre must open its ways to typical cyberpunk scenarios such as Blade Runner (1982, directed by Ridley Scott), Vulcan’s Hammer (1960, written by Philip K. Dick) or universe. Freedom fighters defend their last human values, otherwise they end up like the will-less workers in Metropolis (1926, directed by Fritz Lang), Brave New World (1932, written by Aldous Huxley) or The Time Machine (1895, written by H.G. Wells). The loss of free will and the loss of control of one’s own body are also the focus here; only this time it is not a bokor who abuses their power, but global empires fighting proxy wars with a large surveillance network, forced media, shaping narrative and thinking, mind, opinion and consumption control. Humans confront their illusion of choice and the allegedly “free mind”.

What is sold as “medical enhancement” can also turn out as zombification capability through terroristic hacker attacks or software bugs in the neural software. The focus on technology could ultimately ensure that “zombie” can finally rest in peace and the form of representation can finally change again since Romero’s works. Ultimately, there are also new, interesting research possibilities in this area. Gauert also sees the future of the zombie in a technologically advanced, digitized world as realistic.99 “Replacement and erasure of parts of the brain and personality by surgery or psychotropic drugs has already existed,” and this can be “compared to the Romero zombie”. Gauert sees the third genesis in digital zombies, which “use avatars to penetrate and control a foreign body”. He states that field research in the Congo would also be interesting and if the Congolese are even aware that in Haitian bokor practice and in Hollywood films their word “nzumbi” is used for rotten, walking cadavers, and in the future this word is even used for mindless people with microchips in their bodies. According to Gauert, the “quality is different in Haiti since the zombie origin is different”, because in the Haitian case “a religious term was also used religiously. Hollywood has misappropriated, secularized and used a religious term for low entertainment purposes.”

The living need their entertainment. Whether they consume media with full awareness and question its contents or mindlessly “binge-watch” in order to fill their inner emptiness is

99 APPENDIX: Oliver Gauert interview p. 22-23. 62 entirely up to them. The zombie is part of humanity and is therefore not killed off in the near future. Quite the opposite will happen. Zombies will change in future media and continue to fill the mind of the living with fear, horror and memento mori. Most likely, the zombie will adapt to the technical singularity. It is only a matter of time before AI will exponentially surpass human intelligence (Ryan 2017). Machines and zombies share the undead: They are mindless, emotionless shells without life. The undead in the machine will eventually overtake the living in humans. What remains are “ghosts in the shell”.

63 7. Bibliography

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71 8. Appendix

Fig. 1 – Zombie emojis from the WhatsApp messenger app. [Screenshot from Version 2.20.199.14, 2020].

Fig. 2 – Zombie fashion dolls from the Monster High series. [Online image]. Retrieved October 7, 2020 from https://www.hamleys.com/monster-high-zombie-dance-assortment-2- pack-65676-0.jpg.

72

Fig. 3 – Horror-themed candies from Doctor Dreadful Zombies. [Online image]. Retrieved October 7, 2020 from https://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Dreadful-Dr-Dreadful-Zombie-Lab/ dp/B01N0EIIFU.

Fig. 4 – Painting by Frans Francken the Younger (1581 – 1642). Death playing the violin. [Online image]. Retrieved October 7, 2020 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Frans_Francken_(II)_-_Death_playing_the_violin.jpg.

73

Fig. 5 – Incunabulum, 1500. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, 2 Inc. c. a. 3893, fol. h.ii. [Online image]. Retrieved October 7, 2020 from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/6/64/Wiedergaenger.jpg.

Fig. 6 – Michael Wolgemut – Tanz der Gerippe. Hartmann Schedels Weltchronik. 1493. [Online image]. Retrieved October 7, 2020 from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/f/fb/Wolgemut_-_1493_-_tanz_der_gerippe.jpg.

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Fig. 7 – Les amants tréspassés, ca. 1470. Musées de la ville de Strasbourg. [Online image]. Retrieved October 7, 2020 from https://www.musees.strasbourg.eu/documents/ 30424/510410/0/d4b42011-ecda-d2e7-eeed-ce85a5eb646b.

Fig. 8 – Amine discovered with the Goule from History of Sidi Nouman of the Arabian Nights, 1840. [Online image]. Retrieved October 7, 2020 from https://upload.wikimedia.org/ wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Amine_Discovered_with_the_Goule.jpg.

75

Fig. 9 – A “voodoo shop” in New Orleans. Photo backdrop at the “Voodoo” exhibition, Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim. Photo by Peter Handke.

Fig. 10 – Creation of a zombie. Zombies being enslaved. Paintings by Charles Art Jerry. Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim. Photo by Peter Handke.

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Fig. 11 – Still frame [18:08]. Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre. From White Zombie (1932). Directed by Victor Halperin.

Fig. 12 – Still frame [29:19]. One of Legendre’s zombie slaves. White Zombie (1932). Directed by Victor Halperin.

77

Fig. 13 – Hibakusha near Hiroshima Railway Station. Artwork by Kichisuke Yoshimura (75 at the time of the drawing), 1973-74. Displayed at: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. [Online image]. Retrieved October 8, 2020, from: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/hiroshima- survivors-artworks-be-displayed-uk-first-time-1467012.

Fig. 14 – Molten Zombie from the Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game. [Online image]. A Crimson Head zombie from the Resident Evil (Japanese: Bio Hazard) series. [Online image]. Retrieved October 8, 2020, from https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Molten_Zombie and https:// residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Crimson_Head.

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Fig 15. Excerpt from Les Schtroumpfs noirs, 1963 by Peyo. [Online image]. Retrieved October 8, 2020, from https://la-plume-francophone.com/2014/07/02/peyo-les-schtroumpfs- noirs/.

Fig 16. The Misfits & White Zombie band logos. [Online images]. Retrieved October 7, 2020 from https://www.amazon.com/Misfits-Coffins-Crimson-Novelty-Button/dp/B01DX7LS70 and http://whitezombieofficial.com.

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Fig. 17. Zombies enhanced with technology and cyber-implants. From Sega’s House Of The Dead (1996). [Online images]. Retrieved October 8, 2020, from https:// static.wikia.nocookie.net/houseofthedead/images/a/a7/Robert.jpg/revision/latest? cb=20170211021642, https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/houseofthedead/images/3/3f/Parlor.jpg/ revision/latest?cb=20170211022140 and https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/houseofthedead/ images/e/e3/Moody.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131227072930.

80 Interview Oliver Gauert (Ma.) am 06.08.2020

01.

PH: Herr Gauert, Sie sind der Kurator der Sonderausstellung „Voodoo“ hier im Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum. Wie sind Sie zu diesem interessanten Thema gekommen?

OG: Na ja, ich habe mich immer für Voodoo interessiert und ich finde es faszinierend, dass es ein ganzes System von Religionen ist, das weltumspannend ist. Mich interessieren eigentlich immer Dinge, die eine falsche Wahrnehmung erfahren, und Voodoo ist so etwas.

Voodoo ist ein religiöses System, das unglaublich klischeebelastet und von Aberglauben belastet ist und ich habe damals gedacht: Das ist etwas, dass man aus dieser dunklen Nische rausholen müsste, es richtig beleuchten und die Vielfalt seiner Aspekte aufzeigen. Wie vielfältig es wirklich ist, ist mir auch erst im Laufe der Ausstellung aufgefallen.

02.

PH: In meiner Arbeit geht es um Zombies. Wissenschaftlich kann man sich hier auf Wade Davis und Zora Hurston stützen. Wie gestalteten sich Ihre Forschungen auf Haiti?

OG: Also die Forschungen waren unglaublich schwierig. Wir fanden, dass man Zombies auf jeden Fall erforschen musste, weil klar war, es gibt sie, sie sind ein reales Phänomen und sie sind zugleich noch in der Forschung relativ wenig berücksichtigt worden und unglaublich kontrovers diskutiert. Es gibt die einen, die die Ergebnisse von Davis befürworten, und es gibt andere, die seine Forschungen als unseriös abtun, die aber selbst keine bessere Erklärung gefunden haben für das Phänomen der Zombies. Also wollten wir das als Kernthema in Haiti erforschen, das war aber insofern schon schwierig, weil die Menschen in Haiti unglaubliche Angst vor Zombies haben. Das heißt, man kann mit ihnen kaum reden und niemand will frei reden, selbst diejenigen, die etwas weltoffener sind und auch von einem distanzierteren Betrachtungswinkel aus auf die Religion schauen, die auch versuchen solche Phänomene rational zu erklären und nicht wirklich daran glauben, dass es lebende Leichen sind, möchten nicht offen sprechen. Als wir in das Gebiet zur Grenze zur Dominikanischen Republik kamen, hat dann jemand gesagt: Ich bin bereit mit Ihnen darüber zu sprechen, aber

1 nur auf Spanisch. Und das wurde überhaupt die Grundregel, die Leute waren immer nur bereit, wenn sie sich unbeobachtet gefühlt haben, sie wollten grundsätzlich nur auf Englisch oder Spanisch, niemals auf Französisch sprechen und sie haben darauf geachtet, typische Begriffe zu vermeiden. Als ich mal in einem Gespräch das Wort zombie erwähnt habe, ist mein Gesprächspartner ganz verrückt geworden und hat darauf beharrt, the undead zu benutzen.

PH: Das Wort zombie ist also ein Tabuwort? Man benutzt dann eher das Wort „Untote“?

OG: Sie sprechen schon untereinander wohl darüber, aber sie wollten nicht, dass jemand mitbekommt, dass man mit einem Weißen darüber spricht. Und Englisch sprechen nicht viele in Haiti, das muss man echt sagen, Französisch und Kreolisch sind die beiden Sprachen, also man stößt erstmal auf eine Mauer des Schweigens, das ist ganz klar und Feldforschung zu dem Thema zu betreiben ist unglaublich schwierig, Sie müssen jemanden finden, der bereit ist, auszupacken, im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes, und das dauert lange, da haben wir wirklich ein paar Glücksfälle gehabt, im Grunde genommen ist es ideal, also man hat drei Möglichkeiten: Entweder man versucht an die Bokore heranzukommen, an diejenigen, die jemanden zombifizieren, das hat Wade Davis getan. Zweite Möglichkeit: Man versucht selbst Zombies zu untersuchen, und die dritte ist, man versucht Augenzeugen zu finden, die solche Zombies gesehen haben. Wir haben solche Geschichten im großen Umfang aufgezeichnet, wir haben insgesamt über 30 Leute interviewt, 20 davon hatten Erfahrungen mit Zombies, und zum Teil sehr, sehr real beschriebene Erfahrungen. Und wir haben uns dann mit dem Institut für Gerichtsmedizin an der Universität von Versailles ausgetauscht, die forschen wirklich an Zombies, so dass wir zwei dieser Blickwinkel haben, während Davis, wie gesagt, den dritten hatte, der hat zwar auch einen Zombie erforscht, er hat aber vor allem mit den Bokoren geredet. Also wir sind von einer ganz anderen Perspektive herangegangen.

PH: Die Ergebnisse decken sich aber?

OG: Ja, die decken sich definitiv, also man kann mit Sicherheit sagen, das glaube auch ich ganz sicher, dass Davis richtig lag, denn er hat immer angenommen, es ist das Gift des Kugelfisches, mit denen Leute in einen scheintoten Zustand versetzt werden. Er hat gesagt, alles was der Mythos über die Zombies besagt, ist korrekt, mit einem Unterschied: Die Leute sind nicht tot, sondern sie sind scheintot. Das deckt sich auch mit den Forschungen von

2

Philippe Charlier aus Paris, der Tetrodotoxin nachgewiesen hat und der übrigens auch einen Arzt untersucht hat, den man versucht hat, zu zombifizieren, und da stellte sich dann heraus, dass die Schwiegermutter dieses Arztes diesen Zombifikationsprozess in Auftrag gegeben hatte, weil er seine Frau, also die Tochter dieser Schwiegermutter, betrogen hatte, und man hat das Gift als Kontaktgift auf den Armlehnen seines Stuhls befestigt, und man konnte die Metaboliten des Giftes noch nachweisen. Um den letztendlichen Beweis zu finden, müsste man dabei sein, wie jemand aus einem Grab wieder aufgerichtet wird, das ist noch keinem gelungen. Insofern muss man sagen, nein, es gibt keinen 100%igen Beweis, aber die Beweislast ist so erdrückend. Also Fakt ist: Zombies gibt es. Die kann man sehen, die sind in psychiatrischen Kliniken, die laufen und irren auch vor allem im Artibonit-Tal durch Haiti und irgendwo müssen die ja herkommen und insofern glaube ich, gibt es momentan keine bessere Erklärung.

03.

PH: Ähnliche Ergebnisse hatten bereits Wade Davis und Nathan Kline in den 80'er Jahren getätigt, die Harvard allerdings gespalten haben. Viele lobten die neuen Erkenntnisse, viele der Forschungsergebnisse stießen auf Kritik und wurden als unwissenschaftlich deklariert.

So sehr, dass die Forschungsberichte als Drehbuch an Wes Craven verkauft wurden, und so „Die Schlange im Regenbogen“ entstand, der im Vergleich zu anderen Zombiefilmen allerdings als realistisch zu interpretieren ist.

Nun scheinen sich die Praktiken der Bokore auf Haiti aber wissenschaftlich zu bestätigen?

Wie stehen Sie zu dieser Aussage?

OG: Also das Problem bei ihm ist, ja, er wurde als unwissenschaftlich kritisiert, aus verschiedenen Lagern und aus verschiedenen Gründen. Der eine Grund ist der, dass man ihm unterstellt hat, er hätte einfach nur zwei Wochen Feldforschung betrieben, das ist zu kurz. Darüber kann man jetzt diskutieren, ich weiß, es gibt Ethnologen, die sagen: Alles unter drei Monaten ist nicht seriös, ich würde sagen, da habe ich einen ganz aus der Wirtschaft kommenden Blick drauf: Output zählt, nicht Input. Ich kann auch in drei Monaten gar nichts erreichen, wichtig ist, dass Sie zu einem Ergebnis kommen. Das zweite, was man ihm unterstellte ist, seine Quellen kamen aus persönlichen Verhältnissen, er hatte eine Liebesbeziehung zur Tochter eines bekannten Priesters der Bizango-Geheimgesellschaft, da

3 weiß ich jetzt selber nicht, was dagegen spricht. Wichtig ist, dass man überhaupt an einen Informanten herankommt, wie man daran kommt spielt ja keine Rolle. Das dritte, was man ihm unterstellt hat ist, dass er falsche Proben mitgebracht hat, dass er einem hoax, einem Scherz, einem Irrtum aufgesessen ist, aber das kann nicht ganz korrekt sein. Das hat man daraus abgeleitet, dass seine Proben sich als unwirksam erwiesen haben, das ist unstrittig. Alle Berichte, die sagen, sie sind wirksam, lassen sich nicht verifizieren, die bekannten Proben waren unterdosiert oder überdosiert, aber sie stammen von verschiedenen Bokoren und sie enthalten immer Tetrodotoxin und das alleine deutet schon darauf hin, die werden sich ja wohl nicht alle verbündet haben, um dem jetzt einen Streich zu spielen. Davis hat auch immer gesagt, Tetrodotoxin ist extrem schlecht dosierbar. Wenn es denn mal wirkt, ist es purer Zufall, soll heißen: Von so und so vielen Zombifikationen wird ein winziger Prozentsatz zum Erfolg führen, wenn ich sechs oder acht Proben mitbringe, ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit, das eine die hinreichend dosiert ist, sehr, sehr gering. Das wurde vor allem von japanischer und US-amerikanischer Seite attackiert, man hat auch immer wieder gesagt, in Japan wird Kugelfisch konsumiert, als Delikatesse, und müsste es ja massenweise Zombies geben, aber auch diese Argumentation ist nicht ganz korrekt, denn in Japan tut man alles, um zu verhindern, dass sich jemand vergiftet. Die Kugelfische werden nur von zertifizierten Experten zubereitet und in den Restaurants sind spezielle Ärzte angestellt, die sich sofort um ein Vergiftungsopfer, wenn es denn mal überhaupt vorkommt, kümmern. Das heißt, es gibt eigentlich keine echten Vergiftungen, wenn welche überhaupt auftreten, dann wenn Kugelfische illegal und privat zubereitet worden sind. Und da gibt es Studien, die sagen, dass genau die Symptomatik auftritt, die Davis beschrieben hat. Insofern muss man sagen, da war auch viel Neid und Missgunst dabei und das hat er sich auch etwas selber zuzuschreiben. Wade Davis ist sehr extrovertiert und er hat die wissenschaftliche Community stark provoziert. Wenn man die Rechte an seinem Buch an einen hollywoodbekannten Horrorfilmregisseur verkauft, dann muss man sich ja nicht wundern, dass einem die wissenschaftliche Community nicht mehr ganz so ernst nimmt, aber die wirklich entscheidenden Leute haben schon gemerkt, das ist substanziell, deswegen haben sie ihn in Havard auch promoviert dafür.

PH: Richtig, hier sei auch Nathan Kline erwähnt.

4

OG: Und Kline, der auch dahinter steckte, das war sein Auftraggeber, das muss man auch sagen. Das war ein ganzes Pharmakonsortium, das von Kline geführt wurde. Kline ist der Vater der Psychopharmaka, er ist einer der bedeutendsten Pharmakologen und Neurologen der USA. Das sind ja wirklich bedeutende Leute, die auch viel Geld da reingesteckt haben, die machen das ja nicht aus Spaß.

PH: Und auch aus kulturwissenschaftlicher Sicht muss man sagen, im Vergleich zu den neueren Zombiefilmen, ist da ja viel religiöse Realität der Bokorpraxis verarbeitet worden.

OG: Also Davis hat darauf bestanden, dass sein Buch und Feldforschungsbericht „The Serpent and the Rainbow“, das ist die Populärversion seiner Doktorarbeit „The Passage of Darkness“, nicht verfälscht wird, es sollten keine Horrorelemente dazu addiert werden in die Handlung. Aber ich glaube Davis war sich nicht recht im Klaren, mit wem er sich da einlässt, und er war auch seinem Geschäftspartner nicht gewachsen, Wes Craven ist nun mal ein bekannter Horrorfilmregisseur, und der hat bei dieser Gelegenheit gesagt, okay, dann verfälsche ich halt die Handlung nicht, aber Träume und Visionen können die Leute ja haben und in die verpacke ich die Horrorelemente. Das Problem ist, der Film besteht zu großen Teilen aus Träumen und Visionen und das sind reine Horrorvisionen. Und Davis, das muss man auch sagen, hat hinterher gegen Wes Craven geklagt, er wollte das dieser Film nicht veröffentlicht wird, dass die Veröffentlichungsrechte zurückgezogen werden, er ist damit gescheitert, ich glaube er hat einfach nicht gewusst, auf was er sich da eingelassen hat. Man muss auch sagen, die wissenschaftliche Gemeinde ist sehr, sehr streng, das sieht man auch in Deutschland. Es gibt manche Leute, die legen es ja regelrecht darauf an, junge Absolventen auf Kongressen auseinander zu nehmen, das sind meist die, die selber nichts publizieren, aber gerne viele Rezensionen schreiben, und das ist auch in Amerika so, eigentlich müsste man einem jungen Wissenschaftler auch irgendwo nachsehen, der kannte halt noch nicht das Geschäft so richtig.

PH: Und retrospektiv betrachtet kann man ja sagen, dass diese Visionen von psychoaktiven Substanzen ausgelöst sind, was sie ja auch waren.

OG: Klar, sicher! Das kann definitiv passieren, und wie gesagt, die Handlung ist nicht nennenswert verfälscht. Sie ist in Teilen verfälscht, also Davis ist nicht lebendig begraben worden und man hat ihn auch nicht vergiftet. Er hat sogar im Nachhinein gesagt, dass ihn

5 das Duvalier-Regime, das ja damals regiert hat in Haiti, nicht nennenswert behelligt hat, im Film wird das anders dargestellt. Aber der eigentliche Weg der Forschung ist korrekt. Er hat sich Zugang zur Community verschafft, er hat mit einer Haitianerin gemeinsam einen Zombie aufgesucht und untersucht, er hat auf Friedhöfen Feldforschung betrieben und er konnte dann diesen Haitianer, das war Max Beauvoir, eine ganz schillernde Persönlichkeit, dazu bringen, ihm Kontakt zu verschaffen zu Bokoren, die ihm wirklich erstens das Gift gegeben haben, und ihn auch haben Zeuge werden lassen, wie dieses Gift produziert wird. Insofern sind die Kernelemente korrekt, aber die Handlung, was dann mit ihm passiert ist, das stimmt nicht so ganz.

PH: Aber das ist ja auch die künstlerische Freiheit, die ein Film auch haben muss. Es war keine Dokumentation und daher auch legitimer als so manch anderer „Zombie flick“.

OG: Ja klar. Und was man auch sagen muss, wenn man in Haiti war, auch noch im heutigen Haiti, viele, viele Jahre nach dem Ende der Duvalier-Diktatur, die Atmosphäre ist hervorragend eingefangen. Ob Kritiker das wahrhaben wollen oder nicht – so ist Haiti.

04.

PH: Wie schon erwähnt, oft werden Kugelfischgift, aber auch Seewurm- und Krötengifte, sowie engelstrompetenähnliche Pflanzen zur Zombifizierung und für die Sekrete genutzt. Ähnliche Substanzen nutzen auch indigene Schamanen in mittel- und südamerikanischen Stämmen. Jetzt besteht natürlich die Frage, haben die Bokore dieses Wissen von den haitianischen indigenen Völkern erlernt? Gibt es da Parallelen?

OG: Das ist ganz stark anzunehmen. Also Zombies gibt es in Afrika nicht, Voodoo stammt aus Afrika. In Haiti gab es eine amerikanische Urbevölkerung, das waren die Taíno. Die gehören zur größeren Volksgruppe der Arawak und sind aus Brasilien und Venezuela gewandert. Die Arawak waren überall in der Karibik verbreitet, sie hatten aber auch Kontakt zum amerikanischen Festland, sie kannten also mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit auch die Hochkulturen der Maya und Azteken. Die Taíno kannten auch den Kugelfisch, das weiß man, und wie Maya Deren, eine Ethnologin, die lange Feldforschung in Haiti betrieben hat, nachweisen konnte, kannte die Religion der Taíno den Glauben an umherwandelnde Tote. Mit anderen Worten: Das passt alles wunderbar zusammen. Die große Wahrscheinlichkeit besteht darin, dass zumindest zentrale Ingredienzien, die immer wiederkehren, auf Taíno- 6

Erfahrungen zurückgehen. Dazu muss man sagen, da mischen sich ganz viele unterschiedliche Traditionen. Der Begriff zombie geht auf eine zentralafrikanische Sprache zurück und heißt als nzumbi ursprünglich Totengeist. Er beschreibt aber wirklich einen Geist, das physische Phänomen trat in Haiti auf, man hat ein Wort gesucht, in den eigenen Sprachen afrikanischer Herkunft, das geeignet war dieses Phänomen zu beschreiben. Dafür hat man das afrikanische Wort nzumbi verwendet. Ob die Taíno wirklich bereits solche Scheintoten produziert haben oder nicht, weiß man nicht, aber sie kannten, wie gesagt, das Kugelfischgift, es liegt irgendwie nahe. Sie erzählten von umherwandelnden Toten und sie werden nicht in der Lage gewesen sein, zwischen Toten und Scheintoten zu unterscheiden. Also es ist gar nicht ausgeschlossen, Forschungen von der Universität Südflorida deuten auf jeden Fall darauf hin, dass die Taíno praktisch alle Komponenten kannten, die in einem Zombiegift enthalten sind. Also muss man davon ausgehen, dass geht auf indigene Einflüsse zurück. Meine persönliche Theorie ist die, es gibt in Afrika ein Rechtssystem, dass diesen Religionen immanent ist. Das heißt, die Religionen umfassen alle Bereiche des täglichen Lebens, auch die Justiz, und man bestraft Leute, die abweichendes Verhalten zeigen, die Diebstahl betreiben, Betrügereien oder auch Mord. Im schlimmsten Fall gibt es dafür auch die Todesstrafe, die wird von Priestern, so genannten Akbar oder -Männern verhängt und die können dem keinen Nachdruck verleihen. Das heißt, die Priester unternehmen nichts, sie verfluchen jemanden, der stirbt meistens auch wirklich, wahrscheinlich durch Autosuggestion, aber manche sterben halt auch nicht. Und ich denke, dass die Priester in Haiti es ganz willkommen fanden, dass sie jetzt ein Mittel fanden, um ihren Urteilen Nachdruck zu verleihen. Man konnte also mit diesem Gift jemanden wirklich erstmal für eine gewisse Zeit in den Scheintot, aus deren Sicht ins Jenseits schicken.

PH: Wie sie schon erwähnten ist die Dosierung ja sehr komplex. Und die Sterberate wird dementsprechend hoch sein, dadurch die Erfolgsrate Zombifizierung sehr gering.

OG: Ganz gering. Selbst wenn man jetzt von einem Menschen, hier anwesend mit modernen medizinischen Mitteln, Körpergröße, Gewicht, Allgemeinzustand und Blutwerte ermitteln würde, wäre es fast nicht möglich das Gift, das TTX, also Tetrodotoxin richtig zu dosieren. Das Problem bei Giften ist, sie haben einen Schwellenwert, ab diesem Schwellenwert wirkt ein Gift und es gibt einen LD50-Wert, das ist die letale Dosis, ab da wirkt es tödlich. Das Intervall zwischen Schwellenwert und LD50 ist so klein, dass man den Punkt exakt treffen

7 muss. Und der ändert sich natürlich abhängig von Größe, Gewicht, Konstitution, Blutwerten, Abbauprozessen in der Leber und in der Milz eines Patienten, vom Kreatininwert und glomerulären Filtrationsrate der Niere. Das heißt, bei jedem Menschen ist es anders, man müsste zig Parameter bestimmen und das konnten die nicht. Also sind es reine Zufallstreffer. Und die Idee natürlich, warum man damals Wade Davis nach Haiti geschickt hat, das waren Pharmaunternehmen, die wollten das verwerten und die sind auf den Gedanken gekommen, ein Mittel, das jemanden in den Scheintot versetzt, dass das gesamte Schmerzempfinden ausschaltet, das ist ja ideal, da kann man sich die gefährliche Narkotisierung bei einer Operation sparen und kann jemanden völlig harmlos durch die gefährlichsten Operationen bringen, das wäre eine Goldgrube. Das Problem ist, auch die sind daran gescheitert, dieses Mittel unter westlichen Bedingungen vernünftig zu dosieren bis jetzt. Man müsste viel mehr Wissen über die Metabolisierungsprozesse dieses Giftes im menschlichen Körper erfahren.

05.

PH: Und generell ist die Sterberate in Haiti sehr hoch?

OG: Extrem hoch. Das liegt einfach daran, dass es zu vielen Unfällen in dem Land kommt. Dann gibt es Infektionskrankheiten, die bei uns keine Rolle mehr spielen: Malaria ist allgemein verbreitet, Denguefieber, viele parasitäre Erkrankungen wie Cholera, die haben die UNO-Truppen nach Haiti mitgebracht, es gibt immer wieder Naturkatastrophen, nur in Haiti, der östliche Teil der Insel Hispaniola wird permanent von Erdbeben, von Tsunamis und Hurrikans getroffen, die Sterberate ist unglaublich hoch und der Tod ist allgegenwärtig in dem Land. Das merkt man auch, es ist das beherrschende Thema, es gibt eigentlich nur zwei Themen: Sklaverei und Tod, es ist in gewisser Weise eine bedrückende Atmosphäre. Wenn sie durch das Land reisen, sehen sie überall Bestattungsinstitute, Hinweise auf den Tod, es wird ständig über den Tod geredet. Wir sind durch das Gebirge gefahren, wir sind dreimal an Bestattungszeremonien vorbeigekommen, in Garagen lagern Särge, es ist allgegenwärtig.

06.

PH: Wie konnten Bokore überhaupt so einen großen Einfluss auf Politik und Wirtschaft gewinnen, gerade auch durch die Diktatoren, die hatten ja Mitwirkung der Bizango- Geheimgruppe oder Tonton Macoute gehabt. Wie konnte das überhaupt entstehen?

8

OG: Da muss man ein Stück weiter zurückgehen, in die Geschichte Haitis. Die Insel Hispaniola war ursprünglich spanisch, 1697 hat Spanien den östlichen Teil an Frankreich abgetreten im Vertrag von Rijswijk und dann wurde es die französische Kolonie Saint- Domingue. Unter den Spaniern gab es nur sehr wenige Sklaven im Land. Die Franzosen haben innerhalb von hundert Jahren hunderttausende Menschen nach Haiti verschleppt und sie unter fürchterlichen Bedingungen ausgebeutet. In kaum einer Kolonie herrschten derart unmenschliche Zustände. Es gibt Berichte von Reisenden, die sagen, dass wenn man morgens aufwachte, nicht das Zwitschern der Vögel hörte, weil alles von den Schreien der gequälten Sklaven übertönt wurde. In dieser Atmosphäre hat sich Voodoo entwickelt. Die Franzosen haben Menschen aus , dem heutigen Benin gebracht, die ihre Vodoun- Religion mitbrachten und unter dem Eindruck dieser unglaublichen Gewalt verwandelte sich diese Religion. Es gibt eine legendäre Person, einen angeblichen Sklaven namens Don Petro, der eine Sekte gegründet haben soll, aus der eine Untergruppe dieses haitianischen Voodoo wurde, die Petro-Nachon, deren Geistwesen sind besonders gewalttätig, sie sind das reaktionäre Element in der Religion. Die Bokore sind Priester, die mit den Mitteln dieser Petro-Nachon gute, wie auch schlechte Dinge tun. Man sagt mit der linken und rechten Hand agieren. Sie haben eine zentrale Rolle gespielt in den Befreiungskämpfen, sie haben die Sklaven organisiert und bewaffnet und das alles hat es erst ermöglicht, das eigentlich nur mit bloßen Händen kämpfenden Sklaven, die bis an die Zähne bewaffnete französische Kolonialmacht besiegen konnte, die von Napoleons Truppen unterstützt wurde. Also ein paar Afrikaner haben Napoleons Armee geschlagen. Aber als das gelungen war, 1803, haben die Führer der Sklaven ihre ehemaligen Mitsklaven gleich wieder unterdrückt. Man muss einfach sagen, da wurden ja keine gebildeten Leute befreit, das waren Menschen die völlig entwurzelt, traumatisiert waren und die unter den Franzosen nichts als Gewalt gesehen haben. Und das haben sie unter sich selbst auch weitergegeben, es kam dann dazu, dass die sich permanent gegenseitig ausgebeutet haben und die Bokore ließen sich zunehmend instrumentalisieren von den Machthabern, um sie zu unterstützen in der Ausbreitung der anderen Afrikaner. Dies setzte sich immer mehr fort, als das Duvalier-Regime an die Macht kam, war es zunächst einmal eine relativ gutartige Regierung. François „Papa Doc“ Duvalier, war Arzt und er war in Haiti unglaublich populär. Er hat die Frambösie besiegt, eine Infektionskrankheit, die das ganze Land gebeutelt hat. Und dann erlitt er einen Schlaganfall und danach soll er irgendwie verrückt geworden sein, jedenfalls glaubte er, er sei Baron

9

Samedi, der Totengeist, er litt unter Verfolgungswahn und er fing an die Tonton Macoute ins Leben zu rufen, eine Geheimpolizei, die zunächst Aufstände unterdrücken sollte. Tatsächlich standen die Tonton Macoute an jeder Straßenecke mit ihren Sonnenbrillen und ihren Macheten und haben Leute einfach aus Spaß umgebracht, entführt oder ähnliches. Bei Papa Doc weiß man nicht genau ob er einfach das Terrorpotential erkannt hat. Die Bokore, die hatten ohnehin schon ein Terrorpotential, das hatte sich im 19. Jahrhundert bereits etabliert. Sowohl die Geheimgesellschaft der Bizango, in denen die Priester zur Zeit der Revolution organisiert waren, als auch die Bokore wurden von der Bevölkerung gefürchtet, sie waren also als Terrorinstrument geradezu ideal. Aber auf der anderen Seite muss man sagen, ich glaube bei Papa Doc geht das noch etwas weiter – der hat wirklich geglaubt, dass er irgendeine Assoziation mit Baron Samedi hatte und er war wohl ziemlich tief im haitianischen Voodoo verstrickt, und zwar in der dunklen Seite des haitianischen Voodoo. Insofern waren das einfach seine natürlichen Absprechpartner. Man sagt, dass fast alle Bokore damals Teil der Tonton Makoute waren oder zumindest mit diesem Regime assoziiert waren. Es gibt immer mal wieder diese entschuldigende Bezeichnung: Bokore sind Priester die mit der linken und rechten Hand agieren, das heißt, die sowohl gute, als auch schwarze Magie betreiben, während die normalen Priester, die Houngan nur mit der rechten Hand, gute Magie betreiben. Aber nach meiner Erfahrung und allem, was ich auch selbst in Kontakt mit Bokoren erlebt habe, sind das überwiegend schon Menschen, die bereit sind, relativ gewissenlos andere Menschen zumindest zu verängstigen. Ich weiß nicht ob sie selbst glauben an die Wirkmacht der Mittel, die sie verwenden, dann wäre es noch schlimmer, aber sie versetzen die Menschen in Haiti in Angst und Schrecken. Das ganze Land ist in einer Angst vor der eigenen Religion geprägt – und das liegt nicht an der Masse der Houngan, sondern an den ganz wenigen Bokoren, die aber alle anderen so übertönen, dass es prägend ist für die gesamte Bevölkerung. Mir haben Leute gesagt: „Du darfst niemanden sagen, wo du wohnst, dein Haus könnte ja größer sein, als das eines Nachbarn. Der geht zum Bokor und lässt dich verzaubern oder sowas“.

07.

PH: Man unterscheidet zwischen Zombi cadavre und Zombi astral. In den versiegelten Flaschen soll ja die Seele bzw. Geist der zombifizierten Person gefangen gehalten werden. Wurde schon wissenschaftlich untersucht, was sich in der Zombi astral-Flasche befindet? Wenn ja, wie.

10

Was passiert aus Sicht der Bokore, wenn man sie öffnet?

OG: Nach meiner Erkenntnis nicht. Es dürfte auch nichts drin sein, zumindest nichts physisch greifbares, eine Seele ist ja nichts physich greifbares. Wenn überhaupt, ist ein Geist drin, wenn man das annehmen möchte, das sei jetzt mal zur Diskussion gestellt, aber auch der dürfte ja dann nicht nachweisbar sein, denn er hat ja nichts Materielles an sich. Insofern muss man es auch gar nicht überprüfen. Aber ich wüsste auch nicht, dass jemals jemand das ausprobiert hat. Da könnte ich aber nochmal nachfragen. Man muss übrigens unterscheiden, es gibt zwei Arten von „Zombi astral“. Also man kann einen Zombi astral herstellen, nachdem natürlichen Tod einer Person. Der ti bon ange, ein Teil der Seele schwebt noch mehrere Tage über dem Leichnam und in diesen Tagen müssen verschiedene Rituale für den Leichnam vollzogen werden. Wenn das nicht geschieht verwandelt sich der ti bon ange in einen baka, einen bösen Geist. Der baka wohnt im Wald, sagt man, und fügt Menschen Schaden zu. Er ist auch bestechlich durch Bokore, Schwarzmagier. Ich würde ihn nicht für einen bösen Geist halten, sondern für einen verbitterten Geist. Das ist die Seele eines Menschen, die so vernachlässigt wurde, dass man nicht die nötigen Totenrituale vollzogen hat, und die nicht ihren Weg in die Gefilde des Jenseits gefunden hat. Noch schlimmer ist, wenn man sich nicht um diesen Leichnam kümmert, der ti bon ange sich noch in dessen Umgebung befindet und ein Bokor ihn einfängt. Dann hat man auch einen Zombi astral, zu dem es kein körperliches Gegenstück gibt. Die andere Möglichkeit einen Zombi astral zu finden ist die, wenn man einen Menschen vergiftet, ihn angeblich tötet, in Wirklichkeit ihn also in einen scheintoten Zustand versetzt, ihn also zombifiziert. Dann kann man bei der Erweckung dieses angeblichen Leichnams, den Seelenbestandteil, der den Zombi astral durch den ti bon ange bildet, in einer Flasche fangen, während der andere Seelenbestandteil, der gros bon ange, den Körper beseelt und der bildet dann den Zombi cadavre, den Leichenzombie.

08.

PH: Sind Zombies auch im westafrikanischen Vodun-Ursprung bekannt?

OG: Nein. Die gibt es nicht. Es hat immer mal wieder Versuche gegeben, so etwas zu finden, es gibt ja den Begriff nzumbi in Zentralafrika, aber das ist einfach nur ein Totenkult. Die Kongoreligionen waren sehr jenseitszentriert, alles dort dreht sich um Geistwesen, aber

11 nicht um physisch wiederkehrende Körper. Diese Vorstellung gibt es dort nicht. Es soll zwar in Kamerun einige Geheimkulte geben, die angeblich an Wiedergänger glauben, wenn es die wirklich gibt, geht das aber wohl nicht auf unsere Wiedergängervorstellung zurück. Überall auf der Welt hat es Scheintote gegeben, es hat sich kein echter Kult über künstlich hergestellte lebende Leichen entwickelt. In Amerika gibt es natürlich mehrere Voodooreligionen, manche kennen Zombies, nicht nur in Haiti, es gibt Voodoo auch in der Dominikanischen Republik, auf der spanischen Seite der Insel Hispaniola, dort gibt es überhaupt keine Zombies. Das ist interessant übrigens, dass die dominikanische Form des Voodoo eine sehr viel sanftere ist, die auch nicht die reaktionäre Seite des haitianischen Voodoo kennt. Ich führe das ganz klar auf die unterschiedlichen Kolonialmächte zurück, die Spanier waren viel humaner als die Franzosen und deswegen hat es dort auch nicht diese Aggression und den Zorn gegeben, der sich in den Petro-Riten des haitianischen Voodoo bildet. Es gibt eine Petro-Nachon auch in der dominikanischen Republik, aber sie ist nicht annähernd so reaktionär und es gibt auch keine Zombies. In Kuba hingegen ist der Glaube an Zombies genau so verbreitet wie in Haiti, aber es ist mehr die Angst vor den Zombies im kubanischen Voodoo, als das es wirklich welche gibt. Ich glaube man hat diese Angst aus Haiti übernommen und es gibt dort eine Gruppe von Geistwesen, die man loa diabolo nennt, teuflische Geistwesen, dies ist eine Untergruppe loa petro. Die fürchtet man und man sagt, die könnten jemanden zombifizieren. Aber man versucht das wohl nicht aktiv. Ich habe noch nie gehört, dass dort wirklich ein Zombie herumgelaufen sein soll, man muss dazu wissen, kubanisches Vodú ist eine von fünf afrokubanischen Religionen in Kuba und wohl die unbedeutendste, also wirklich eine die zahlenmäßig nur wenige Anhänger im äußersten Osten von Kuba hat. Dominant sind Santería und . Und in den USA, da kennt man den Begriff der Zombies im Louisana-Voodoo, aber es gibt dort keine. Da hat es eine Studie einer Amerikanerin gegeben, Susan Cusack, die hat Priester und Priesterinnen in New Orleans befragt, und die haben gesagt: „Bei uns gibt es keine Zombies, weil ja Tote grundsätzlich einbalsamiert werden und damit fällt schon mal die Möglichkeit weg, jemanden wieder aufzurichten“. Aber es gäbe auch gar nicht Idee, diesen Hintergedanken, weil im New Orleans-Voodoo oder im Louisana-Voodoo einfach auch nie dieser reaktionäre Charakter entstanden ist, den man in Haiti hat. Haiti-Voodoo ist genau wie in Quimbanda in Brasilien, die reaktionärste Form der afrokubanischen Religionen, die einfach die Reaktion ist auf die unmenschliche Behandlung, speziell in dieser Kolonie. Sklaverei war nie menschlich,

12

Kolonialismus war nie menschlich, und das sind alles Menschen, die aus ihrem ursprünglichen Kontext gerissen wurden, entwurzelt wurden und in die Unfreiheit geführt wurden. Aber es gibt immer noch einen Unterschied, es gibt einige Bereiche in denen man Sklaven wirklich auf solche brutalste Weise behandelt hat, dass das für Menschen gar nicht mehr erträglich ist – und das war in Haiti der Fall. Und ich glaube all diese Phänomene lassen sich auf diese historische Epoche zurückführen.

9.

PH: Henning Christoph hatte von einer Zeremonie erzählt, in der ein Mädchen beritten und für mehrere Stunden begraben wurde. Nach der Exhumierung erlitt sie allerdings keine Schäden. Dennoch gibt es auch hier Parallelen, was das lebendig begraben sein betrifft.

OG: Ja, die wurde aber nicht vergiftet. Das ist eher vergleichbar mit dem, was manche indische Fakire praktizieren. Das hat ein sehr berühmter, legendärer Priester durchgeführt, Sossa Guédéhoungué und das war ein Heilungsritual. Man muss sagen, all diese afrikanischen, afroamerikanischen Religionen sind Heilungskulte und ein wesentliches Element, was sich auch Gläubige davon versprechen, ist die Heilung. Das ist überall so, in Haiti nennt man das traitement, und die Zeremonien sind zwar spektakulär, aber im Alltag viel wichtiger ist, dass Gläubige zu den Priestern gehen und sagen: Ich hab ein physisches, ein psychisches oder ein spirituelles Problem und brauche Hilfe. Dann wird ein Geistwesen angerufen, das diesem Gläubigen helfen soll, das heißt auch wirklich, dass Hilfe im Mittelpunkt steht – die bösartigen Züge dieser Religion sind die absolute Minderheit und in Afrika gibt es die gar nicht. Das heißt auch hier, dass der Grundcharakter völlig verschieden ist. Hier ist weder Gift im Spiel gewesen, noch ging es darum, einen Menschen seines Willens zu berauben, so wie es bei der Zombifikation wäre. Bei der Zombifikation geht es darum, dass jemand in einen Scheintod versetzt wird und nicht mehr als ein sich selbst bewusster Mensch zurückkehrt. Und das war hier in Afrika gar nicht, diese Frau wurde zeitweise begraben, über einen Zeitraum von, ich glaube 3 Stunden, um ihr vor Augen zu führen, wie es ist, wenn man tot ist – sie wollte nämlich eigentlich sterben aus Liebeskummer. Und der Priester hat gesagt, ich zeige dir, wie es ist, wenn du tot bist. Ich glaube er hat suggestive Kräfte verwendet um ihren Stoffwechsel soweit herunter zu regulieren, dass sie einen relativ langen Zeitraum ohne viel Sauerstoffzufuhr aushalten konnte. Wie das im einzelnen 13 geschieht, weiß man nicht, man hätte sie im Prinzip an ein EEG (Elektroenzephalografie) anschließen müssen während dieses Prozesses, aber das ist möglich, man weiß das aus Indien und aus Nepal, das hat aber weder vom Mechanismus, noch von der Intention irgend etwas zu tun mit der Zombifikation.

10.

PH: Gab es Erdbestattungen in Afrika schon vor christlichem Einfluss?

OG: Ja, definitiv.

PH: Da ging es also ursprünglich auch schon um Schutz vor Verwesung, Seuchenvermeidung?

OG: Ja, es gibt in Innerafrika ganz unterschiedliche Bestattungsformen, es gibt auch Brandbestattungen, aber Erdbestattungen sind relativ häufig, es gibt auch Mausoleumsbestattungen, aber das gab es auch früher schon. Die Ursprünge, warum man das gemacht hat sind nicht ganz klar, aber das wird schon mit Seuchenvermeidung zu tun haben. Man muss dazu sagen, dass man Afrika als „Todesurteil des Weißen Mann“ bezeichnet hat. Wer an der Sklavenküste Dahomeys eingesetzt wurde, der hatte eine Wahnsinnsangst demnächst zu sterben, tatsächlich war die Lebenserwartung eines Weißen in Dahomey ein Jahr. Und wenn Sklavenschiffe anlandeten, hat man sofort versucht, alles was an Sklaven zu kriegen war, auf das Schiff zu kriegen, egal in welchem Zustand die waren, nur möglichst schnell Leinen los und weg. Das galt als ein dermaßen verseuchtes Nest, die Pocken waren allgegenwärtig, da hatten vor allem die Einheimischen Angst, die Weißen hatten Angst vor Gelbfieber, Malaria und der Afrikanischen Schlafkrankheit. Und man hat gesagt, nach einem Jahr hat eine der drei Krankheiten einen umgebracht.

11.

PH: Wieviele Zombies sind derzeit wissenschaftlich bestätigt? Und wie kann man dieses Phänomen medizinisch erklären?

OG: Also ich kann es Ihnen auf die Zahl genau nicht sagen, ich glaube, das Philippe Charlier hat die aktuellen Zahlen auf 17 oder 18 zusammengetragen. Dazu muss man immer fragen, was ist bestätigt und was ist medizinisch bestätigt? Also im Grunde genommen hätte

14 man einen richtig bestätigten Fall nur dann, wenn die Person vergiftet wird, wenn man ihr noch Blut abnimmt, zuguckt wie sie begraben wird und sie wieder ausgräbt. Und dann nochmal sein EKG und EEG misst. Von so einem Fall gibt es keinen einzigen dieser Sorte. Es gibt, ich würde sagen, vier oder fünf Fälle, bei denen man zumindest den Krankheitsverlauf vor dem angeblichen Tod dokumentiert hat, bei denen relativ bekannt ist, dass sie bestattet worden sind, das geht zumindest aus den Papieren hervor und bei denen entweder organische Proben vorliegen, Zeugenaussagen oder anderes, die bestätigen können, dass das dieselbe Person war, die einst begraben worden ist. Das sind wohl vier oder fünf, der bekannteste Fall war Clairvius Narcisse, den hat Wade Davis untersucht, bei dem spricht wirklich vieles dafür. Man weiß, wo sein Grab ist, man hat Fotos vor seinem Tod und nach seinem Tod, man hat sogar eine Narbe in seinem Gesicht gefunden, die von einem Sargnagel kommen soll, der ihn erwischt hat, als er im Sarg lag. Philippe Charlier hat einen Arzt in Port- au-Prince, bei dem die Zombifikation kurz vor dem Abschluss stand untersucht. Von einem Kollegen wurde dieser Prozess aufgedeckt und er hat ein Gegengift bekommen, man konnte die Metaboliten des Kugelfischgiftes noch nachweisen, das würde ich auch als Nachweis werten. Insgesamt ist also die Zahl der belegten Zombies wirklich relativ gering, außerdem muss man ja dummerweise sagen, dass es unterschiedliche Typen von Zombies gibt, und dass man daher alles gar nicht so einfach nachweisen kann. Also es gibt definitiv viele, es gibt viele Berichte, auch Fotos, auch ganze Lebensgeschichten von Zombies, aber vieles sind psychologische Zombies. Das heißt, im Grunde genommen sind das psychisch schwer erkrankte Menschen, die das typische Verhalten eines Zombies zeigen und von der Bevölkerung auch so bezeichnet werden. Das sind auch Zombies. Also wir gehen davon aus heute, es gibt dieses Phänomen, aber nicht in dem Sinne, wie sich die Haitianer das vorstellen; es gibt keine Menschen die tot waren und wiedergekommen sind. Das gibt es bei uns nicht, das gibt es bei denen nicht. Wenn man darunter einen Zombie verstehen will, dann gibt es keine. Zombies sind entweder Menschen, die vergiftet worden sind, das sind pharmakologische Zombies, von denen gibt es vier oder fünf bestätigte und etwa 17 Fälle, die beschrieben sind. Dann gibt es etliche psychologische Zombies, Menschen die als Zombies anerkannt worden sind, die aber in Wirklichkeit orientierungslos sind und Wahrnehmungsstörungen haben, dauerhaft in Folge von schweren psychischen Erkrankungen, in der Regel ausgeprägte Psychosen, Schizophrenie, schwere Borderline- Symptome oder ähnliches. Und dann gibt es noch soziologische Zombies, das hat Roland

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Littlewood und auch Philippe Charlier nachgewiesen, das sind Menschen, die sich ausgeben als Zombies, um die Stelle von jemanden einzunehmen, der verschwunden ist. Auch das gibt es, denn Haiti ist ein bettelarmes Land und jedes Mittel ist recht, um sich eine Versorgung zu sichern. Also es gibt ein paar wo man sagen kann, alles spricht dafür, dass sind echte Zombies, aber dies ist die Minderheit. Wie ich schon sagte, die Dosierung von Tetrodotoxin ist schwierig, aus meiner Sicht gibt es höchstens zehn Stück gleichzeitig, die irgendwo in Haiti herumlaufen. Die reichen aber auch. Die Bokore terrorisieren das Land und ich glaube, es ist nicht wichtig, dass ein Zombifikationsprozess erfolgreich ist, da bin ich sehr unterschiedlicher Meinung mit Philippe Charlier, der glaubt dass Zombies wirklich aus wirtschaftlichen Zwecken hergestellt werden, dass das ein billiges Verfahren ist, um an billige Arbeitskräfte zu kommen, wie Sklaven. Ich frage mich wirklich wie es Haitianer schaffen sollten, das Gift zu dosieren, wenn wir das nicht mit unseren modernen Möglichkeiten hinkriegen. Er fragt, warum sollte man dann diesen großen Aufwand betreiben, wenn es dann sowieso nur ganz selten funktioniert, einen Zombie herzustellen. Meine Argumentation ist die, dass man dadurch die Menschen unterdrückt und die Bokore üben ihre Macht aus, indem sie mit Zombies ein Exempel statuieren und zeigen, was sie können. Die Leute sagen sich, wer solche Kreaturen erschafft, der kann alles, da zahle ich lieber an die und mache alles, was die sagen.

12.

PH: Wird zurzeit wissenschaftlich an einem Zombie in einem Krankenhaus geforscht?

OG: Also gerade kann ich jetzt nicht sagen, aber, Frankreich hat ja ein Forschungsprojekt, dass gemeinsam vom Musée du quai Branly und der Universität Versailles im Institut für Gerichtsmedizin in Paris durchgeführt wird, und die haben zusammen geforscht mit dem Psychiatrischen Zentralkrankenhaus in Port-au-Prince, dort sind mehrere Zombies stationär untergebracht, darunter auch eine Frau, die im Artibonit-Tal aufgegriffen wurde, Jahre nach ihrem Begräbnis. Da hat man psychologische Forschungen vorgenommen, sie ist allerdings schwer kognitiv geschädigt, solche Schädigungen können die Folge von TTX-Vergiftungen sein, TTX kann nämlich in manchen Fällen auch zu irreversiblen Schäden führen, sie können aber auch die Folge von Sauerstoffunterversorgung im Sarg sein, also zerebrale Hypoxie, da wurden auch Studien durchgeführt und oft wurden solche Studien auch in Haiti durchgeführt. Also eigentlich kann man sagen, sowohl die Giftwirkung ist nachgewiesen 16 worden, als auch das Wesen, die Phänomenologie der Zombifikation. Was man haben müsste, sind weniger Studien an lebenden Zombies, man müsste mal eine Studie haben, über jemanden, der gerade zombifiziert wird. Das allerdings würde es erfordern, dass man noch tiefer in die Bizango-Geheimgesellschaft eindringt, als es Wade Davis gelungen ist. Dazu muss man aber sagen, die Bizango lassen sich nicht gerne in die Karten gucken; das sind auch letztlich Kriminelle aus meiner Sicht. Ich habe das in Haiti deutlich gemerkt, dass viele Leute es nicht so gut fanden, wenn man intensiv nachfragt. Und mir haben auch an manchen Orten Leute wirklich nahegelegt, den Ort schnellstens wieder zu verlassen und aufzuhören solche Fragen zu stellen, die Bokore wollen das nicht und die werden auch sehr schnell aggressiv.

13.

PH: Sehen sie das kritisch, dass Zombies religiöse Wurzeln haben? Dass der Mainstream eine Weltreligion wie Voodoo auf so eine seltene Bokor-Praxis reduziert? Voodoo ist ja viel mehr als Zombies und Schadensmagie.

OG: Wie gesagt, dass ist sehr traurig. Man muss sagen, als ich in Westafrika war, da haben mir Afrikaner gesagt, wie sehr Benin darunter leidet, dass Hollywood ein Zerrbild einer besonderen Variante des haitianischen Voodoo entworfen hat, dass sich heute auf alle Bereiche des Voodoo übertragen lässt. Das Ergebnis ist, dass die Menschen von diesen Klischees voreingenommen sind, und sie stehen der Voodooreligion sehr ablehnend gegenüber. Viele sehen in Voodoo gar keine Religion, sondern irgendein blutigen und bizarren Kult und das ist sehr ungerecht. In Benin ist dies eine gutartige Religion, die auf Nächstenliebe beruht, und daraus entstandene Religionen sagen das ganz explizit. Also im Umbanda in Brasilien zum Beispiel, ist das Grundprinzip der Religion caridade – Nächstenliebe. Das merkt man aber auch in Benin, Zeremonien und der ganze Glaube werden offen gelebt. Zeremonien werden offen angekündigt, die haben nichts Geheimes an sich, da spielen Kinder während sie stattfinden nebenher, und wir waren in Dörfern, wo Voodoo-Zeremonien stattfanden, stundenlang wurde da getanzt, Leute fielen in Trance, es wurden ständig Hühner und Ziegen geopfert, und in diesem Dorf haben natürlich nicht nur Voodoo-Anhänger gewohnt, und die haben darauf gewartet, dass die Zeremonie endlich endet und nicht etwa, weil die Angst davor hatten, sondern weil sie genau wussten, die ganzen geopferten Hühner und Ziegen, die werden hinterher gegessen. Und die Leute 17 kriegen die alle angeboten, auch die Muslime, die Christen, die Anhänger anderer Religionen, Voodoo ist nämlich unheimlich tolerant, es hat keine missionierende Tendenzen, jeder der Anhänger dieser Religion werden will, kann das, der kann sich initiieren lassen. Aber Voodoo würde niemals jemanden sagen: „Du musst Teil unserer Religion werden“. Im Gegenteil, sie sind sehr offen gegenüber anderen Glaubensrichtungen, es ist also wirklich eine Religion, die auch in ihren Zeremonien Fürbitten für Kranke macht und nicht jemanden Schaden will. Das ist in Afrika ganz stark so und auch in manchen amerikanischen Varianten, z.B. in der dominikanischen Republik ist es ganz genau so, es geht nur um Heilung und Nächstenliebe. Und auch in Haiti ist dies der dominierende Bestandteil, nur ist es das so, dass diese dunkle Seite in der Tat gibt, aber wenn man es auf die Zombifikation reduziert, dann würde man diesen Glauben überhaupt nicht gerecht werden. Man stellt eine vollwertige Religion, die durch und durch gutartig ist, dar, als würde man sie nur auf den negativsten, den einige wenige praktizieren, reduzieren. Im Christentum sagen wir, es gibt Satan, den Gegenspieler Gottes, niemand betet den an, logischerweise, jedenfalls nicht im Namen der offiziellen autorisierten Kirche. Trotzdem gibt es Teufelsanbeter, Satanisten. Das ist nichts, was die Kirche möchte, bekanntermaßen. Jetzt stellen Sie sich mal vor, auf einem anderen Kontinent würde man sagen, das Christentum ist ja reiner Satanismus, besteht nur aus Teufelsanbetern. Das würden wir ja auch nicht so gut finden. Das ist also die kleinste Nische, mit der die offizielle Kirche überhaupt nichts zu tun haben möchte, und genau so ist es leider beim Voodoo. Innerhalb einer Konfession des Voodoo, von vielen, gibt es diese kleine Nische, die von wenigen Bokoren praktiziert wird und die wird in der westlichen Welt mit der gesamten Religion assoziiert, die überhaupt nichts damit zu tun hat, sondern durch und durch gutartig ist. Deshalb ist man in diesen Voodoogebieten überhaupt nicht begeistert über Hollywoodstreifen, und als Hollywood irgendwann nichts mehr einfiel zum Thema Voodoo haben sie angefangen, Santería, eine kubanische Religion, in den Mittelpunkt zu stellen, die überhaupt nichts Düsteres hat, und da hat man in Kuba, da gab es schon einen Aufschrei, völlig zu recht, gesagt: Okay, jetzt sind wir also dran. In der Santería gibt es überhaupt nichts Blutiges – keine Zombies, kein Nichts, nicht einmal schwarze Magie. Trotzdem fand es Hollywood okay, diese Religion zu instrumentalisieren, für seine Horrorstreifen. Natürlich kann man jetzt sagen, die Hollywoodregisseure haben gedacht, das ist ja Fiktion, die Leute werden ja wohl zwischen Fiktion und Fakten unterscheiden können, man kann ihnen jetzt nicht wirklich einen Vorwurf machen, ich meine es gibt auch bei uns

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Filme, über Satanisten und keiner würde sagen, das ist Mainstream im Christentum. Aber im Voodoo ist es leider so gekommen und die Anhänger der Religion leiden sehr darunter. Die Horrorfilmindustrie produziert viele solcher Filme, viele sind auch ganz gut gemacht, aber es könnte nicht schaden, etwas Aufklärung zu betreiben und gerade auch die Filmindustrie sollte vielleicht auch mal dazu sagen, dass was wir hier zeigen, ist nicht der Mainstream des Voodoo.

14.

PH: Die ersten Zombiefilme aus den 30'ern und 40'ern sind tatsächlich noch sehr nah an der tatsächlichen Praxis der Bokore dran, was wohl den Einfluss des Buches „The Magic Island“ und damaliger Zeitzeugenberichte aus Haiti als Ursprung hat.

OG: Aber auch die zeigen Voodoo als eine Religion, die vor allem auf der Manipulation von Menschen zu fragwürdigen Zwecken beruht. Was die nicht zeigen ist, was Voodoo im Alltag ist. Also wenn Sie in Haiti oder auch in Benin sind, in den Filmen, wenn ich jetzt mal „White Zombie“ oder „Ich folgte einem Zombie“ nehme, der ist noch etwas ausführlicher, da sehen Sie immer, dass Leute Nadelpuppen benutzen, um irgend jemanden zu lenken, oder die Leute werden zombifiziert, es geht um Machtausübung. Im besten Fall gibt es mal eine Zeremonie, wo viel Trommelmusik ist, wo möglichst viel Blut fließt. Was man nicht zeigt, ist, in Afrika, wie auch in Haiti, dass der Alltag nicht aus Zeremonien besteht, das sind ganz arme Menschen, die haben nichts zu essen. Und sie sind krank und können sich nicht leisten in ein Krankenhaus zu gehen. Die gehen zum Priester und bitten den Priester, dass er ein traitement, eine Behandlung macht. Der Priester hält dann ein Kongopaket über deren Kopf und die glauben daran, manchmal hilft das, das ist die Macht des Glaubens. Dann sollen die dafür bezahlen, viele können das gar nicht, viele Priester sind damit einverstanden, manche sind so arm, dass die Priester aus ihrem eigenen Einkommen den Leuten ein bisschen Geld geben, und sagen: „Komm, kauf dir was zu essen“. Dann gibt es Zeremonien, da wird für Kranke gebetet, es gibt einen Fall, den hat Maya Deren überliefert, da gab es in den 50’er Jahren ein Kind, das hatte glaube ich Krebs, war jedenfalls unheilbar krank und man konnte nichts mehr machen, und dann ist die Mutter zu einer , einer Priesterin gegangen und um Hilfe gebeten. Die Mambo hat gesagt, das Beste ist, man wendet sich an die Ghede, die Ghede sind eine Gruppe von Loa, die den Tod beschwören. Aber, sie lehnen den Tod von Menschen vor ihrer Zeit ab. Also hat man sich an den Chef dieser Nachon, dieser Nation, wie man das sagt, gewandt, den Papa Ghede, und hat ihm drei schwarze Hühner geopfert – und 19 es passierte nichts. Und dann hat man das größte Opfer gebracht, dass es gibt, eine schwarze Ziege, von denen gibt es nicht viele da, und daraufhin gab es ein Medium, eine Mambo, von der dieser Loa Besitz ergriff. Die Mambo setzte sich auf ein Kenotaphen, der für Papa Ghede gemacht worden ist, ein Scheingrab, und es war nicht mehr sie. Also die Haitianer glaubten, es war der Loa selbst, der durch sie sprach. Die Frau sprach auch mit einer männlichen Stimme. Der Loa sagte dann, man solle ihm dieses kleine Kind geben. Und sie haben es ihm in die Arme gelegt, und dann griff er sich zwischen die Beine – aber es war ja eine Frau – und er hatte Sperma in den Händen. Damit rieb er das Kind ein, am nächsten Tag war es geheilt und man konnte die Krankheit nicht mehr nachweisen. Man sagt, dieser Loa nimmt, immer wenn jemand stirbt, Ashe, Lebenskraft auf, aber er gibt reichlich davon zurück, wenn jemand vor seiner Zeit stirbt. Diese ganze Zeremonie, wurde nicht gemacht um irgendwas Böses zu tun, es geht um Heilung. Das haben wir auch in Afrika erlebt, da war ein Schlaganfallerkrankter, für den wurde eine Zeremonie gemacht. Das heißt, auch diese vermeintlich authentischen Filme zeigen zwar auch auf authentische Weise und nicht verzerrt, trotzdem nur den düsteren Teil des Voodoo. Und sie verschieben die Gewichtung, das ist nur ein ganz kleiner Teil. Man muss das natürlich auf der anderen Seite auch verstehen, das war die Zeit der amerikanischen Besatzung, viele Amerikaner kamen nach Haiti. Und in Haiti, wie gesagt, gibt es eine ständige Angst vor den Bokoren. Die Bokore sind zwar nicht repräsentativ, aber sie werden so wahrgenommen. Obwohl Voodoo Bestandteil des Lebens aller Menschen ist, macht es auch allen Menschen Angst. Das haben die Amerikaner natürlich mitbekommen, und das muss für die auch ein schockierendes Erlebnis sein, wenn man von lebenden Toten hört, daran glauben ja die Haitianer, von Nadelpuppen, von Manipulationen und so weiter, die haben das dann in einer sensationsherrschenden Weise beschrieben, das wird auch heute oft kritisiert, vor allem Seabrooks „Magic Island“, aber ich kann das jetzt auch gar nicht so sehr kritisieren, man muss fairerweise auch sagen, wenn man da hinkommt, es muss ja auch schockierend sein. Ich meine, wer kommt denn schon in ein Land, wo schon eine gewisse Schieflage ist, wo alle Menschen vor ihrem eigenen Glauben Angst haben und über ihre eigene Religion erzählen, dass es so viele furchtbare Dinge beinhaltet. Also sie haben daran sogar ein bisschen eigenen Anteil. Dann, wie gesagt, obwohl die Religion grundsätzlich gutartig ist, von zehntausenden Houngan, sind vielleicht hundert bösartige Bokore. Aber die hundert Bokore haben es dann auch zur großen Popularität gebracht.

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15.

PH: In den 60'ern nahmen zeitgenössische, gesellschaftliche Ängste überhand und veränderten auch den Zombie als willenlose, vernichtende Instanz, meist ohne kontrollierende Instanz, wie einem Bokor.

Kann man überhaupt noch von einem Zombie reden?

OG: Nein, das ist was Eigenes. Romero hat den gleichen Begriff übertragen auf was Neues. Also er hat festgestellt, dass im Glauben der Haitianer ein Zombie eine lebende Leiche ist, und dann hat er gesagt, dann nenne ich jetzt jede lebende Leiche einen Zombie. Man hat sich aber eine andere Art von lebender Leiche ausgedacht, wenn ich mich richtig an den Film erinnere, waren das Tote, die auf natürliche Weise gestorben sind, und durch Strahlen aus dem Weltall wiederbelebt worden sind. Das hat also gar nichts mehr mit den Ursprüngen zu tun, weder mit schwarzer Magie, noch mit Haiti, noch mit Voodoo. Da ist überhaupt kein Voodoo drin. Man hat einfach einen Begriff weitergereicht. In Afrika gibt es nzumbi, das sind Geister von Toten, gut, gibt es in jeder Religion. Dann haben die Haitianer festgestellt, es gibt Leute, die sind offensichtlich tot, stehen aber wieder auf – waren also scheintot. Für dieses Phänomen haben sie dann diesen zentralafrikanischen Begriff angewandt. Aus nzumbi wurde zombie. Und dann hat Romero gesagt, ich denke mir jetzt eine andere Form von lebenden Toten aus, aber ihr Erscheinungsbild ist ja nicht viel anders, als in Haiti, nenne ich die doch auch mal zombie. Das heißt, man hat hier einen in Haiti gebräuchlichen Begriff auf ein völlig anderes Phänomen übertragen.

PH: Universal hat ja letztendlich auch die Mumie zu einem umher schlurfenden Untoten verfilmt, das macht es ja auch nicht zu einem ägyptischen Zombie. Es ist eine klare Definitionssache.

OG: Es ist eine Definitionssache. Er hätte dem eigentlich auch einen anderen Namen geben können, lebender Kadaver oder irgendwie sowas. Aber er kam halt auf den Gedanken, die Bezeichnung der alten Zombiefilme zu übertragen, und das war glaub ich auch der Todesstoß für die Voodooreligionen, die Zombies vorher, na gut, die hatten ja noch eine halbwegs natürliche Erklärung, aber dann hat man einen Begriff dieser Religion zweckentfremdet. Und da wurde es irgendwie moralisch nicht mehr vertretbar. Also das wäre ja so, als würde man jeden Verbrecher hier mit Luzifer bezeichnen, oder das alles was hier an Verbrechen geschieht, jeder Mörder, mit einem Element des Christentums

21 gleichzusetzen ist. Das geht natürlich nicht. Und damit hat er haitianischen Voodoo auf unbewusste Weise ganz furchtbar diskreditiert, denn die Leute unterscheiden ja nicht. Und die denken dann, wenn sie das sehen, was er daraus gemacht hat, umherschlurfende, halbverweste Leichen, die auf natürliche Weise gestorben sind, durch Krankheit oder Strahlung, oder weil sie von anderen gebissen worden sind wieder herumlaufen, letztlich auch eine Form von Vampirismus, die heißen so, dann werden die wohl auch irgendwas mit dem haitianischen Voodoo zu tun haben oder im haitianischen Voodoo wird das wohl genau so aussehen und das Schlimmste ist, das betrifft nicht nur haitianischen Voodoo, jede andere Religion, die den Namen Voodoo führt, ist davon auch betroffen. Und das ist ganz schlimm, also in Afrika haben mir Leute gesagt, das Fremdenverkehrsamt bietet immer mal wieder Führungen zu Tempeln an und auch zu Zeremonien, an denen Besucher teilnehmen können, und die Leute in den Hotels sagen: Nee, da will ich nicht hin, das ist irgendwas dämonisches, teuflisches, damit will ich nichts zu tun haben. Obwohl da überhaupt nichts Teuflisches dran ist, das ist das Ergebnis. Bis dahin konnte man sagen, Hollywood hat einen Aspekt herausgegriffen, sie sind eine Unterhaltungsindustrie, damit muss man irgendwie leben, und auch die Haitianer, es ist zwar nicht schön, dass die Zombies gerade in den Vordergrund gedrängt werden, aber es gibt das nun mal in der Religion, das ist ihr Problem. Aber es zu übertragen, das war nicht korrekt.

16.

PH: Es ist ja gar nicht mehr unterhaltsam, es ist ja ein Klischee geworden. Die Zombiemedien haben ja keine feinen Unterschiede mehr. Ich habe die Theorie, dass durch die zunehmende Globalisierung und Digitalisierung, letztendlich auch die Darstellung des Zombies sich ändern wird. Zombies durch Viren und biologische Waffen haben wir ja schon, der nächste Schritt wird aber der technische Zombie durch Nanotechnologie, KI- gesteuert, Cyberimplantate. Nathan Kline hat ja sogar den Cyborg als erstes definiert, das Wort kommt ja auch von ihm, da hat man dann auch wieder die Brücke geschlagen.

OG: Das wird kommen, das glaube ich auch. Im Grunde genommen muss man sagen, der Begriff ist völlig zweckentfremdet worden, er ist zweimal umgedeutet worden, am Anfang war es der Geist eines Toten, daraus haben die Haitianer einen wiederbelebten, physischen Toten gemacht und heute wird der Begriff für jeden genommen, der ohne eigenes Bewusstsein, fremdgesteuert herumläuft. Und das wird kommen, klar, das glaube ich auch. 22

Das könnte ja auch irgendwann passieren, dass es ein digitaler Zombie wird. Oder jemand, dem einem Avatar aufgesetzt wird, der praktisch in einem fremden Körper rein geht, also im Grunde genommen ist der Begriff ein drittes Mal zweckentfremdet worden.

Nach der modernen Definition von Zombies ist es ja anzunehmen, dass man irgendwann anfängt, Teile des Gehirns einfach zu ersetzen, es hat ja bereits Operationen und Psychopharmaka gegeben, die versucht haben, Teile der Persönlichkeit von Menschen auszulöschen. Und das ist dann eigentlich fast schon ein Romero-Zombie, das muss man echt sagen. Man müsste mal Feldforschung im Kongo betreiben – ich würde mal ganz stark vermuten, dass die Kongolesen auch nicht so toll finden, wie ihr Begriff des nzumbi in Haiti verwendet wird. Das müsste man echt mal hinterfragen, ob denen das überhaupt so bewusst ist. Bei ihnen gibt es ja auch dieses Wort, dass den Geist beschreibt, etwas nach dem Tod zurück gebliebenes immaterielles. Und ich glaube nicht, dass die es toll finden, dass man in Haiti gesagt hat, dass es umherwandelnde Leichen sind. Genau so wenig, wie die Haitianer es gut finden, dass man in Hollywood sagt, dass sind fremdgesteuerte Menschen, teilweise verweste Leichen, oder Menschen in denen Chips eingesetzt worden sind, oder sonst was. Nur ist der Unterschied: Die Qualität in Haiti ist noch eine andere. Die haben einen religiösen Begriff ebenfalls religiös verwendet. Hollywood hat einen religiösen Begriff zweckentfremdet, säkularisiert und für niedere Unterhaltungszwecke angesiedelt.

PH: Haben Sie noch Anmerkungen ihrerseits?

OG: Nein, ich denke nicht.

PH: Dann bedanke ich mich herzlich für dieses Interview bei Ihnen!

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