A Geek History of Time - Episode 125 - Zombies Part I

Episode Date: September 18, 2021

I'm not here to poke holes and suspended this belief. Anyway, they see some weird shit. They decide to make a baby. Now, Muckin' Merchant. Who gives a fuck? Oh, Muckin' which is a trickle, you know, baby. You know what I mean? Well, you know, I really like it here. It's kind of nice and it's not as cold as Muckin'

and I'm a bit sore, but I'm better. So yeah, sure, I think we're gonna settle. If I'm a peasant boy who grabs sword out of a stone. Yeah. I'm able to open people up. You will, yeah. Anytime I hit them with it, right? Yeah.

So my cleave landing will make me a cavalier. Good day, Spree. If Sysclothon it was empty-headed, plubian trash, it was empty headed, but being trash is not really good. Really good group. Because cannibalism and murder, pull back just a little bit, build walls to keep out the rat heads.

And it's a little bit of a round of twos. A thorough intent doesn't exist. Some people stand up quite a bit, some people stay seeing a lot of the rats, but it just... This is a Geek Street Time. Where we connect Nurgere to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock, I'm a rural history and English teacher now to teach you six stories.

Here in Northern California and I don't have a whole lot to report. Other than I'm having a whole lot of, still having a whole lot of fun with McWoreier 5. And actually just earlier this evening, you introduced me to Black Ops 2 in multiplayer and Newktown 2025 and Holy Moly. Yeah, futuristic art deco. Yeah. Yeah, I'm, yeah.

The Xerust is just so hard on that, but in, yeah, it's awesome, I want it. Nice. And kind of related to that, in a sense that, you know, it has to do with, you know, being a big kid and shooting things. you know, being a big kid and shooting things. Have you seen the ads for the pulse rifle Nerf gun?

I've seen that pop up a lot in social media, but I haven't clicked on it because aliens was never a thing that I... Oh, okay. Okay, all right. I desperately, desperately won one, and I have been told, no. That was the whole answer, by the way. desperately one one and I have been told no. That was the whole answer by the way. I messaged my wife and I said,

so if you're thinking about my Christmas list, in that I'm kidding but really, kinda way and all I got back was no. Wow, that's it. Not even nothing else, just no. And, you know, because I can never let anything go, I respond with why? Like, I mean, come on, but it's awesome.

No. So another heading. Like, like, like, yeah, no, yeah. Just, like, completely shut down. Wow. So I'm mourning that. Yeah, your child has been slowly taken from you. Yeah, yeah, it's awful.

So how are you doing? How are you? I'm Damian Harmony. I am a Latin and drama teacher up here in Northern California. It's so funny, because I could actually go out and get that tomorrow if I wanted, and I don't, because I don't care about aliens. Yeah, yeah, I know. And honestly, I don't really like shooting Nerf guns like all that violence.

Like it mostly you run around stealthy, so it's just like, it was a silence and I prefer playing out loud. Yeah. But I don't know who are we mistaken. Like it's fine. Yeah. But no, I don't really have much in the way of updates other than I got new Tupperware Okay, that's something you do you know what? Yeah, yes, it is and and the fact that I'm kind of like oh yeah Like right like brand Tupperware or like like like the glass stuff because I'm trying to

Right, wow That's all bougie. I know. Like, holy cow. Like, you know what? I felt, I felt like a grown up when we bought a whole set of rubber made plastic stuff. Like a couple weeks ago.

Oh, the last baby. Damn, so, right. Yeah, so that's very cool. Yeah. So yeah, I don't really have much in the way of updates beyond that. Okay. I talk to a friend today about what's going on in the world, and he's very angry about it, and I understand why he's a veteran, and there's a lot of complex feelings going on there.

And so then I turned him on to Smeadly Butler. I'm like, okay. You know, I know you're right. And he's very much, you know, like I'm really mad at the president right now. I'm like, you have every right to be. This makes a lot of sense. He's like, he's the worst one in history. I'm like, yeah, I've just been 46 of these guys.

Let me, let's, yeah. I don't wanna step on your feelings, but at the same time, we literally had one try to just get a coup, just less than a year ago. Yeah, so maybe temper that a little bit. And we went back and forth and he's, you know, very, very upset. And I'm like, you need some smeadly butler in your life. And so I'll be giving a recommendation to the show to you with smeadly butler being a

part of it because I was like, you're clearly pissed about this and you've got very good reasons. Here's a leftist. Here's a leftist marine general. Right. Was he a general? He was. Okay, no general. He was a full on general. Okay. And a total tool of imperialism. Yeah. And he looked around. He's like, fuck that. Fritz. Yeah. Fritz. Are we the baddies? Right. Are uniforms have skulls? Yeah. Yeah. Um, great skit, buddy. Yeah. For anybody. Not familiar. But yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah. That's what I'm doing.

All right. I don't know if you noticed what I did earlier in mentioning the words, the buzzwords that I did. I noticed that there were buzzwords going on, but I wasn't quite able to string them together. I was quoting cranberries. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. So in your head. Yeah, in your head. Because tonight, okay.

We're gonna talk about zombies. Bitch and Camaro, right. All right, so good. This will be a multi part because zombies have been a part of our lexicon since before Batman. Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That far back. Which as soon as I got to that, I was like, wait a minute, hold on, no. Okay, well, I mean, I know you're gonna get to it, but my immediate response that I wanna make is,

but, you know, not as a living dead. Well, yeah, that's phase two. Oh, okay. All right, okay. Now, just to get this out of the way ahead of time, are you going to mention serpent in the rainbow at all? If it was a movie, made in America, yes. Okay.

If it was not, okay. And it might be grouped in as as a movie group. And it might be grouped in with foreign films or the straight to VHS films. Okay. But if it was an American movie that was not straight to VHS, it has a good chance of getting mentioned.

Okay. All right. All chance of getting measured. Okay. Alright. Alright. So anyway, yeah. So to start talking about zombies, we need to talk about Robert Southe. Are you aware of who he is? I'm John. I know.

That's fine. Not off top of my head. He was born in 1774 in Bristol, England. Okay. So he'd been expelled from long-famed Westminster School, which had been founded since before the Norman Conquest. Yes. However, continual records have been kept since the mid-1300s. Yes.

So the pedigree of that school that expelled him is quite intact since the 1300s. Now, Southie got expelled for writing an article in the newly created school magazine called The Flagellant. Okay. And in the article, he stated that the devil himself had invented vlogging. So you could see why he would get expelled from a school. Yeah, that would be hundreds. Yeah, that would. Yeah.

Okay. Now, as that was a staple to many of school, did not land well. And after his expulsion, Robert Southe went on to Oxford, like, okay. The English Twit of his time. Yeah, well, yeah. And he did quit of the year. Yeah, and he didn't learn much as he'd later admit. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Okay, so I just, I think it should be noted that, sure.

Flogging was not only a staple of schools at the time, but some level of severe corporal punishment was common as a criminal penalty. Yes. And in all of the branches of any military anywhere in the world at the time. Absolutely. It wasn't, are you going to get a whipping?

It's how many lashes are you going to get? Right. And I think something can be said there for the fact that we're dealing with a time in which the overall threshold of violence in society was significantly lower. So anyway, I just, I had to get that out of my system violence in society was significantly lower. So anyway, I had to get that out of my system because I'm thinking of the Marqueezo Queensborough rules.

They come around around this time as a limitation on because men's faces were turning into hamburger after a single match, but that single match lasted 135 rounds. Yeah. Well, in 1794, he's now 20 years old, I believe. Maybe 18. Let's see. He was born in 1774. So, so yeah, that's 20 years. Yeah. He published his first collection of poems as a part of a collaboration with another writer

and poet. You might have heard of. I don't know. Samuel Taylor Colrich. Okay. Yeah. Colrich. I know. Now, your later Southie would marry his first wife, Edith, who was the sister-in-law to his partner. Okay, so Coleridge is wife. Coleridge's wife's sister. Okay, all right, okay. So you married her in 1795 and at 1799, the two poets, Coleridge and Southy, were part of the early experiments with nitrous oxide.

Oh, okay, yeah. Coleridge, you know, because upper-class tweets, rakes, hey, laughing gas, let's do this. Yeah, let's have a party. Okay, all right. And, you know, you get into some romanticism there. Very proto-romantic, very, very early pre-static, you know, experience.

Yeah. So he became part of what would later be known as the lake poets. Yes. Which is a group of poets who allegedly lived in and near the Lake District of London Who were essentially Romantics, but they actually owed no specific allegiance to any single school thought when it came to poetry Okay, I just want to clarify Lake Lake District of London or the Lake District of the United Kingdom I believe because I'm aware of a Lake District in the UK. England. Okay.

But I'm not aware of that being a neighborhood like of. Oh, I think you're right. I, I, I, I should have said the UK. Okay. I just, I want to, in Northwest England, nowhere near London. Yes. Yes. I just, I wanted to, I wanted to clarify.

Okay. Thank you. Now, the term Lake poets was itself a misnomer as they weren't a cohesive group poets and they lived all over the place. Yeah, so Yeah, well, if you don't have an actual manifesto for an artistic movement people writing about you and your contemporaries have to find shit to label you. Even though it's wildly inaccurate. Well, you know, I mean, yeah. I don't, I got nothing there, but, you know. Yeah. Well, now, Southeast started somewhat to the left of center politically. Okay, so he's shocked.

You mean to tell me a poet, who was kicked out of his first university for being anti-capital punishment, or corporal punishment. We're having a night. Yeah, we are. It's been a long week. Yeah.

But who got kicked out of his first university for being anti-corporal punishment, you mean to tell me he might have a collectivist bent of mind? Well, he did decide with. He might be a fucking liberal. But then he grew more and more Tory as he aged, adopting the identity of a leg poet more than most. He was like, yes, I like this label. And he got more and more Tory.

Now by 1809, he becomes the poet laureate. Okay. This is because Walter Scott, the Scotsman, yes, refused the position. Yes. He remained, put it, Laurette, until he died in 1843. Okay. Now, his most notable efforts were Goldilocks and Three Bears.

Okay. And a poem in 1796 called After Blendheim, which is anti-war poem, which spoke to the utility and the destruction of war itself. Yes. Which he himself would actually reverse positions on by 1820. He started unironically calling the Battle of Blenheim the greatest victory England had ever had. So he kind of did, he went full boomer.

Like, like, first to start it out long here in Hippie and went completely establishments, like including the drugs and the communal living. Yeah, and everything else. And, you know, I find it interesting. I had to look this up while you were talking about this because his arc, being what it is, I find very interesting because he's a somewhat older contemporary, but longer lived of Lord

Byron, which was the first like, okay, so we're talking about an upper class, Tweet, Libertine, you know, yeah, but Byron by comparison, 1824, 19 April, 1824, and also a peer, but not Tori at all, and wound up dying while he was off, trying to join the fight for Greek indiscriminate Cyprus and Hungary. Yeah, so like, yeah, just the parallels hit me. They just live here convictions,

and then there's then who changed their convictions to live. There you go. So. Okay. Yeah. So he also created something, or he wrote something called letters from England, which he'd penned in a different name,

where he called out the inequities of British Classes through the eyes of a foreigner. Okay, so this must have been as a younger man, he wrote that. Uh, no, I think actually, yes, yes, yes, that was before the, that was before the great ideological flip. Okay, now none of that I'm focusing on today. And it's his history of Brazil that peaked my interest. Okay.

So because it was Robert Southe in that history, because he wrote, he spoke of travel and things like that. And in 1819, he wrote the history of Brazil wherein he first used the word, and this is the first English use of the word, zombie. Really? 1819. Okay.

Now it is an English adaptation of the Brazilian word, zombie, which I'm probably mispronouncing, but it's spelled without the e at the end. Okay. Yeah. Is that, do we know, is that taken from one of the African languages that got transported to Brazil with the enslaved people, or is that a Portuguese word?

No, it is an African word, actually, which I'm going to get into. The OED states that it's actually West African and origin, which lends a lot of credence to the Haitian connection to the word as well. There's even similarities between the word zombie, ZOMO-M-B-I, and the word zombie, N-Z-A-M-B-I, and Z-U-M-B-I, Z-U-M-B-I, Z-U-M-B-I, as well as Z-U-M-B. Okay, and so linguists could get into the m-m-m-v-um-bi. Okay, so. Now these are all in the Congo language, along with other Bantu languages, like Kimbundu, which have words like Nzumbi.

Now almost all of these have to do with a spirit or a deity who menaces and wanders the earth, some being specific enough to translate as a body without a soul. Okay. Various uses now. Okay, all right. Now Haiti, while under French rule, was people by enslaved peoples who were kidnapped and brought all over the, from West Africa, specifically what we now call Benin, Nigeria, Togo, the DRC, and several points in between.

The French whites were outnumbered roughly 10 to one by the people that they were all slaves. I was going to say, yeah, the enslaved people outnumbered them by a massive. Yep. Yeah. And so much so that by 1788, the number of people held in slavery in Haiti topped 7,700,000 people. Wait, yes. Stop. I'm sorry. In 1788. Yes. 700,000 people were enslaved. Yes. 100,000 people were enslaved. Yes. The island is not that big. No. Wow.

OK. The religion that those people who were enslaved carried with them, to homie traditions, Congo traditions, Yoruba traditions, were then synchronized, and pulling a word from your dune, with the Roman Catholicism of those who held them in slavery, the French. And they were mixed with the natives, the Tino, who had lived on Haiti and had been decimated by the Spanish, then further by the French.

The result ultimately is this kind of Creole religion, and I don't know if I'm using that word right, I think I am, because it's three different things. Yeah. And it was ultimately something that we came to know is voodoo. From voodoo. Right. Which is, there were so many different spellings of voodoo

as time went. Well, because spelling in English of English words was not fully standardized yet in the 17 years, early 1800s. But the one that I kept running into for this part of the podcast, at least, was VODOU. Yes. VODOU. Now, I'm not going to get too far into VODOU in this particular podcast.

I'm saving it for the Steven Segal episode when I explained Mark Ferdeth as a polemic diatribe on post-feminist dialectics and they're impact on parliamentary proceedings as carried out by the Labour Party of the 1970s. So that's coming. But I'm stoked. Most will be. I. It doesn't sound at all dry.

No, not in the least a little bit. But take the monotheism of Catholicism, such as it is. Mix it. Now, mix it with appealing to the saints. Yeah. And the real world directs. You don't even need to mix it with appealing to the saints. Yeah. And the real world direct. You don't even need to mix it with appealing to the saints. You appeal to the saints to act as your intermediaries.

Right. Because you know, you get into good word. Yeah. Anyway, you're only worshiping. Anyway. So keep going. And mix that with the real world direct impact that spirits have on us humans in the DeHomie, Yoruba, and Congo traditions.

Yeah. And then mix all that together and you get something called the Loa, which is. Also had 40 different spellings. I'm going with L-O-A, although it's from L-V-A, L-W-A. Oh, really? Yeah. I've only ever seen someone spelling.

Which tells me the whole thing. Which tells me the whole thing. Loa is very much an Americanization. Yeah, of something that Blah is is Oddly French sounding even though it's probably taken from I have an African language you're Ruben. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but but there's there's something there's something about that Right that that consonant construction. Yeah, That sounds very very francophone to me.

So the Loa, which in which you have these spirits called the Iwa and they interact with the divine creator. Yes. Known as Bondier or Grand Met on our behalf. So as a Catholic, I'm sure you can be like, yes, that's okay. Okay, yeah, that's there we go. Yeah, there's literally St. Bridget.

Yeah, there you go. Good. There's literally fairies of Iwa. Okay. And only 20% of them are actually known by name and that's an acknowledged fact of that religion. Okay, which I think is cool. Which makes sense, yeah.

It leaves room. Yeah. These Iwa have saintly analogs, of course. Yeah. Um, and most are divided into what are called hot and cool or petro and rada. Spirit. Okay, it really hot and cold. Mm-hmm. So, uh, very, very, very emotional, wrathful. Oh, okay. Very, very chill and calming. Yeah. Okay serene. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Now, a zombie can be created or summoned by a Bacor, which I've seen several spellings of that, who is basically a macro-mancer sorcerer.

Okay. Okay. Zombies in the Loa can either be corporeal and soulless slaves of the Bacor, or spirits without bodies who act like spiritual batteries. You actually can keep them in jars and they to power your mystical exactly stuff. To influence what's going on. So either you are a body without a solar, you're a soul without a body. So theoretically, a Bacore could act on someone or something and wind up creating two zombies

simultaneously. If they separated a soul from a body, they could create the battery and have the husk to do their bidding. That's entirely possible. Although perhaps you only get one shot. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Maybe you're only creating one of the other. Okay. Don't know. Don't practice. Okay. So yeah. But if you notice though, both are incomplete humans and thus

susceptible to dominion and domination. Okay. Okay. When your body is already held in bondage because you've been enslaved Such a fate is frightening because you can't escape even by dying Oh God yeah now Very often the French would identify who the book or was and make them the chief torture or the old term was overseer Yeah of this of the people they held in slavery. Wait, wait, wait, stop. Hold on, they co-opted this?

Yes. Wow. Yeah. Like, I mean, I knew that slavery was bad. Well, one, one, the slavery was bad universally. And I knew that the, the, trying to think what the right word is, but the way in which slavery was, was enforced or was, pursued by the French in Haiti was particularly cruel. Cruel, brutal. I did not realize that it was that psychologically

and spiritual, like directly spiritually brutal. Like no, no, we're going to take your spiritual practitioners and we're going to use them against you too, while we're engaging in the kind of sadistic tortures that would make the marquee decide, sit up and take notice. I mean, I'm not going to say it would like make him blush because I don't think that was doable. But like, he'd be, oh, what now? Yeah. That's messed up. That's creative. Right. You know, wow. That's a whole new level of fucked.

Yeah, well, and it just goes to show what you can do when you keep people from being able to eat. You know, now you've turned a spiritually significant person against their own and turn them against, like you've created a situation, yeah, it's bad. You can see why Haiti revolted. Yeah, you've, and the amount of editing I had to do

to pull stuff out because there's a lot of actual connections between Voodoo and to St. Louis overture as well as a pop-a-doc later on. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now, he did it much more nefariously, but to say he absolutely made use of this and it actually empowered his people. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. It was really quite something, but had to cut somewhere. So, anyway, in the 1800s, the Haitian government had a very specific law on the books, recognizing what a zombie was. I'm going to quote, also, shall be qualified as attempted murder of the employment, which may be made by any person of substances, which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the administering of such substances, the person has been buried, the act shall be considered murder, no matter what result follows.

Oh, okay. So now this is the reason that I asked about serpent and the rainbow. Because the movie, the serpent and the rainbow is based on the book, the serpent and the rainbow, which is to condense things a bit, the TLDR version, is it is a realistic in air quotes story about zombification. And I assume you're going to get into the actual, yes, okay, I will be getting to it.

I assume in the process of talking about this law We're now going to move into talking about the actual herbalism and Stuff that was okay to explain the real world Okay, okay, okay, yeah, I get into that less so because I'm looking at this more as how zombies are depicted. Okay. Over time in popular movies. Okay. So I want you to jump in with that stuff when it comes up.

Okay. So anyway, so that's, that was the law that was on the books. Yeah. You know, it's still murder, even if you can solve a fight. Even, even if they come back up out of the ground, it's still murder. Still counts. So now the process of this was that the individual who was trying to zombie-fi somebody, a balkor,

would administer a drug and herb, I don't remember what the mixture was, that would actually induce a death-like state and they would subject people who were in this state to burial and then wait long enough for them to wake up and then dig them up if I'm remembering correctly. And then basically these folks believed they had been turned into zombies. Yes. Yes.

The psychological impact of it was, oh my God, I'm, I, he, he has zombified me. Right. And, and trying to, I went through the ritual. I went through the ritual, therefore, and, and there's a whole long list of things that like, if you're the bokehore, you want to make sure

that your zombies don't do this that or the other thing Because then they're going to remember their lives and their families and they'll go back Right which to a scientific rational mind means they're not actually undead Right, you haven't actually killed them you you program you've you've yeah, it's brainwashing and like and And like, and so there's this whole fascinating layer of psychology and folklore and like deprogramming. That's that gets involved when you're talking about the real world practice of this stuff. And when you bring up the law being on the books,

I just think, you know, that's the time to kind of mention that. Yeah, sure. So anyway, Karen, we're gonna fast forward because as fascinating as the liberation of Haiti is, it's a sad ass story where the United States intervenes and interferes almost immediately economically to empower them and set up a history of over 200 years of Haiti

just gets fucked by them right next to like, bad shit. But I do wanna zoom forward to 1915 where the United States occupies Haiti. So from 1915 to 1934, the United States occupied Haiti. And the word and the concept of zombie worked its way into popular US culture by this point. Now, 1915 is we are not yet in World War II.

This is true, but we also have a birth of a nation. We have big films, right? Movies as being an importer of the national stories. I find it interesting that we're specifically hearing the title Birth of a Nation in relationship to our occupation of a majority black island. Yes. I'm just like, I'm teeing that one up for you

because I see that coming. Oh yeah. Yeah, okay. And it goes all the way to 1934. So that gets all the way to the talking. Oh, she made it Christmas. Okay. So yeah, now since the 1930s was a huge time for horror movies to explode.

Oh, okay. It's no surprise that White Zombie came onto the big screen in 1932. Okay. And yeah, because of course they had to point out white zombie the same way they made a big deal about white slavery Because it's only really a horror movie if it's happening to white women. Oh, yeah, okay now what Yeah, it gets worse. So What zombie movies started as what they meant at the time, and what they have turned into post 1968,

it's really a tale of two kinds of zombie movies. Now, we might find ways to parse it after 1968 as well, but quite frankly, 1968 is the watershed moment. So everything prior to 68, you're gonna see one type of zombie movie. Okay. And then everything after 1968, again, in the American system, you're going to see a different kind of zombie movie. Okay. So because the Italians loved making erotic zombie movies for some reason, it was weird post 1968. Okay, wait. Yeah. Stop me. Okay. wait, yeah, stop me okay, well, no don't stop me hold up. Okay, um

Erotic zombie movies. Yeah, it was a Spanish and the Italians both really like making erotic zombie films with with the same Lore surrounding zombies that they are corpses. Yeah Okay, yeah kids were does does does like there's even Kung fu movie. Well, okay. No, I can't get post-sombie movies. I'm talking post-six. Well, yeah, I know, but that's post-World War II post,

like, I mean, in Spain, that's still Franco. Yeah. But the relationship between having had a fascist government and having that particular kink. Like I don't want to, I don't far be it for me to kink shame, but that one is alien enough to me. Yeah. Like there's I think that there's some aspects of it where I mean we're talking post 68 so erotica as cinema is a pretty common thing. Yeah. So you're kind of combining like well, okay, well, let's put like we've already figured out peanut butter and chocolate. Yeah, why don't we try rice checks and chocolate? Okay, why don't we try, okay, you know, we checks and chocolate, okay, you know, and just kind of

Yeah, okay, but but there was enough of it that they kept making them too Okay, which yeah, which which honestly having rice checks in the Nutella kind of a nice crunch Yeah, maybe not for everybody. Okay, but yeah little dabble do you okay corpses. Yeah, no dabs. Thank you Anyway moving on. Yeah, so Yeah, we're gonna of course do any points in between as well. So yeah white zombie. Yeah, so, yeah, we're gonna, of course, talk to him at any point in between as well. So, white zombie. Okay, what yes, white zombie.

Takes the idea of a zombie. From the zeitgeist of American horror literature and theater. Okay. Now the US was occupying Haiti, so it was a new place for some sort of fetishization of black folks for the authors. Yeah. Now we talk about William B. Seabrook.

I don't know if you've heard of his name. I have not. Okay. He wrote a book in 1929 on Haitian voodoo. Now Seabrook was an American occultist and a traveler who wrote about it at a time where such things were allowed to occur unmolisted by things like ethics or veracity. Okay.

Okay. Think of a more irritating version of Hemingway. Okay. That's Seabrook. Or Herodotus. Yes. I mean, you know, but what's the very focused on his masculinity as a defining feature? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, still Herodotus, but okay, I get what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Now, a year after his trip to Haiti, Seabull claimed to have taken part in a ritualistic cannibal right in West Africa, for instance. Okay. Okay, so he goes to Haiti, I believe in 1929.

And then... He must have been just so much fun at parties. That's funny, you mentioned that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I did. Yeah, I ate people. I ate people. Yeah. Now while you're gonna be a one-uper. Yeah, that's true that he traveled to West Africa.

Okay. He later stated that he was in fact barred by the tribe from the ritual and that instead that he got some human flesh from a nearby hospital and cooked it himself. Oh, yeah, that's not fucking creepy. Right. And he talks about it for a paragraph about how it's closest to Ville, but you know, it's some of the state. I mean, it is not worth including, quite honestly. Yeah. But I found a sociology journal editor at the time. And here's what she said of his book. She said, quote, with a black sorceress as a companion, he penetrates forbidden paths to view circumcision rights, and he gets on intimate enough terms with a royal minstrel to indulge in confidential sides and on their ceremonies. After achieving such intimacy with the natives, it is not surprising

that the authors rose off the civilized inhibitions against cannibalism, and indulges in a stake from a freshly killed man. In spite of the author's effort to lead us jointly along these primitive, among these primitive people, and make us recognize beneath their customs, as well as their skins, a close kinship, they remain exotic creatures without common humanity, which one finds in the African of Mary King's Lee West African studies. Wow. So that's what somebody reviewing West African studies. Wow. So that's what somebody reviewing the book said.

Wow. About him. So he made shit up whole cloth. I know. Yeah. Now he claimed it consistently throughout, but it just, it feels very much like tall tail meets Explorer's Club of like the late 1800s,

like Serenade Curtain Shit. Yeah, and it's tall tales. Yeah. Yeah. Now without having read all of his book, the best I can figure is that he's talking about the Cron tribe, which he refers to in his book called the, and he calls them the Gouare. Okay. He knew E.R.E. and there's an accent over the E.

Okay. They're an ethnic group from modern day Liberia and Cote d'Au-Wah. We used to call it the Ivory Coast. Yeah. They call themselves Cote d'Au-Wah, but I don't know French very well. That's actually not too bad. Oh, thank you. As you're French pronunctions go, that's not bad. Now, no account that I found has linked the Cron or the Garapéple to cannibalism, ritual or otherwise. There is animism, there are offerings to bush spirits and the like, but there's no cannibalism. I think there's even stuff about masks that they really get into. Regardless, Seabrook appeared to be well traveled enough before this trip to go to Haiti.

He'd long been an occultist, even having Aleister Crowley stay with him for a while. Well, okay. Yeah. Having Aleister Crowley on your resume is not exactly a glowing character recommendation. Probably not. Oh, probably. No, no, no. But if you're going for occultist cred, he got kicked out of the order of the Golden dawn for being an asshole. Yes, but if you're going for a cultist prayer, not, not, you know, white magician could, but okay, yeah, well, I mean, very white, but not, you know, Glinda the Good Witch, right, white magician cred. Yeah, no, I just momentary aside,

sure, Crowley was an asshole and a creep and probably a rapist. So like anyway, so just need to get that out. Absolutely. Clear the air about that before we move on. So okay, anyway. So in 1929, Seabrook wrote the Magic Island, okay, where he became the first American and by extension English language writer to bring the concept of zombie into the American zeitgeist. Oh. With him as it's conduit, you can imagine what movie started out as.

Oh my God. So he does this in 29, white zombie comes out in 1932. It is still regarded as the first feature length zombie movie ever. It's not a good one either, but you gotta look at its source material. Yeah, okay. And weirdly its source material both is and isn't Seabrook's The Magic Island. There was a Broadway play simply called Zombie by Kenneth Webb. Kenneth Webb based it off the Magic Island. However, the screenplay was taken much more from the Magic Island, which is what

helped them to avoid a successful lawsuit by web at the time. For, hey, you stole my play and made it a movie. And like, it's called Blitz on me. I don't know what you mean. Yeah. Now, Bellow the Ghosty, fresh off Dracula, baffled so many people by taking a role in this movie.

The movie itself had an enemic budget. It was an 11 day shooting schedule. It had unproven directors. Now, you remember, an 11-day shooting schedule back then was fairly normal because think about like, well, they're cranking out, they're cranking out units all the time. Who am I thinking? The Keystone cops, those guys. Yeah, they were cranking out, you know, like, it was, it was all formula, it was all, you know, and being a movie actor was a work day punch clock. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I get that, but still. Now, Lugosi did command a salary of $5,000,

which is, I believe, a lot of money. Well, since the budget was $50,000. Yeah. Okay. So, so, yeah, he was the draw. Yes. What you said is, like, he's a fellow yeah, he was the draw. Yes, what you said is they could say yes Bella Lucy in white zombie. Yes, yeah, absolutely His name is above the title. Yeah, well, um, and he did 10 days of work on an 11 day shoot. Okay, five thousand dollars So most of the rest of the crew and cast were falling out of eat. Yeah Most of the rest were falling stars from the silent film era, so that kept the budget low.

Okay. Now, Lugosi plays a white Haitian voodoo master named Murder Legendaire. Okay. A white guy who looks vaguely Asian, by the way. So cue the Orientalism here. Sure, yeah. Exactly. Like across the board, exoticism.

Yes. But very much like we are talking, there is an aspect of what Sayid would later call Orientalism. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Which is a team that kind of keeps going. No, I mean, so much that you've got not just the Orientalism in the movie, but also the fetishization of black religions.

Oh yes, quite so. Like it's just like, oh hey, look at all these not white folks. Right, right. And here's all these white folks in the middle in the middle of this terrifying scary Bunch of all of yeah, yeah so He uses his voodoo powers to zombify the leading lady who's played by Mag Bellamy

Who is the love interest of a plantation owner and the Beyonce to a banker? Okay, yeah, so we have a love triangle to start with. Yes. Between a plantation owner. Between a plantation. Running on the leading lady name. Yeah. The leading lady's name is Mag Bellamy. I forget what character's name. Okay. And so plantation owner loves her. So that's why you know he's inviting everybody to Haiti. Okay. And then there's a banker who's her fiance. So of course you got to bring your boyfriend.

Oh wow. There's also a former high executioner. Oh, because, you know, like you do. Dead people movie, okay. A former witch doctor who used to be legend Dre's own teacher and a few other characters. Okay, all right. I just want to say, Matt Delamy was quite the beauty.

Honestly, she doesn't look that different from Lillian Gish. This is true, but there you go. I mean, you know, I'm a sucker for Brunettes. Yeah, so there you are. So, okay, yeah, anyway. I got all these other people. By the way, none of them are black. None of them. None of them.

None of them. Not that I could find pictures. Wait, the former witch doctor? Or retired? Really? Okay. I mean, you could look up on an anti-division. So the scary spiritualism is clearly African,

but there aren't any African people showing up in like speaking parts. There's one. Oh no. Oh no. He's a chauffeur. Ah,. There's one. Oh no. Oh no. He's a chauffeur. Ah, for fuck's sake. So in many ways.

Not even working on the plantation. Right. Do we see? Right. Right. Oh my god. Okay. None that would get screen time.

They might be background problems. Okay. All right. Yeah. Like a Miley Cyrus video when she first got started. Yeah. Oh my god. Okay. So in in many ways it's a classic Dracula story quite honestly. You just It kind of sounds like it. The lore is altered. Yeah. But the beats are basically the same. Yeah. And you have a Moriarty versus home's ending complete with a cliff and something

falling off. No kidding. Now what's worth noting here is besides all the casual racism, is that zombies? Is it really that casual? I mean, it's like latent, but I don't know if I'd say casual. Like, I feel like it's not casual. But then was it that intense? That's what gets me. Okay, yeah.

Casual but overwhelming. Yes, that's a good way. Okay, yeah. Kind of like my shirt. I don't find it over. Okay, slide us. But you get the joke. I'm for those because of course this is an audio medium.

I'm wearing a very loudly pattern Hawaiian shirt. Yeah, it's cool colors though. Yeah, so it doesn't. Yeah, okay. But anyway, so, and shirt. Yeah, it's cool color. So it doesn't. Yeah, okay. But anyway, so, anyway, besides that, the notable thing is that a zombie is controlled by another intelligence here. Yes.

And throughout this movie, the zombies do the bidding of Murder Legendre, Legendre. Legendre. Legendre. Legendre. Legendre. Yeah. Whatever. I'm imagining how it's spelled. It's legend with RE at the end. Yeah. Legendra. Legendra. There you go. And my pronunciation is great either, but that's at a proximate. Where you try to pronounce all the things. Legandray. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. And no word would end like that. But what do you put in a D in the car next to each other? Legenda, legenda, rousse. Yeah, anyway, you're coming. So that which must be bread. Yeah. That's what it means. That's what the word legend comes from. Oh, yeah.

That's what it means. OK. So anyway, once the intelligence is taken off the board or taken out of the picture, the zombies lose direction and purpose, ambling off the board or taken out of the picture, the zombies lose direction and purpose Ambling off the nearest cliff Okay, and the zombies can be anyone, but if they're the leading lady they can be redeemed through the power of I don't know plot love lady owners. I don't know. Okay. Yeah her love for her fiance

It's never quite clear why she's able to redeem other than the fact that the plot demands that the original be rescued and return to status quo pro anti. Yeah. Okay. Now, zombies here are the victims. Okay. They are the victims. Now, they're also all white victims. So, the horror in this paradigm is the threat of becoming a zombie.

Yes. Okay. You could lose your agency as a white person due to this Oriental magic practice by a white man in the South Caribbean, which is full of black people. Right. Right. Yeah. We won't even mention them because they don't show the film. They don't know how to show up in the film. But yes. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Now. Okay. Now, they're also all white victims who are first killed by potions of some sort and then dug back up and zombified. So now we've got desecration corpses. Oh, desecration corpses. And also the fear of being buried alive. No, you're dead when you go.

Well, I mean, I understand, but the idea of, you're dead when when you get well, I mean, I understand. But the the idea of like you're identifying with the person who's being buried. Oh, sure. Sure. And and like even though they're not conscious, you're thinking of your own body going into the grave. Potentially. Potentially. You're thinking about being buried alive. And anyway, there's more than more than the subrosis psychology. More than you don't get to rest in peace. Okay. All right. And anyway, I think there's more than the psychology more that you don't get to rest in peace. Okay. All right. You know, so a movie based in Haiti, where the only black person is the chauffeur, who was not a zombie. Yeah. Which I find this fascinating. And I did some digging on this actor,

just because I love these kinds of rabbit holes. His name is Clarence Mews, and he played this part. And he had not started out to be an actor. In fact, Clarence Mews and he played this part. Uh, and he had not started out to be an actor. In fact, Clarence Mews was originally enrolled in Dickinson's School of Law to become a lawyer. But he quit after 1908, as he saw a little chance of a black man getting to make a living in Pennsylvania as a lawyer. Okay. So then he moved up to New York to make a living as a stage actor in Harlem. Which you could do.

Yeah. Yeah. Which he did. And he was doing quite well for himself as a Lafayette player. There's a Lafayette theater. It's very, very famous in the Harlem Renaissance. He ended up in Hollywood by way of Chicago. And then he started in film. Second build in Hearts of Dixie, which is the first all black talkie. Oh wow. And now Hearts of Dixie, which is the first all black talky. Oh wow. And now Hearts of Dixie, which none of this has to do with zombies, but I love the story

of Charlie Hughes. Hearts of Dixie was a kind of like American graffiti, very loosely tied plot, connecting through music, several stories that are just kind of joining. Kind of hang in there out there adjacent and me either the through line. But it was still very much a white representation of several black stereotypes. Okay. Muse was in and out of the top bill

for the rest of his career in Hollywood. He also continued Vaudville Opera and was even the first black director of a Broadway play in 1943. Oh wow. Called Run Little Chillin. Okay, because of course in 1943. Well, here's the thing though, this particular one was actually a very fubu type of play.

It was made by Black folks, for Black folks to consume. And it was called a folk opera, and it's basically a musical drama from the Harlem Renaissance. Oh, yeah, so it's actually very cool. Anyway, he was the only black person credited in that film. And he was not in any way connected to the voodoo that was represented in that film, which is really odd to me since it's on the island of Haiti, which is, again, 10 to 1 black to white or more after the revolution. Yeah.

Which, I mean, the religion itself is West African and then brought over and then mixed with Tino. Yeah. Like it is a very black thing. And yet the one black guy in the whole film is completely divorced from all of it. Yeah. So this movie gets largely panned. Okay. Uh, there was one theme that did seem to crop up in some of the reviews that I read though, uh, in this silver screen fetishization of a book that seemed more interested in learned details than an examination of the actual aspects of one part of Haitian culture, it's still pretty obvious that it was 1932. And that a zombie, in addition to everything that I mentioned so far, could also be an allegory for class exploitation under capitalist and colonial

colonial systems, especially when you said it in Haiti. And the reviewers were not immune to seeing that. However, it is white on whiteness, including a plantation owner and a banker. I cannot emphasize that relationship enough. They are the saviors of the white maiden and they're the unduers of the voodoo white guy who looks vaguely Asian, and they become the heroes of the tale. And that leads me to think that they actually got it right completely by accident.

Yeah. Yeah. That it was a movie that talked about class exploitation under capitalism and colonialism, but by accident, because I think subconsciously what really was happening on a dog whistle level was that they were making a point about Bolshevism and international jewelry. Probably. It's 1932. It's Hollywood. Yeah. Okay. And since it's one of the select few American horror films that's approved by the Nazis in Germany,

I think it's probably more what I just Posited than it is my hope that it was class exploitation. Okay, wait. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, yeah. Okay. Wait. Yeah, okay wait Right so The Nazis looked at like it works. Yeah long-chainy is the wolf man and said no right like no, no, no, no None of that none of that right this shit. Yeah, no this this it okay this fits with our ideas of race

But everybody in the movies fucking white this fits with their ideas of race. I well, okay There's okay granted but and you've got a vaguely Eastern Who who to to the Nazi critics? He didn't look Asian. He looked Slavic. Yes Gonna because it is, that's fucking disgusting. Well, because it is Belmogosis. Yes, so he was Slavic. Yeah. Yes, so it's international jewelry,

they're making a zombie of us that, and it's these two white guys, a landowner, and a very bad man. These are like, these burly, Aryan men are gonna go. Yeah. Oh my God. It hurts. It does. It's, it hurts. men are gonna go yeah oh my god hurts it does it's fucking hurts I bet you when I started talking about white zombie you didn't think oh this is on the approved list for the 90 yeah no like gerbils no yeah this is good yeah no no you know and the thing is I'm amazed I'm amazed that any

hormone I mean knowing what I know yes about you know from I mean, knowing what I know about, you know, from the record, what we know about the people who were in the highest echelons of the Nazi party, like that any horror movies got through, because the whole genre is on some level transgressive, like in order to be a horror movie, there has to be some level of subversion of something.

Yes. And like everybody in the highest ranks at the Nazi party was using the hardest drugs and like, yes, just completely blitzed out of their minds in any number of different ways. But they were all fucking prigs. Yes. Such, such sticks up their ass.

I mean, part of their night of long knives was to get rid of the guys who like to fuck. Yeah. Ernst Rome. Yeah. Fuck it. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, well, it wasn't just because he liked it, but that was certainly help that was that was like well You know and on top of the fact that he's in the way to our march to power, right? He likes to fuck he gets laid a lot, right? And that's just right. That's not morally upright

Well also the people who are planning on committing mass murder. Yes, well, and but anyway keep in mind he was also Very gay and very out about it. Oh, oh, yeah I was and there's a stone-called badass. Like he was a guy with a thousand yard stare after a battle who would just as soon snap your neck as like, we're sure a walnut, that's her and sroom. Really? He was fucking really hard at this.

Yeah, okay. And well, he was the leader of the SA. So, like, you'd kind of expect that. And that's the kind of guy you want to be in charge of it until you're like oh shit Like he he's really about we got you're right at that guy. Yeah, so he's gay So yeah, you know there you go, but boy did he love to fuck wow Love to fuck all right anyway, so

Yeah, so the Nazis were totally down for this movie which was yeah in Haiti and talking about African-based religions and looking being a looming threat to down for this movie which was said in Haiti and talking about African based religions and looking at moving threat to. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Wow. Now a fun detail about the opening of this film was that in Quebec, Canada, they redid the edifice of the theater to make it look more like a house of horrors and they had zombies

walking around on top of the marquee. Oh, no kidding. So you had a zombie walk. No kidding. In Quebec, Canada. Oh well. Yeah. So cool.

Now as often happens with movies in the 1930s, they tried for a sequel. We've seen this, wouldn't we talk about Batman, right? Yeah, yeah. Although that was the 40s, but same. But as often also happens, this desire to make money means a total lack of fidelity to the original piece in question.

Yes. Still given the source material, that's also not a bad thing. That's thematically appropriate. Now, of course, owing to a lawsuit, they could not promote it as a sequel because shit's weird. Okay, wait, yeah. Law suit from the guy that wrote the play? No, this was a different lawsuit. I think there's a distribution company involved and and a studio involved, and the create.

So they just, they fucked everybody up. Yes, so you couldn't market it as, oh, if you love White Zombie, you'll love this one. Yeah, it couldn't, but it, thematically, it's a sequel, you couldn't call it, it's a sequel. Now, it had the same director, even just recycled some of the same shots from the first film.

Well, because why wouldn't you? But beyond that, there's little else that remains. It's shorter. Now here's where it gets weird. It starts in Europe. Okay. Yeah. And I believe this one is from,

let's see, the first one was 32. So I think this one is 1934. And I don't think I wrote down the title, but it's shorter. It starts in Europe. It completely issues the Haitian origins and it goes whole hog into Orientalism. And again, it's a fetishization of Eastern NIS, right? You're looking at me as scouts. Okay, so wait. So zombies as a phenomenon. Yes as a

thing are rooted like absolutely rooted. Yes. Incontrovertibly in in West African spirituality and the syncretism from that into voodoo. Oh, by the way, this one is, but in 1936, and it's called revolt of the zombies. Revolt of the zombies. Okay. So go on. So it's absolutely rooted in African spirituality, Yes, and they're they they somehow transposed Easternism, uh-huh into this yeah Did they attend was it just vaguely Asian or do they try to say you know Chinese sorcery? No, like Cambodian. Camp Cambodian. I mean because because nobody and they go to Ang what's Angkor what thank you that one? Yeah, they go there and okay. Yeah

They for a zombie movie. Yes, they go to Angkor, what yes, which is Buddhist. Yes A tradition that doesn't have anything to do with zombies and has no lore about zombies. Good, you seem to have a part with us. Yeah, okay. So they end up in Cambodia, post-World War I. Okay. With all sorts of post-World War I colonial allies. Yeah.

There's a guy from this country, a guy from that country. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know the whole, the whole, and their boxer rebellion redux. No, no, yeah, yeah, I know the whole, the whole, and their box of rebellion, redux. No, no, no, no, this is French, in Do-China stuff. Uh-huh. Yeah, so that's what they're aiming at

because they go there and they're like, how come the Cambodians just don't want to work anymore? Oh, fuck you. All right, okay. And for some reason, there's a woman there with them because plot, and then the focus because you have to have a vulnerable Woman to drive all the men to go rescuer I mean, duh. Yeah, like come on. So the focus becomes

Fixated on turning her into a zombie for the purpose of becoming the antagonist love slave Okay, Rinssen like like, understand, that's the only, the villain's motive is the only part of this I look at and it makes sense. Right. Like, but again, zombie equals enslavement by a malevolent intelligence. Yeah, loss of agency.

Yes. Threatened agency of a white woman. Right. By somebody who is, in this this case the bad guy is not even vaguely Asian he's like explicitly I'm guessing a Cambodian sorcerer. No, I know But now because you don't want to even threaten miscegenation. Oh, yeah, silly me. Yeah, right Of course. Yeah, now what I really like about this like say rain could be lusted after by a great ape But like you know other human races like off the table. No, no, that's not whatever

I would I really like the idea that you brought this up to and you said that a woman's agency. Yeah In in the 30s right. Yeah a woman's agency. Yeah. And in the 30s. Right. Yeah. Like, I can't have your own bank account. Right.

I can't buy your own car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but to me, but still, still, got to protect her virtue. Her virtue has to be what it's about. Yeah.

Yeah. The more remarkable part to me was the more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed.

The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed.

The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. The more things changed. you could have said it in post boxer rebellion China. You could have would have been. You could have kept in the Navy. I'm in St. Louis.

You could have, you could have. Yeah, you could have put it in Cuba. You could have put it anywhere in South America. You could have put it almost anywhere in Africa. You could have put it in Louisiana. Yeah, I mean, you know, you're absolutely right. Um, wow. All right.

Okay, so there were a few other movies at that time that featured zombie-ness. Okay. But I found that I was needing to nuance this a little bit because just because zombies are a feature of a movie doesn't mean they are the feature of the movie. Yeah, they're not the central focus. Yeah, it's not the main plot.

So in 1934 there was a movie called Maniac, for instance, but it was really just this exploitation film which drew inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat. Oh, okay. Which I had never heard of The Black Cat It was really just a sexploitation film, which drew inspiration from Edgar Allan posed the black cat. Oh, okay. Which I had never heard of the black cat until Janet Jackson sang her song. Yeah.

So I assumed the lyrics would be the same as the poem. I was wrong. Yes. But it definitely got reanimation as a central point. Okay. And it's really about sexploitation scenes though. Yeah. Well, I watched some of it. Yeah. It was 1930 about sexploitation scenes though. I watched some of it.

It was 1930's sexploitation. So women walk around in their underwear, but the underwear is way more modest than our outerwear. The hour and in fairness, it's a shit ton hotter out now. So I'm fine with whatever people want to wear. But yeah, and they had all these women talking about these guys that they're dating, and there's one, she puts like this strap around her butt, and then it jiggles her. It's one of those old timing.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Watch it, watch it, watch it, watch it. Yeah. And, you know, they're just, wow. They're bending over, so you can see a hint of cleavage, you know, this is 1934. Yeah. Well, so all of that is, that's the 1934 equivalent of porquies. Yes. yeah.

And, and this was on the, there was a sex exploitation circuit of film houses. That was a thing. And so the zombies, it was this, but it was, it was as a, as a vehicle for some else. Yeah, I mean, it's in the same way that sorority house mass occurs, isn't really about the dangers of pledge week or serial killers. They're there, but it's really about the boobies. Which by the way, there's a few fun scenes in it.

Mostly hearing people's reaction to someone getting killed because they think it's sex. It's not funny. So. Now, this movie gets renamed as Sex Maniac, and then it runs on the exploitation circuit, with alongside the movie Narcotic, with an exclamation point. Pfff.

Pfff. Pfff. Pfff. Pfff. Pfff. You know, they don't even have the excuse that the art form was young for these titles. Right. You know, they don't even have the excuse that the art form was young for these titles. Like, you know, you've complained in the past about early science fiction novels.

Like, that's the title, really. I'm listening to this narcotic. Well, seriously. Now keep in mind, these two movies, right? They came out in 34. Yeah. They predate sex madness and refer madness by two years. So they're not even good enough to be the iconic ones.

Yeah. Ah. You've by the way, they might be the Trump originators, but they're not the codifiers. Exactly. Yeah. Which by the way, if you watch refer madness, I don't know if you ever have. I have not. Okay. I've seen clips that I've never seen the whole movie. I have a copy of Sex Madness. Okay. And oh my god is it awful. I mean, she had sex

with somebody, you know, before she got married. Yeah. And so she didn't know she had syphilis. And now her child is, I think they use the word mongoloid in the film because of course it was 1936. But her child is so completely formed. Oh my God, it's a lump and she feels so guilty and yeah and it just like. But that's, you know what, maybe we should talk about What do we want to call moral hygiene films? Yeah, it is it's own top as its own thing. Yeah, now there's another movie called god Uwanga OU and GA in 1936 okay, this feature to black female lead okay? So follow me on this this

This plot line. Okay. Gorn lover turns to Goudou to get her white lover back. Okay. So already there are relationship is itself automatic. Yeah. For the time of the time. It's, it's transgressive. Yes.

Good way to put it. Uh, now it's clumsy. It's unremarkable. It's fucking tired ass movie. Like it's just not, I watch so many shitty zombie movies for this. I've been an actor one. So that's four movies in four years that have zombies in them where previously none existed.

So something's hot here. Now it doesn't mean all of them have zombies in set their core, but they're all touching on it at least. And a few other movies did touch on Voodoo, but the zombies aren't to focus during the war years at all. Yeah. That novelty has faded to the background of other aspects that are far more exploitable. The next time that you see a zombie heavily featured in a movie is 1941, and now it's in a comedy.

So this makes a lot of sense from a zeitgeist perspective. There's a war on, it's a huge war, it's it's essentially terrifying. We need's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's but easily fight frightened black man servant. And there's a zombie, voodoo ritual, and a basement. And as usual, the zombie stop being zombies when the one in charge loses his agency. Okay, so the sorcerer gets, yeah, taking out of the equation. Exactly. And everybody, okay.

Oh, where am I? What happened? Yeah, the spell is broken. Right. Okay. So there are other reanimation of corpse movies that happen throughout the 40s as well, but reanimation of corpse doesn't necessarily make it a zombie. Because when they get reanimated, they typically have an intelligence.

Okay. Um, but the ones where they are reanimated as zombies, there is still a malevolent intelligence directing them or there's some sort of mad scientist who's doing a life swap or longing a with science and That's not to say that there aren't you didn't say that correctly with science science Now it's not to say that there aren't zombie movies that are serious still But it's a pretty cookie cutter formula by this point white woman goes into the Caribbean because reasons She she encounters voodoo somehow, usually by watching a ritual. Somebody ends up zombified, which always is under the sway of someone else specifically directed at the main white

woman or prominent woman at least. In 1943, I walked with a zombie, is one of the better main zombie films by that point, and it did a better job of representing the dignity and complexity of the beliefs and culture of voodoo than did any of its predecessors. Okay, so I walked with a zombie in 1943. There's also more respectful attention given to the history of black folks in the Caribbean there as well as the Black people in the film themselves. It still centers a white woman as the trope heavy avatar of all the evils of slavery and predation upon people with such an institution, but with the heliwana's 1914. Now it seems to, this movie I walked with a zombie, seems to have taken a fair amount from an article by Inaz Wallace, which was published in American Weekly magazine, which was a semi-tabloid semi-readers digest magazine that went from the 1890s to 1966. It was like

kind of like, well I mean it really was like the the inquire in that it was on really shitty paper. So a lot of it doesn't exist and it's been lost at the sands of time. Oh wow. Yeah. But in this magazine, I know it's described running into people who were zombie-like, whose vocal cords were fried from drug use, who worked on a Haitian plantation, and they were reduced to ambling and following simple orders by those who ran the plantations. I mean, honestly, if you watch the movie Tak with Liam Neeson, half the girls that have been kidnapped are reduced to that state. Okay.

And that's induced as part of the plot, it is a known fact that it's not any kind of weird mystical mumbo jumbo, but it is, no, no, this can actually be done to you. Yeah. Through scientific, you know, chemical methods, the narcotic drugs. Okay. Now that was, I know Wallace's article, right? Okay.

And this movie was based on it. Okay. Now, as zombie movies go, it was definitely stuck to the formula, but it did seem to have a better approach than its predecessors by yards. Now in the same year, 43, yep. I always get a kick out of the fact when two things hit in the same year.

And I think it's because when I was young in, not too young actually, I was probably 20, 21. Armageddon and Deep Impact came out. Yeah. On in the same year. Yeah. And it was just like, whoa, that's oddly specific. Well, here we go.

Here we go. And now, Revenge of the Zombies is clearly a remake of King of the Zombies, which I just mentioned. However, this time it's about scientists trying to make Nazi zombies for Hitler, which is the first one I found. Wait, yes. Wait, wait, yes. Wait, hold the phone. Uh-huh. You mean to tell me that the trope of zombie Nazis has been around since the actual war. Yes. Has been around since the actual war.

Yes. Nazis, zombies. Okay. I think it's, yeah, yeah, not the algae first. For ideology, follow, it's okay. So, but you mean to tell me. Yes. Like, that's not just a post-nighters-of-the-living dead.

Oh, no. What do we do? What do we do to make the prize money for? I always surprised when we found other ones after night living dead. Yeah. Because I was like, oh, I figure this time and then of course dead snow.

Oh no, there were several others after night living dead that were Nazi zombies as well. But you go all the way back to 43 during the war. During? I mean, while the... There are actual living Nazis. Yeah. While the U.O. campaign...

On the battlefields of Europe. Really doing a bang-up job on... Yeah. ...shipping. And... And we've got a movie about Nazis. Nazis zombies. Okay.

Yeah. Wow. Now what's fun to note about this particular film was that there were a lot of interesting stars in it. And that a zombie actually shows free will and almost overpowers the main zombie making scientist. Again, it was, I mean, yes, it was caught up. You still have the same idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's wrinkle it this way instead. Okay. And it goes a little against time. Now John Caridine, the patriarch of the Caridine family in Hollywood. Really? Yeah, yeah.

Robert Lowry. Oh, well, okay. These are some big names for the time. Do you remember who Robert Lowry was? Vagely. He was in the same Batman movie. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Madam Soule Téwan.

Now, a name like that, I had to dig a little more, right? She was famously the first black woman to have a contract with a studio. Oh, okay. Yeah. And James Baskin. You might know him as Uncle Remus. Really?

Yes. Okay. So right there, I've already named two African-American actors, two black Yes, right? Yeah, but beyond this, it's a paint by numbers zombies or mental slaves movie Save for the fact that it was the first time that a zombie wasn't explained at all It was just understood that zombies are a thing now Okay, I found that interesting and these are in these are mad science zombies as opposed to to sorceress right zombies

Okay, all right are mad science zombies as opposed to to sorceress right zombies right okay all right people were just assumed to know what a zombie was when I think of this film now now they are mindless in this film mostly mostly mindless they don't they they lack will yeah which is interesting uhhuh. That it would be Nazi zombies when so much of Nazi propaganda ideology, whatever you wanna call it, had to do with, you know, the will of the vulk and, you know, the power of will being a thing. Yes.

And this is a movie that portrays the overwhelming majority of the Nazis. You see on screen, as nearly mindless, will less. I would say that most propaganda against the Nazis and against Germany would also point out that they were not individuals like us Americans. No, they were bending. Their will had been subsumed to that Hitler. Yeah, so yeah, no, I mean, yeah No, I mean that makes sense, but I just I find the juxtaposition interesting and I'm still getting over you know

Nazi zombies in 1943. Yes, so now I got I have one other question. Sure was it Explicitly the case in the film that the Nazi zombies were corpses that had been reanimated or were they still living but had been zombie five mentally okay yeah okay now does that because that's because that's that's an important a process wherein their death occurred but okay but they were not like they had a heartbeat yes they were not they were not rotting corpses. They still they still had personhood. Okay.

Okay. Okay. If not you know, not agencies, but personhood. Okay. Thank you. Now throughout the 1940s, zombie movies were either of this basic formula or they were comedies. Zombies made for really good background menaces to the real menacing intelligences that are in the formula.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the 1950s, we got to add atomic science to it. Nuclear zombies. Yes. All right. And this still seems to have the same zombies as controlled by someone else, five, though. Yeah.

OK, however, what do you get when you drop fat man on a city full of zombies? A whole lot of dead zombies. A whole lot of zombies that glow in the dark. Oh, anyway. So I had to play with that joke format in this context. So anyway, carry on. So in 1957, Voodoo Island is a movie.

Sorry, that just based on the current zip guys, that sounds so much like a reality show. Yeah, now it gets better. Okay. Voodoo Island is set in the South Pacific. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Yeah. Yeah. Whoa. So, so wait, Tiki zombies. Yeah, kind of. Polynesian. Yeah. As far as I can see, it seems like Hawaii, quite frankly. Okay. The zombie, the zombie is a, I mean, like they named a tropical drink, the zombie, in, you know, the original teaky bar. Okay.

Originated the drink, the zombie, but that was the 50s. Right. And, and the whole teaky, well yeah, and, but the whole teaky craze, well anyway, yeah, I'm kind of proving the point, but I mean, the whole teaky craze, well anyway. I'm kind of proving the point, but I mean, the whole teaky craze, because the South Pacific was in the Zitgeist

because so many guys had spent so many, some very remarkable years of their lives there. And it got you to the imagination, because the Kenia tall. Yeah, yeah. And okay. And X-ray. So all right, so no, within within the context of

the mental state of white American, the 50s, I guess it makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Voodoo Island is in the South Pacific. Yes. And this is a chief who controls the zombies. Okay. Including one of the protagonist males toward the end of the movie. Oh, so the threat is real. Yes. All right. Now, I want to point out a couple things. Number one, a chief is in charge. Not a white guy. Okay. Chief of Indigenous tribe, right? Not a mad scientist, either, even though this is the 1950s.

Number two, Adam West is uncredited for his voice work in this movie. Adam West. Yeah, he was a radio operator or radio guy. Really? Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Okay. Now there's other movies. Plan 9 for Matter Space needs to be called out simply for its historical importance. Yeah. Still, still same zombies as tools of evil, masterminds of action. Yeah. Yeah. And frankly, this movie deserves its own episode, I think. There's also a movie called Teenage Zombies. Because of course.

It's 1950. Because teenagers were terrified of our own children. Same plot. That goes back to the first episode of this podcast. It doesn't matter if it does. Same plot, but this time with teenagers and trying to figure out if drugs can help us win the Cold War.

Okay. And then we get to 1932. Because we're gonna get way stoner than the Russians. Like we're gonna chill out. Yeah. Like we're gonna, we're gonna, no, it's the 50s. That's those drugs that you just mentioned are things

for people of color. Oh, oh, right. We're talking truth serums. We're talking LSD. We're talking. Oh, we're, we're talking white people still. Yeah, okay got it. Okay under so in 1962 you get one of my favorite zombie movies Santo versus the zombies Now this is what a few foreign ones that I looked at oh, but it's the pro wrestler santo fighting the zombies. Oh

There was a sequel to it Silver mask and the white cape. Yep. Oh my oh, there was a sequel to it. He's like, he's still the silver mask. The silver mask and the white cape. Oh my God, okay. All right, I'm here for this. Okay, cool. I just wanted to mention it. Okay, all right.

I'm going to do much depth. But in 1964, there's a slightly shifted take on zombies that enters into films. Yeah. But it's still background at this point. There's a movie called The Earth Dyscreaming. And it's, wow, that's a title. Yeah.

And it's about an alien invasion. Okay. But anybody who's killed by the aliens touch rises as a zombie. Who is then turned into a marvelous, okay, ambling and shambling thing. And there's just a menace after they died. Nothing is controlling them.

As far as I can tell, there's an interesting, that's a paradigm shift right there. Now it's the first one that did it, and it's only a background detail. So that's not just a loss of agency. Right. The horror of that is loss of personhood. Yes.

Okay. Yeah. As far as I can tell, this is the first movie we do have done that. It's one of those instances where the creators don't know what they've got there, but with hindsight, I can point it out. Yeah. And this goes on through 1968 until we get to George Romero. Yes.

And that's where things change forever. This is where the paradigm completely switches around. And that's where a lot of the real analysis can really come in because prior to it is just We're going to take American audiences on a tour through colonized and former colonized places look at the natives aren't they weird and Gargidotters. Yeah, like just basically mind a whole bunch of a whole bunch of exodisist horror tropes Kind there have been plenty of movies about mind control and stuff like that. And that was one of the chief plot devices in the first Batman movie where he's fighting against Japanese.

Yeah. You know, it was mind control and you need diamonds to make shit work to stop your cars from going. Yeah, it was, yeah. But like mind control had been a big thing, right? Yeah. So that's the first half of zombie movie. It goes until 68. Now again, and 64 you you do see a shift,

but it is it is not a main feature, but it's the originator. It not the codifier. I wouldn't even say that's an originator because they didn't do it on purpose. They didn't say we're going to make. So okay, no, I understand that, but I- They were backward into originator. Yeah, I'm going to say, at the end of the day, effectively, it's de facto originator, or even if it's not de jure originator. Yeah, I will give you that.

So I'm going to stop there, because that's a perfect breaking point. I think it is. Yeah, so far, what have you gleaned? I think the punchline at the very end, I think, is the most interesting thing, is the source of what makes these horror movies is in the very beginning in the earliest films. The horror is the idea of losing one's agency and being placed under someone's control, which is, to be honest, pretty scary.

But then with Night of the Living Dead, and the Earth dies screaming. That is just, wow, what a title. But with the idea that, no, no, well, they kill you and then your body rises up out of the ground and wanders around as a mindless, you know, menace. That loss of personhood, that complete loss of self, of your body completely losing any connection to you. body, your body completely losing any connection to you.

Yeah, your soul. Your soul. Is really remarkable. The way that I'm interested in the coming episode in your analysis of where that shift in what is horrifying is rooted, if that makes sense. No, it does, and I will give you just a mild spoiler if not the zombies that are horrifying after 1968. Oh, okay.

Yeah. All right, I like it. Yeah. So what about you? Like as you've shared all this, yeah, So what about you like as you've as you shared all this? Yeah, have you got anything as we've been talking about it? What what sticks with you? Yeah, you know the the Manchurian candidate came out in 1962. Yes, and that was born of a fear that came out from the Korean war Yeah, of soldiers being brainwashed. Yeah, I'm a little surprised that there wasn't more

made of that in zombies. Okay, that we didn't see more brainwashed zombies. Yeah, more or just more, we're fighting a spy movie. So more like a spy movie, because there was the one that was a comedy. Yeah. We're backward into a plot, you know, yeah, it's just a McGoo. But I'm a little surprised we didn't see that many spy thrillers that dealt with zombies-ness. Yeah. Like where you have the the American spy stopping a foreign, usually Eastern Asian brain washer

who is actually using mystical means. I'm a little surprised that that didn't show up more. So, I'm more surprised by the lack that I am by the presence. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. Before 68. And now that actually brings something up, Have you seen the movie Kingsman?

Well, the Kingsman. Okay, maybe to be best to say this for the next episode, but part of the plot of the Kingsman is a mass rage zombie inducing electronic tone. And that's what the super-spyamane character is trying to stop from happening. Interesting. So it's something like that kind of has been done, but it's in the context of the 20 teens, which is, you know.

We got a ways to go. Yeah, so anyway. Anyway. What's your reading? right, which is, you know, you got a ways to go. Yeah. So anyway, so anyway, what you're reading. Right now, the one thing that immediately comes to mind and it's only tangentially related to the topic we're talking about, but zombies and the lower leads me to, you know, thinking about Barron Somedi, which eventually leads to Hades, uh, ruler of the underworld. Yes. Um, and that then leads to, I cannot highly enough recommend that everybody go out and look up, um, the, the, uh, web comic, lore Olympus.

It is a retelling of the main plotline of Laura Olympus is a retelling of the relationship between Hades and Persephone. Oh, neat. Now, interestingly, of course, Persephone's name, she's the goddess of spring, but her mean, your name means dreaded one or something like that in ancient Greek because she was the queen of the underworld. Right. And so anyway, it is a very modern retelling in which it's less a kidnapping than a prank on Hades by somebody else by another god gone horribly awry. And it deals with a lot of very compelling, very adult themes.

And the artwork is in my opinion amazing and beautiful and I just cannot recommend it highly enough. Lore Olympus. And in the process of going into the relationship between Hades and Persephone, the author brings in a whole bunch of other myths, kind of as background. So eros and psyche is one of the stories in the background going on as this is all happening. So that's my recommendation. How about you? I'm going to pay off what I said earlier. War is a racket by General Smedley D. Butler. You can probably find a five dollar version on Amazon pretty cheap because it's a short short book. Yeah, and he would go all over the place giving talks out of this book and he analyzes the people

who are really making money off the war. And I'm gonna Damien phrase here, but he did it such a better job. He said, the bullets are for the soldiers, the dollars are for the millionaires or something along those lines. I don't know. I loved it. So yeah, a war is a racket by Smedley Butler. I think it's especially salient right now. Not just as the time of this recording, but, you know, frankly, for the last 20 years. In our era. Yeah. So I'm going to recommend that. Also, there's a stone-cold badass. Yeah.

Where can people find you on the social medias? I can be found on the social media on the Twitter machine at EH Blalock. I can be found at Mr. Blalock on the TikTok and on Instagram, also at EHh playlock and Where can they find you you can find me on the twin star at? Doharmini that's two inches in the middle you can also find me every Tuesday night at 8 30 p.m. Pacific Daylight time doing twitch.tv for sash capital puns We have pun tournaments at the beginning of every month and every time after that it's us playing games, jackbox games that you can jump into and play. Okay. So a lot of fun. So yeah, and where can they find us

corporately? Collectively we can be found at geekhistorytime.com and a geek history of time. If you type that into Twitter you'll find us. I believe our tag is actually geek history time Yes on the Twitter machine. Yes So with that for a geek history of time. I'm naming harmony and I'm at Blalock and until next time keep rolling 20s MBC 뉴스 김