A Geek History of Time - Episode 128 - Zombies Part IV

Episode Date: October 11, 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 it's called? Well, you know, I really like it here. It's kind of nice and it's not as cold as Muckin'

or the sun as well, 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 is not really good a groove. Because cannibalism and murder, we'll go back just a little bit, build walls to keep out the radiance. And he's totally free. A thorough intent doesn't exist.

Some people stand up quite a bit, some people stay seeing a lot of us, but it just... This is a geek history of crime. Where we connect an artery to the real world. My name is Ed Poelhont, a world history and English teacher at the middle school level here in Northern California. And I just recently kind of got accepted into the tribe officially at my new work site. You know, one of the issues that we frequently have as teachers is we get kind of stuck in our rooms. And just in the last couple of days, I started

having lunch with my coworkers. And just yesterday in the midst of a conversation, I swore in front of several of the other members of the history department for the first time and the department chair looked at me and said, that's what I've been waiting to hear from you. And so I am now officially part of the drop. So that's kind of my big news right now. How about you, who the heck are you? Well I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin and drama teacher at the high school level up here in Northern California.

And I love that you're at a place where you swearing is a welcome aboard instead of a tongue-clicking finger waving. I think that's awesome for you. I think that's, that's, that's, that's terrific. Well, you know, as, as people who, as regular listeners to this podcast have noted recently, I do rather have a tendency to go at it. True. To the four letter words when I get going. So, yeah, it's probably best for me. They sound that. Well, I'm just glad they didn't tell you that Fridays your day in the barrel like at the last place. So It's a different model. I don't yeah, yeah, that French foreign Legion charter school was weird though. I got to say Kind of strange, you know, I did I mean it was a snazzy uniform True, and I'm always got style points. Yeah, I'm gonna hold onto the capy, but you know beyond that

Yeah, it kind of sucked. I'd be saying racial policies as most charter schools in the area. So, yeah, strangely enough. That was disappointing. Yeah. No, the funny based on that, the school mascot was the black feet. I don't understand what's... I never,, nobody explained the connection to me. You know, I think you should have been glued in when they said we're not teaching geometry to our advanced math kids, because they didn't want anybody to find the proper use of the end goal is.

So it shouldn't be as funny as that it is. Well, and, and they also canceled half of the reproductive unit because they didn't want anybody learning about the Libya Majora. That one, that one hurt. That one hurt. No, and all fun and seriousness, I learned to play a new song on my instrument that you inspired me to go learn and play.

So now I can actually play the cranberries zombie like all the chords to it. Oh nice. And so now I got to do is learn the melody. And then you can do the melody and I can do the chords. There you go. Which is how I like. So yeah. Speaking of zombies,

last time we've been talking about a couple of episodes now. Last time we spoke about zombies in Kentucky, which is not an election year, so that was a little weird. It was a little strange. Although I don't know,

does he count as a zombie or is he actually a lich? No, I was talking about his followers. He's he's a total lich Okay, yeah, all right. Yeah, nice But this time I think we should open up with a movie called flesh eater from 1988 Okay, yeah, I'm gonna defer to you as that being our starting point since this is kind of your your bag here So we'd left off in 87. This is very 88. You've got flesh eater. He's a brainiac brainiac. Oh no, and he's nice Eating like he'll never eat before yeah before yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah

Jennifer's part there when you fall on the floor. Yeah, I don't I don't know. Okay. Yeah, watch out boys. John, when you fall on the floor, I don't know. Okay. Yeah, watch out. Boys will eat you up. Like, you know, it's a pleasure. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's a movie that came out in 1988. Okay. And quite frankly, it's not particularly groundbreaking or original, but it's not a cramid. I was stunned with that title. I was expecting avant-garde cinema. Sure. Sure. But not a comedy. I was I was expecting avant-garde cinema sure sure

Not this time but but at the same time most years on the movies are starting to head toward comedy. It's campy With a few exceptions right like we said that Romero kind of has the three tent poles and everybody's building around it And a lot of what people are building is the straw on the floor what with the comedy and all but this one Actually takes the menace seriously and essentially the plot goes that it's a small rural town Halloween time it's a zombie film right very formula Interestingly though it does have the zombie problem solved by the end of the film And you can tell that we're recording on a Friday because my voice is shot to hell. Also you have a posse that kills all the zombies so kind of a nod to the first from Arrow 1. It also has a bit of a

recall of what happened to Ben in Night of the Living Dead since the same sharpshooter who kills the two kids who are coming out of hiding in this movie is the same guy who killed Ben. Oh, yeah. Then they burn all the zombie bodies, and then a few days later, they find out that they didn't get them all, and it starts all over again. Okay, well, that's pretty typical horror films from a certain genre. That's sort of not from a certain era, I should say, where we have defeated the Dionysian

threat and you know, Apollonian Order is restored and then the very final shot you have, you know, the fist coming up out of the grave. The Tartar in hand coming up, you know, the fist coming up out of the grave or the tartar in hand coming up, you know. Yeah, yeah, or in my parents love to refer to the the drive-in classic Count Yorga vampire we're in the very in the very last minutes of the 1970s horror flick. So in the very in the very last minute or two of the film, the hero is about to escape the castle where Count Jorgann and his followers were. And the female lead, Anjaneu girlfriend,

that he had just rescued minutes ago after they'd been separated for this period of time during the movie, she was off screen. He finds your rescues are there about to make it out the window and he turns around. The sun is coming up. They're about to climb out of window and get away and he turns around and she looks at him and smiles in her eyes, turn red. She's got fangs, you know, credits.

Naturally. And, and, and my parents were, my dad in particular, but both of my parents were like, what a downer. Why? Why did you do that to us? And so I mean, that's been a thing, like as a, no, no, we're going to subvert the trope. You don't get your happy ending. Right. So yeah, to the point where it is now the trope. Yeah, yeah, you know. Yeah. It's like, oh, hey, we're going with that twist on the ending now. Yeah. So in wrestling, that's called the dusty finish. So when dusty roads would win, there would be some sort of reversal of the decision and you'd have to give the belt back to Rick Flair. Oh my God, how rough must your career be when that particular twist carries your name?

Well, like, like, hang on a second, he was the one that was booking it. Okay. That's how he got his shine. That's how he got his heat. Yeah. So, but again, a very Southern, a very Southern fence, right? Yeah. So, all right, so it's what I find interesting is, again,

we're back to being able to take the menace seriously. So you have the small rural town, you've had comedies galore, you have kids hiding in a sewer grate, you have things like that, you have, you've had comedies galore, you have kids hiding in a sewer grate, you have things like that, you have younger people doing this because it's the late 80s. I assume the mullets are acceptable, but they're not quite like to the level of pro wrestlers in the mid 90s.

Yeah. But yeah. And for those of you keeping track at home, yes, I made two wrestling references within the first 10 minutes of the show. In 1988, Return of the Living Dead Part 2 comes out, specifically listed as a sequel, and it was a direct sequel to the Louisville one that I mentioned before. Right, right, right. And now this is the one that I actually remembered.

Uh-huh. With the toxic waste. With the toxic waste. Yeah. Tarface, whatever his name was, the ones I'll actually remembered. Uh-huh. With the toxic waste. With the toxic waste. With the toxic waste. With the toxic waste. With the toxic waste. With the toxic waste.

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oh, it's just fell off the truck, except this time it's zombie in a barrel. And there's toxic waste mixing in with the nearby river. And yeah, isn't that always the way? Okay, was it mixing in with the nearby river? Or was it that the locals wind nearby river was it that that the the Locals wind up shoving the ones zombie into the crematorium and they're like no no turn to heat all the way up turn to heat all the way up We got to burn this all the way gone and you see the toxic green smoke coming out of the top of the crematorium What film am I thinking of?

No, there was a zombie movie where that happened and that's it. It's a fairly outbreak happened. Well, because they, this one you end up with like a power plant and a... Okay. And the kid. Yeah, yeah. And there was always your problem, big mouth, no brain. Right, right.

So it's like the phrase, the bullied kid. Yeah, exactly. So that's the one you're bullied kids. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's the one you're thinking of. Is that the one that has a crematorium at one point? Because I don't remember. I could swear. I remember there being a thing where they encounter the first one and they somehow manage to, you know, hit it with a shotgun and do something and they shove what's what remains of the body into the crematorium. Right. And the crematorium attendant is like, well, we're gonna turn it up, hot enough to burn all the tissue off.

They say, no, no, higher. Okay, well, this little burn all the bones. All right, can you get it higher? Yeah. Well, yeah, turn higher. It'll burn teeth. Yeah, yeah, we need it. Yeah, everything, yeah.

And then you see that the cloud of nastiness coming out of the top of the crematorium smoke stack. And that was like the explanation for how the zombie-fying agent got spread. If I'm remembering right. And I mean, this was back when I was in middle school. Yeah, I mean, this is 88. So it could have been forever ago. Yeah.

It was forever ago. I could be what I'm saying is I could be remembering it wrong. It sounds really familiar, but I don't know because I did such a sweep through all the zombie movies that they blend together so much. Okay. All right. So I can't, it sounds like you're right. That sounds like you're combining it

with other things that absolutely happened in this movie. Okay. And that seems right. Okay. So I do absolutely happened in this movie. Okay. And that that seems right. Okay. But so I do have one one side question. Sure. I'm going to ask because this this you know the the you know barrels fell off the truck thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, it's always the way you watch. Yeah. Well, yeah, did you watch community? No, I never did. It's not. Okay. Because they had a zombie episode.

Oh, of course. And this was 2000. I don't remember how many years ago, but it's in the 2000s. But as a nod to, I think this move, the way the zombification spreads is they're having a Halloween themed taco party. And the Dean finds US Army rations for like really cheap that is taco meat. And it turns out the taco meat is contaminated, you know, and that's what causes everybody to suffer from a prion disease and turn into zombies. And then, yeah, and I mean, to say that it's played for comedy would be a massive understatement. Well, yeah, it's community.

Yeah. You know, interestingly though, you mentioned community because that particular episode that you're mentioning, I believe happened before 2013. And we could probably dive in on that real quick on a device, but I almost guarantee you it happened before 2013 for things that I will tell you about either at the end of this episode or at the end of the next one. But in this one, okay, so we've got Return of the Living Dead Part 2, right, the sequel to the 1985 Return of the Living Dead, and the gas is escaped from the barrel. Um, dumb kids opened it. Um, and

uh, the one kid that they were bullying, uh, you know, he's, he's there too, because you never leave people who are bullying you, because there's a weird thing that happens when you're bullied. Um, and they end up, uh, everybody ends up near the graveyard. So I think, yes, we're heading toward the crematorium on that. You'll get your standard fare after that, complete with people mistaking people who are fleeing for actual zombies and then firing on them, which means we are actually the danger.

But this time, someone actually figures out how to bait the zombies into a trap, which is something I've seen very little of up until this point. They lure the zombies from the hospital to the meat packing plant and start feeding them the brains of the animals from there. Okay. A little pipe-piper action, right, going all the way to the power plant. And I think this might be the first plants versus zombies.

Oh, nicely done. Thank you. I'm not even mad about that one. That works. I like that. So the protagonist get the zombies to all touch metal things at the same time, and they turn the power on, and then

that zaps them all, and then the kid's bully acts really shitty and gets killed in the same way. So we all cheer. Now, in 1988, there's a few things I think that are worth noting here. First, a zombie movie can have a direct sequel without there being a lawsuit for once. Okay. Yeah.

Which does change. Yeah. It took 50 years to do it, but they did it. But you know, hey, here we are. Second, this time we're following kids. And that's different. Normally, you're following adults so The menace has a zaniness to it on some level Because you can't just have kids be in pure danger right kids as

Protagonists in the 80s was really starting to grow as a genre and film or or a motif maybe so it's really just kind of an overlay onto this genre film But also the kids are also largely unsupervised, which really gets to an interesting thing that is starting to be expressed in the late 80s. And- It was anxiety about all the latch key kids being left at home, by the way, speaking as, you know, one of them. And there's so much about the analysis we could get into about this movie, like all the exers in our audience are gonna be like, mm-hmm, yep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It occurred to me the other day that the people who babysat us were like the parents of boomers. And so the silent generation, babysat, the forgotten generation That's just a lot of silence in TV Yeah, we're a little bit bad I think it depends on who your babysitters were

If your babysitters were your grandparents If you were your family folks then yeah that totally applies In my case my babysitters would be early exers. Again, more people that would ignore their own. Yeah, well, yeah, granted. So no fault divorces, as well as two-in-comm middle-class families, in the dominant culture, were both notably prevalent in the 1980s. It was becoming a juggernaut of a cultural force.

They were hovering right around 15 to 20% for college educated couples, the two-in-cut families, and the no-fault the versus, and right around 32% for non-college educated couples. There was a study that was done in 2009. It's the most recent one I could find. And it showed that, so what I'm saying is, 15 to 20% of families had double-incomparants where it wasn't just the mom working typically for pin money or for Christmas money or to

relieve the stress of the car breaking down. It was both working full-time. Now this is the- Was it really- wait wait was it really that low? Yes. Okay. Yeah and it was around 32% for non-college educated. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Now again in 2009, the study showed that quote, children in single-parent homes devote almost 45 more minutes per day to watching television than children in two parent homes. So, oh, I'm sorry, no, this was this was a divorce, divorced family. Okay. I apologize. Yeah, so, so 15 to 20% for college educated couples had no fault divorces and 32% of non-college educated couples had no fault divorces and 32% of non college educated couples had no

fault divorces. Okay. So that sounds okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and we were. And we were. Yeah, and the dominant culture at that point was in kind of a panic about the divorce rate. You saw, I remember, as a kid at, you know, 10 and 12, so that would have been 85, 87.

Very serious articles being written about, what are we going to do about the divorce rate? Oh my God, how terrible is this? When one in three marriages marriages ending in divorce. And I remember, I mean, it was not an uncommon thing. I remember a whole lot of my peers were in, were bouncing between one parent's house and another parent's house. And I think you and I might be the first part of the first segment of a generation, where

I mean, for me, it was just kind of the way it was. Like, there wasn't any kind of, I'm not old enough to remember a time when it was like, oh, yeah, no. You know, Scott's folks are divorced, man. Right. There's no like whisper or feel bad for him or let's make sure we have Scotty over for dinner. Yeah, yeah, it was just, oh yeah, well, no, we can't, we can't play D&D this Friday because he and his brother have to go to his dad's place. Exactly. Yeah. You know, which bummed to the rest of us out because, you know, we'd go over to Scottshouse

and his mom would get us pizza, make sure we were being fed and leave us to nerd out. Right. And then she'd go trying to find, you know, Mr. Goodbar. I remember you told me about that, yeah. Yeah. And we'd have the house to ourselves until like, you know, three in the morning. Sure. Like, dude.

Um, it's a good thing we were into D&D or we would have gotten into shit ton of trouble. But yeah, you have this, you know what you have is this regressive fear at a demographic shift. And it's demographic shift, born of greater enhanced liberty, ultimately. liberty ultimately. And as a result, the pillars of the patriarchy are getting cracked. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like talking about my buddy Scott, his mom, I mean, 15 years earlier, she wouldn't have been able to tell him to pound sand. True. Like, she wouldn't have been in a position financially to be able to tell his dad, right? You know, you know what, if you're, you know, so enamored of, you know, stooping

your assistant then, you know. Well, she could have, but she would have had to go to court to prove that that was enough of a problem. So she should have, she would have had to prove to a judge who you could check the demographics on judges in the 70s, if you want. Over and I mean, Lee, old and white, but she could have gone to a judge and had to prove that she deserved a divorce based on his adultery, specifically, but now with no fault divorces, again, you're up to 32% for non-college educated.

Now, again, kids of single parent homes have 45 more minutes of TV per day. That's 45 minutes, that's an hour and a half every two days. So every four days, that's three hours. So in a week, that is what, close to six hours. Yeah. We can round that up to roughly six hours. So six hours a week, that's 24 hours more per month. That's literally a day's worth of TV more

That's a lot of Holy shit. Yeah, that's stuff stacks man Also 1980 marked the watershed year were two income versus single parent income switches places So it had been single parent income all we have 1980 and then it crested And after that it continues to and then it switched rather because then it continues to rise very sharply And in about in 1990 it crests it levels off at about 60% of families Our two families are two families.

Dual income, yeah. Yeah. And both of these things combine to have kids being alone as a very believable plot device and a catalyst for calamity. So. I'm, I'm, I know you can see the expression on my face. What I'm wondering is when we look at 1990 being the point where that levels off, I want to look at a whole bunch

of other economic indicators about wages, rent, mortgages, like all of the other expenses that are associated with cost of living and quality of life. And I wanna see what was going on with relationship there. To try to think. To keep in mind also is that that shift is definitely happening in white middle class.

More accelerated than it has happened anywhere else because everywhere else in every other demographic group, that's already been an unfortunate reality. Yes. You know, an unshows in this is how we have to live on this side of tracks, reality. So you can imagine the accelerated property of that shift happening amongst white middle class folks even more more, to drag that number up, because you already had that bedrock in amongst people of color. And people of lesser economic means,

lack of college education, and those things overlap quite a bit. But so you have a lot of that happening at an accelerating rate. And what I would say is i always say look at unions because you see this huge increase right after ringen uh... comes in and sends a really clear signal to unions um...

you know by the fire all the traffic yeah uh... but that i don't think that's the only place to look though i really don't i do think that um... that there was the deficit spending There was the crash of 87 There was you know you talked about it in your battle tech episode About how the jet please were exporting their unemployment to us How did they pack it? Yeah, it's oil

Yeah, yeah, how do you get it through the system? Yeah. Exploring unemployment. What do we have exactly? Is that work? Right. So yeah. But yeah. And that that again ties in with with the desperate economic insecurity that was there or yeah, well, I mean it was economic insecurity that drove you know all of the weird fetishization of Japanese culture that happened in the 80s. Yep. Which you know is a whole other kettle of fish, but it's one more kind of branch of how how those underlying forces affected pop culture. Right. And then you can add on to that. I mean, ultimately, you've got a recession going

into the 90s. I mean, that's, you remember Clinton's first campaign was it's the jobs or it's the economy. The economy is stupid. Yeah. So, I mean, you really do have, you know, I was a 49ers fan for most of my life until they kept hiring back chronic spousal abusers, but they let Capronet go. Yeah, but and I've benched them since then, until that family sells the team. I'm not going to root for them. But as a 49ers fan, I can remember, and we talked about this before, actually you and I might not have, it might have been someone else, but my beloved 49ers took on your beloved chargers and the Super Bowl and just cleaned the entire stadium with their faces.

And, you know, okay, here's, no, here's why though. Here's why. Here's why. The 49ers mortgaged the next 10 years worth of salary cap for that one final ring. They bought that ring with so much free agency. And I think you can, if you look at the 49ers record after that, it is a slow and steady decline and then it just bottoms out for many, many years, which was comfortable for me because I'm a Giants fan too, until a really shitty family bought them. But so I'm used to rooting for losers, except that I always was used to the Niners winning and the Giants

losing and then it inverted. But hey, hey, hey, I grew up in San Diego. You want to talk about being used to rooting for losers? Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Charters in the plodaries, like dude. Yeah. I got you beat there. Yeah. But the Niners mortgage their future. And I think in many ways the 80s was the final mortgaging of the economy.

Because after that, even though you have tremendous growth, it's tremendous growth for those at the top. It's kind of like having a school where you have a magnet program that does really well and kids still can't reach. And everybody else is right. Yeah, right. So it pulls the scores up,

but your pylons are now really shaky, you know? Yeah, well, and it's the beginning of the acceleration of the process of getting us to level of wealth gap that we have now. And we can point solidly toward Ronnie Reagan for laying the foundation for all that. Or better yet, stripping the foundation. Yeah, yes, Jack can rings a shit out of the foundation. We don't we don't we don't we don't need, you know, 10 foot the base by lawns, we can go down to five. No, no, no, no, fresh air. Do we really need? Yeah. But yeah, and I like your I like your

analogy of mortgaging the future. the team and mortgaging the future of the economy, because what we're looking at, what we're living through right now, is the logical extension of all of those fiscal policies and all of those tax policies. policies and all of those tax policies. You know, and at the time all of that was happening, I think, and I don't know, maybe I'm giving too much credit in hindsight for, you know, subconscious awareness of things, but I think there might have been some level of subconscious anxiety attached to the the way that we had this economy that looked like it was going gangbusters. But while that was happening, the very beginnings of the erosion of

its foundations were starting to happen. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I might be engaging in too much credit to the popular unconscious here. I agree with that statement as well. Okay. But at the same time, we had this kind of outlook that that the party was never gonna end right you know going into 86 87 before Everything kind of fell off a cliff You know what what we wound up seeing the growth that we were seeing in in a Clinton administration Was you know look at all the jobs that have been added to the economy. Well, yeah, that's great But look at where those jobs were was, you know, look at all the jobs that have been added to the economy.

Well, yeah, that's great, but look at where those jobs were. Right. You know, those were service jobs, people getting jobs at the, you know, then only beginning to rise Wal-Mart, you know. Right, right. And those jobs are not family keeping jobs.

No. And in some ways, that was kind of the proto-gig economy that we are now seeing. I don't know if you saw, but I made every once in a while, I will have a joke that it's just so perfect that it is timeless. And I wrote one last year and it popped up in my memories today, which this is literally dating

the show, even though I said we shouldn't date the show as often. But it was, let me see if I can remember, eating ass is the craft beer of avocado toast, which is the second most millennial thing that I've ever said. The first most millennial thing I've ever said is I have to work six gigs with no health insurance to make rent because the economy has collapsed for 80% of us and the climate is damaged beyond the point where we can easily fix it. Yeah. So like, you know, I'm glad I could shoehorn that in, but yeah, yeah.

But that joke's got legs unlike our economy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, I think you're absolutely right because if you look at, and it's that neoliberal kind of growth, which if you did it right, that globalism could have actually helped out

so many more people, but instead, because really what you have ultimately, it's the Reagan tax cuts. I think that those are the biggest thing that really does strip away, that really does mortgage the future. So you pay all this money for Deon Sanders, and then he goes to Dallas.

You know what I mean? You got that ring, but you don't have Deon anymore, and now you're secondary sucks. That's not fair to Merton Hanks. I will, you got that ring, but you don't have Dion anymore. And now you're secondary sucks. That's not fair to merton hangs. I will grant you what? But. And then 15 years later, all your fans are going to be chanting about six rings, six rings.

And anybody having a deal with them on Facebook is going to be, yeah, when was the last time you got one of them? Yeah, I'm sorry. It's not a dynasty anymore. If it's been 20 years, since the last time you got one. That's yeah. No, like when all the players that got the last one have retired and some are in the Hall of Fame, one of them's a coach. And you don't call the dynasty and a couple of them are dead.

Well, that's, I mean, you could talk about, yeah. That's a different kettle of fish too. But yes, I do think that that, so the combination of fuck you to unions and the tax cuts, which were huge because now you're taking money out of public coffers for the social safety net, for the infrastructure that, but for the infrastructure that you could use to

keep people working until the next wave of economic growth, you know, a bridge literally building bridges to the next economic boom because they do go in cycles. So when the cycle's down, build shit until cycles back up and then hold off. And I mean, god damn, I took economics 20 years ago and it was pretty obvious. So I think the, and with Clinton not raising the taxes on corporations anywhere near what Reagan had taken them down from, I think that that's the really big reason

for that economic downturn. And for the hollowing out for that economic downturn. And for the hollowing out so that you have this disparity at the top and everyone else is really, really suffering. But like, hey, it's kind of like, you know, well cheering for your favorite football team. Like everything else in your life is shit. But at least my team won this Sunday, your team, you play for a team, you make money off this team, you get dividends for your team,

well no, but... But identify with them really strongly. Yeah, they have my jersey, man. Like, dude. Yeah. So, you know, the other thing that really you start to see in the late 80s is a concern over toxic waste. Yeah. Yeah. As a popular issue, yeah.

I mean, the Clean Water Act were... Those were in the 70s. 70s. Yeah, you could take Nixon's. But, yeah, by the way. Yeah, what the fuck? You know, he did. Yeah, some good governance.

Yeah. I mean, it was a shitty governance. Yeah. And I mean, it's shitty individual. Yeah. And a shitty president was, but there was some good governance. Yeah. He understood that that was his fucking job. Yeah. Like talk about a low bar, but there was yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, but the clear, cleaner cleaner clean water actually was in the night. I'm going to interrupt you for just a second. Did you see the list that somebody like several historians got together and made a list of best to worst presidents? No.

Trump is in the bottom three. Okay. Um, I believe Pierce and Buchanan are below him still. Wow. Which that's okay. Yeah, which kind of makes some sense. But that also means that William Henry Harrison is above him. That's the guy that died after he gave his speech. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Coddemonian. And died. No, no. And he was a better president having served a month or two.

And he was a better president having served a month or two. Well, because how much damage did he do? Right. I was feeling like he had to be taken off the list just like he wasn't in office. He gets an asterisk. He's kind of measurable. Yeah. But yeah. You know what?

What I want to know is, let's see. So it's a list of, we're on 40. What now? This is where in president number 46. 46. Yeah yeah so I want to know who's that 23 and 24 I would know in the middle I want to know who's who got placed smack in the middle oh that's a good question my money would be on I would say they're going to put McKinley above the fold below the fold. I think you'll find guys like Garfield and Hayes. And Johnson obviously will be below the fold. I'm going to say middle of the fold, I'm going to say they're going to give it to someone like Van Buren.

Okay, now when you say Johnson, we're talking about post-Lincoln Johnson. Yeah, yeah, Andrew. Not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not, not, not, not, okay. London, so. Yeah. But I just love that. Because LBJ'd be a tough one to place too, because like on the one hand great society, on the other hand, via DOM. Oh, yeah, yeah. I do think though that the great society

keeps him above the top, or keeps him above the fold. Oh, okay, okay, upper, upper 50%. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I think it's like he's... Yeah, so yeah, I'm gonna have to look that up now, because they're specific individuals, I'm really curious about like, okay, where did you all place these guys?

Right. Yeah. All right, so, but... Okay. So, talking about toxic waste. Talking about toxic waste. Speaking of. Which, which, like, it was around that time in our childhood that I remember seeing a

lot of attention being given to, you know, dealing with, look at how we're trying to fix acid rain, look at how we're trying to deal with this issue and that issue. Yeah, and so that had gone because the legislation had happened, you know, back in the 70s, but it was like the popular consciousness was starting to catch up to that. If that makes sense. Yeah, no, I get that. So yeah, I mean, in all honesty, also there had been Chernobyl, there had been 3 mile island.

You had had nuclear problems. So toxic waste and nuclear problems tend to be of the same ilk in people's minds for some reason. They're intrinsically linked. Now it's a zombie. Maybe we'll have to waste being. Exactly. Yeah. So it is a zombie movie, but it's not a subtle inclusion there either. Interestingly, there were more regulations being enacted in the 1980s as pertained to toxic waste. So it was getting cleaned up even more, but also so too was awareness on the rise. And I think there was a link there. I think that when you see a problem, it gets, you know, when people start being aware of the problem, they start reporting the problem more. So you see a sudden rise,

and it's not an actual sudden rise, right? Yeah, but it's a sudden rise of awareness. Yeah, the perception comes upward. Yeah. And during the 80s, was when we start hearing a lot more, I think, my memory serves about super fun sites. Yeah, yeah. You know, serves about super fun sites. Yeah. Yeah.

And about like, okay, no, now we're gonna take federal money and we're gonna spend a whole bunch of time and effort and money to clean these places up. Right, right. So, this is a nation of the problem. Yeah, so this is an easy inclusion, right? Because you have an increased focus on these incidents. So, it becomes an easy plot point.

And finally, bullying is a major plot point. Now, some of this is because there's kids in there, but also awareness and rejection of bullying as just a right of passage is certainly starting to gain steam. It doesn't mean that kids stopped bullying. It doesn't mean that all that, but there was a lot more PSA type shit. There was a lot more mental hygiene being shown in schools. I remember in middle school, we had to watch anti-bullying videos and stuff like that. I remember there was one about a bully who chased a kid

into like a loft of a barn or something um and through all his books and shit into the lake so and then the kid like was climbing up after him and fell and broke his leg And then it ends it with what would you do? And you know the kids are you know right, you know like you know and and it's like oh my god There's a moral quandary and it's like no you. Like, otherwise you're just as bad as he is. Like, that's the less than you're supposed to get. But so many kids are like, man, fuck that. He threw his bag in there, like all his papers

that shits wet, like that, there go all his notes for the quarter, you know, and like, so. Now, none of this was enough to make a good movie, but it is a simple and accessible sequel. And the part at the end was a better thought out ending than most endings have been, because most endings are just you escaped. But this one you actually like had it fixed and you, we didn't fix it so much as you ended it in a creative way using a power plant.

Yeah. And so the movie, this movie, was panned at the time, absolutely, deservedly so. OK. OK. What I find interesting is at this point, zombies are largely the catalysts and sometimes vessels for social commentary by the writers and directors.

So typically, it's a people are shitty and when things get bad they get really shitty kind of thing going on here. You don't see much in the way of heroism. You don't see much in the way of reward for heroism. There's also infrequently any actual resolution, which doesn't this sound like the cold war to you? pollution, which doesn't this sound like the cold war to you?

Hmm. Yeah. Okay. I can see that. So the zombies kind of become empty vessels for whatever metaphor people want to attach to them. As we just saw in this movie, I mean, we hit three major 80s plot points, right? Bullying toxic waste and what did I say? Oh, yeah, kids being alone. Yeah. So, and that brings me to your beloved movie, The Serpent and the Rainbow. Oh yeah. Now that's 1988, and it's very different than this movie was, right?

So it's a very, very different movie than return the living dead part two right the second return serpent in the rainbow is specifically a movie about Haitian zombies and Haitian zombie lore and Haitian zombie mysticism and it semi features a zombie there's a lot of groin-based mutilated ceremony in this movie. Yeah. And the whole thing is like an anthropologist searching for answers and falling into a much bigger world than he can handle. Kind of a movie set with the downfall of baby doc in the background. So baby doctor, Volet. Now it didn't take on voodoo as a gimmick either. It seemed to take the whole of Haiti much more

seriously than any movie prior. Now some of this is it's the 80s so racism is different. It's not as colonial at this point. And also part of it is that, you know, pop a doc and baby doc were fresh in the imagination. So it's much less a zombie movie, really, than it is a movie about voodoo. But I did include it partly because you were so jones and for it. And it does, I mean, it is Haiti, it is zombies. There's a lot more voodoo. But really, it's social commentary is far different than the hordes of mindless zombies movies that we're seeing at this time because it is specific and it's actually kind of in general respectful of Haiti. Yeah, and it's a lot more people cope with totalitarianism and the subconscious fears that are involved.

And yeah. And, you know, and it inserts a white protagonist into a colonial setting where you know, falls into exotic mysticism. So like you said, racism is different right here, but yeah, it's academic like like yeah, you know I remember oh god who was it I want to say I Want to say it was Sherman Alexi. He said you know in the 1800s. They sent the cavalry and the 1900s. They sent the anthropologists they sent the cavalry and the 1900s they sent the anthropologists. And Geek timers, if you find who actually said that, feel free to send it to me and we'll include you in the corrections that Ed's going to do at the end of the show. But the zombies in this one aren't used as a mcguffin, and neither is the Haitian voodoo,

which is different, especially when you had somebody who's starting as an anthropologist. So I think the anthropologist is really a way to get him into the scene and get him into this world, not so much of like, hey, look at how exotic these people are. The zombies themselves are part of a larger story, but the story is the Haitian voodoo. But the thing is, I honestly, I probably would have skipped this movie, but for two reasons. One, you talked about really wanting to hear about it. And two, this movie, honestly, is doing something very different than the standard zombie film of the late 80s. Right? It's not doing the mindless one. It's going back to that mind control type thing. Yeah. So, yeah, that movie exists.

It's kind of going against type. And like I said, there's a lot of groin-based stuff. And I think in many ways it was, hey, remember, baby doc and pop a doc. You know, it was, you know, it's an excuse to go shoot somewhere tropical. Yeah.

So in 1989, we see a return of Romero with the dead next store. Well, it's not a Romero film, but it's Romero form. So more back to the mindless zombie type thing, right? So we were seeing this return. And it's a near future movie, right? So in the year 2005, you know, that kind of thing in 1989. I don't remember the year they actually give for it, but the world has been ravaged by a plague

that turns people into zombies. There's a speck ops group who's eliminating zombie threats called the zombie squad. And it's yeah. Original. Yeah. Now this movie actually was made over the course of four years and it had a tiny budget. To the point where everybody who was working on it deferred their salary. Like, that's how small the budget was. And it specifically had a very amateur feel to it. Now, to me, that feels very Romero from the first movie,

you know, Night of. Oh, well, yeah, very much. Yeah. But unlike the Romero films, it's not about hopelessness. Like Romero really, really pushes that hopeless button no matter what. There's a nihilism that goes over. Yeah, yeah, in a big way.

Yeah, now this one is set after the apocalypse, sure. So it's post-apocalyptic. So friend of the show Tim Watts, comic book enthusiast and comic book artist. He used to have his own podcast about apocalyptic stuff. He's very big on apocalypse type things. So he'll appreciate this. But there are people who are actively fighting to help other people. They're not just fighting to survive. They're fighting to help other people. They're not all, they're also not fleeing or just bunkering

down. They're going around as a squad helping other people. So frankly, there's more agency here amongst the humans, which is not a very Romero film. Romero has people. It's the antithesis. Yes, Romero. So it's an answer to Romero. Yeah, that's a really good way to put it. They also, they happen upon a cult of fanatics who think that we should protect the zombies,

as the zombies are a judgment from God, which is... Okay. Yeah, it's kind of the first time that I've seen the, what if we're the problem kind of approach. You know, on the one hand, the gut reaction you have to that is, who the fuck would do that? And then you actually think about history and you're like, all right, flagellant, never mind. I like that you went to history instead of like, moving on now. Yeah, well, going to now is too depressing. And I don't have to go to now because everything that's happening now is too depressing. Yeah. And, you know, I don't have to go to now

because everything that's happening now has happened before, all of this has happened before. Right. And all of this will happen again. Yeah. For the BSG fans, the audience. Yeah. You know, that's just the way the cycle runs,

the wheel turns. Yeah. Because we don't actually learn shit Well It's the price of being mortal right so Anyway, so yeah, it's funny the very next line I had written was until this year I think I was pulling on long since gone mentalities now it feels Yeah, but I really do think the notable thing about this is the fact that it's basically the

zombies level of any Call of Duty game. But with a backstory that actually plays out instead of just increasingly difficult waves of zombies. Because you're following a squad of guys who have to deal with zealots, who actually may have found the cure to the curse anyway. So there's an extra layer there. And the movie features a cure potentially reversing the effects. Now there's a lot of macho in this movie, but there's also a layer of madness as well.

And of hope, definitely this is an action film plot, 100%, but I cannot ignore the fact that they're taking on Quizzling reactions as well as the thwarting of potential hope that they represent and mixing with good old-fashioned macho gun stuff Oh wow You've you've actually now written that in a way that I might need to go find this movie and watch this. Yeah, yeah It's it's not a bad watch quite awesome. Okay. If you keep in mind that it's low-budge.

Well, yeah. Yeah, so this is called the Dead Next Door, so if people want to go watch that, yeah. I couldn't find it streaming anywhere legally, but that's all I'll say. And after that, many other zombie films or films that feature zombies, zombie comedy, zombie teen movies, etc. And then that brings us to 1990, which for the first time, there's an American remake of Night of the Living Dead in 1999. Okay. Yeah. There's something delightfully cannibalistic about remaking a Romero film about zombies. Yeah. You know, so especially when the producers are

the guy who were helped right at the first time, which is kind of really. Yeah. Okay. As well as the guy who said they're coming to get you, Barbara, like those guys are producing it. Oh, that's pretty cool. And they're kind of doing it. The Romero is blessing. Like I didn't find him roasting them in any way, shape or form. And these are guys that, you know, continue to work with him.

So in 1990, a lot had changed, obviously. Zombies were codified already as they are. Mindless hordes, that kind of thing. The opening is exactly the same, because this is the same movie, this is a remake. But there are many differences beyond that. For one, the whole thing is in color. Okay. For another, everyone, except for Ben who's still black, now has a last name. Oh. Now there's also a lot more cooperation to board up the house this time,

instead of Ben being the only sensible one. Okay. Now do you think that particular change is because of the advancement of the genre? Yes. Okay. I don't think we're, I don't think we're gonna watch a zombie movie where everybody's as stupid as they were in 1968

Because we've seen so many zombies as viewers. We've seen too many of these films exactly Yeah, so I don't think that they're deliberately removing the agency of the black man that was such a stark contrast to the idiocy of everyone else in the 68 film Yeah, no, I didn't I didn didn't think they were doing anything like that. I was just wondering if that was if that was like a conscious no-no in this script, we're going to do this differently because we have a different like goal we want to get to with this story or whether it was, no, no, we're just, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we. No, yeah, okay. Whereas in the first one, the gathering was kind of already fate-a-complete, right? The subplot about the truck is a little bit different. In the first one, Ben, Thom and Judy drive to a nearby gas pump and they're holding the ghouls off with torches

and then the torches set off the truck and Thom and Judy die in the explosion. In the remake, Thom shoots the lock off since they couldn't find the key to the gas pump. And the gasoline gushing forth is ignited by a burning piece of wood in the truck and the resulting explosion kills both Tom and Judy. Okay.

So bigger explosion, but also like, it's just one of those like, you know, that made sense for 68, but let's try something, you know, we're gonna get to the same spot, but we need to, you know, change, change the cords a little. In the original Ben gets back into the house and Harry doesn't want to let him in. Once Ben is in, he beats the shit out of Harry. Once the chaos really kicks in, Harry is shot dead by Ben and Karen dies from her injuries. She reanimates.

She begins to eat her father's remains and and stabs Helen to death with a brick laying trowel. In the remake. Oh, here we go. Oh, okay. Never mind. Yeah. In the remake, Ben gets back, but the situation's already deteriorating.

So he gets back. So now we've got heightened drama instead of just the interaction, which I think in the 68 version, it's more of a novel than it is a movie, and this one is accelerating the action and pushing the pace because it's a movie. It's making it more like a thriller in that the attention is ratcheting upward consistently through a whole thing. Okay. Instead of like having logical things happen,

necessary to have things that are logical for ratcheting up the tension. Harry has already wrestled Barbara's gun away from her and now he's armed, unknown to the survivors upstairs. The Cooper's daughter, Sarah has succumbed to the bite on her arm and she's transformed into a zombie. She attacks and bites her to straw mother and when Sarah goes upstairs she triggers a shoot out between her father who's trying to protect her and Ben and Barbara who are trying to protect

themselves. Ben and Harry are both wounded and Barbara shoots Sarah, the zombie little girl. Yeah. Harry retreats to the upstairs attic while Ben makes his way to the cellar. So now you've got you know upstairs downstairs Which I find that interesting um And he shoots a reanimated Helen

Ben finds the key to the gas pump finally, and it was in the house the whole time So the sad irony, you know Tom Tom and Judy didn't have to die He starts to lose his shit laughing hardly at this fact by the way which That's different because in the original Ben survived all the way to the end in this one Barbara leaves the house alone and tries to find help and then she hooks up with the local posse Who are clearing the area of the undead and awakens the next day surrounded by the safety of the media and the townspeople Led by Sheriff McLelland, who's paid by, or who is played by, they're coming to get you Barbara,

that guy. Oh nice. Barbara comments on the similarities between the living and the undead, and she returns to the farmhouse to find Ben, who died of his wounds, and he's now reanimated. Oh wow. So it ends differently, right?

He gives it Barbara before he gets shot by the Clallet. So Ben still gets to get shot by the Posse. Huh. Mm-hmm. Now Harry is still alive and he emerges from the attic and Barbara kills him in a fit of rage for causing Ben's death. She turns to leave the house, she tells the vigilantes that they've got another one for the fire, and she watches as the bodies are burned on the pyre. The end.

Wow. Yeah. You know, it's funny that the... Makes some significant changes, but the nihilism involved is still totally there. Yeah, yeah. Like we're just going to whittle down to like one person and then outsiders that we've never been invested in. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I think in this one, you have a lot of accidental subversive elements that got neutered out of the original. Like in this one, those things are neutered out of the original. Like in this one, those things are neutered, like the fact that you casted a black man and everything that happened in the 68 one. A lot of that's just been kind of stripped out. The casting choice was there, I think they deliberately casted to have a black lead,

but the impact hits differently and it's not just because this is 22 years after the original, to have a black lead. But the impact hits differently, and it's not just because this is 22 years after the original. Materially, things in the plot had changed, and there's a few reasons that come to mind. First of all, like we said, the ratcheting up the tension. So it's a Hollywood movie now. It's not an independent film.

So it's got a bigger budget, and it is, again, it's not a novel that's being filmed, right? It's a movie that's being filmed. And so artistic license is restricted because it's a Hollywood studio movie. Second, it is 1990, right? Yeah. And what I like to think about 1990 is that they, folks in the 90s, early 90s, especially,

especially in 1990, thought of themselves as colorblind and therefore that was better. Like we're better off racially because we're colorblind. And a lot of folks that thought, a lot of white folks thought that racism had been over for a while. Yeah, it was, it was for white America, it was a much more innocent time. Yeah.

In that kind of way, that, you know, well, well-meaning, centrist and liberal white people could tell themselves that and genuinely believe it. Right. Because they pretty much only hung out with other well-meaning centers. Yeah. Because yeah. Or people with whom they disagreed politically, but you know, he's really a good guy. Yeah. Which I think honestly you had a more vibrant center. I think that that could honestly be true. Yeah. But also you did see Reagan and his predecessor, not his predecessors, is the guy who... Successor. Successor, thank you.

They did try to put an end to policies that created, quote, reverse discrimination. There was a big effort at that and reverse racism became a term because we solved it so much that we went too far. Despite the law consistently ruling otherwise, right? He severely depleted the funds in the EEOC because of the desire to fight the specter of reverse racism. And there's a correlative impact in that the desire to be done with race,

to be colorblind, to judge by the content of their character, was something that dominant white culture in America in 1990 was very thirsty to think of itself as. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, well, and, you know, as a, at that time, so 1990, I'd have been a sophomore in high school. And I was still somewhere slightly to the right of Jinguist Khan politically and I totally would have said basically just exactly that. And now I kind of want to go back to me at 14 and slap the shit out of me. But, you know, in my default. So it might have fallen left.

Yeah, well, yeah. You know, thank you, Red Skull. In my, the one thing that would hold me back right now is I'd look at myself and go, you're 14. Okay, look. You know, but that doesn't exonerate anybody who was older than 14 at the time. You know, and yeah, it is truly remarkable how how how how very very much somehow during the 70s and the 80s and I think particularly during the 80s there was this there was this concerted I don't even necessarily want to say effort, but I think amongst some people there was an effort, but there was this massive idea inculcated in you and me and other white kids that will, you know, see the the the the the the the

secular beatification of Martin Luther King Jr. became this thing that was like, well, you know, okay, so we've we've we've given him credit for having, you know, awaken our eyes to the fact that there was this terrible injustice going on. And so now that we've done that, everything's fixed. Well, now that he's done that, everything's fixed. Well, now that you do the marker. And yeah, yes. Now that he's become a secular marker, you are, you are all absolved. Yep. Was was like, you know, the term absolutely wasn't one I was familiar with at that age. But that's essentially kind of the message that I think we were given.

Yeah. And I do mean we, you and I, as white males of our generation, I think we were taught that we were absolved of this. Yeah. We didn't do the racism because what was in our books was black and white pictures of bull Connor. Yeah. And his ilk. And we weren't doing that, even though when it happened on the news, we'd find ways to conveniently ignore it and say, oh, these are isolated incidents and things like that.

Yeah. And never mind the fact that that was not just still in living memory, that was like, that was when our parents had been in their 20s. You know, yeah, okay, fine, whatever. That was, but you get what I'm saying. Yeah, I do. Like to us, you know, anything that happens

before your lifetime is'm saying. Yeah, I do. It's like to to to us, you know, anything that happens before your lifetime is ancient history. Yeah. And so because we're the generation that was born after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., all of that stuff was ancient history. And it's like it has taken, I know, personally, it has taken me getting into my late 30s and into my 40s and realizing that wasn't actually that long ago.

No, no. Like, shit. No. Well, and so, like, you know, and, you know, and, and, and, and, and then, of course, having the life experience to actually talk to people who are not cishead wide guys. Right. You know, about their experiences and experiences and actually having the developing, the wisdom and the humility to listen to them, right? You know, to kind of get around that programming. But in 1990, to kind of bring us back to what we're here to talk about, to kind of bring us back to what we're here to talk about. We were in the middle of that state of absolution. And so, you know, a lot of broken arms from patting yourself on the backs, you know?

Yeah, you know. And so, you know, we'll have, you know, we'll keep the protagonist being a black guy because that was what was in the original movie. But like, we want to honor the art. We don't we want to be out of the art, but we don't we don't need to make any kind of a statement about it because that kind of statement isn't necessary anymore. Right. And so let's kill him off screen and have him die of his wounds. So that when, uh, when the posse gets there, it's not a posse shooting a black man.

He's already tied. He's our pisses on be. Right. So the moral lesson isn't there anymore. The quandary is not part of the picture. You've neutered the accidental efforts of the original. Because remember, Romero said, I casted the best actor. And what came from that was this beautiful day. It's funny. Remember Romero said, I casted the best actor. Yeah.

And what came from that was this, you know, beautiful day in sidewalk. It's funny, he was legitimately colorblind on his casting. Yeah. And wound up making a very powerful statement because of it. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So now this particular version got panned, which I keep saying about zombie movies because it keeps happening. But evidently being low budget black and white absolutely helped make the first one a classic. And now a lot of that charm was gone. And since the director, despite having a reputation for being a big fan of splatter had kept it toned down as far as the Gore went,

there really wasn't enough of a difference between the two versions to warrant doing a second one. It would be like if I took apple sauce and I froze it to be in the shape of an apple. Okay. It's like, well, why did you bother? Why, why, why, why did, what did you do there? Yeah. Okay. I can see that. However, there was a bit more in the way of gender politics in this one, whereas the first one did more about racial politics. So like Barbara, she might be a final girl that's still very tropey, but in this one she does more than just need to be rescued and escaped. She actually lives

through the whole thing, which is different than the first one. Yes. And she told the soldiers what to do. It just happened to be at the expense of the one black guy in the film. Okay. Which is something about white lady ship. I'm not going to throw stones, but Karen. Yeah. But and a lot of things had changed. Oh, yeah, go ahead. So, so this is 90. 90 talking about. Yeah. Which wave of feminism are we in the middle of at this point? This is third wave. Well, into third. Yeah. Okay. I think I think there's something to be said for the metaphor having changed. Oh, yeah. There. Yeah. The first one wound up by accident being a movie about racial politics, this one being,

I think less accidentally because those all sound like conscious legitimate choices. And I don't know, I mean, I doubt very heavily based on everything else we know about the choices they made. I don't think the new producer director were intending to try to make a feminist film, but I think it is responding to focus of the focus of social attention at the time. Yeah well I mean the third wave of feminism is starting in the 90s. So it's responding to that to that shift. But I do think also just a lot of stuff changed in 22 years right. In the original But I do think also just a lot of stuff changed in 22 years, right? In the original, I mean, it's 1968, it's a very tempestuous year for race relations

in the United States, it's in the least. I mean, Goodman, Cheney, Schwerner, were all, those murderers were brought up on trial. Seven out of the 18 murderers of these three young men were found guilty. None got more than 10 years, and some got his fewest three years. That was 68. The long, and remember, he didn't make it with that stuff in mind, but that's what the people who were watching it were watching on the news. We're thinking about the long hot summer of 1967 was still seared into the background of most people's consciousness as the filming had begun. And it's not like there wasn't a buildup prior to that.

You remember, we talked about Star Trek, I brought up Detroit, right? In 67, you had those riots. But that was, again, the Longhot summer. Here's a list of cities. There were over 100 US cities, including Detroit, Newark, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Atlanta, Boston, Toledo, Portland, Buffalo, Tampa, Washington, D.C. And that's just in 67. There was a poll that was done in Minnesota, and it asked about the perceived relationship between the riots and the civil rights movement. When asked if there was a connection between the movement and the riots, 49% of people in Minnesota said, yes, there was a connection, 38% no, there's not a connection.

65% thought that the riots were planned rather than just uncontrolled skirmishes. Wow. Yeah. And that's, and here's the thing. I, so you say that, I really wanna know, like I want somebody to go pull everybody in Minnesota right now about the George Floyd protests

and ask the exact same fucking questions. Yeah, because... Yeah. Because the answers aren't going to be very different. No, they're not. I mean, I remember when the Ferguson riots happened and I'd watched a documentary on Kent State. And there were a lot of, I grant you, there's townies versus students, you know, but a lot of the townies are like,

I'm glad they shot them dead. I hope they do it again tonight. Like that was an old woman who presumably was on a rated church, you know, it's that kind of, you know, but, you know, okay, so, so you've got that percentage going on, right and and it's kind of important to note that 65% again thought that the riots were planned 65% of people pulled assigned agency and Planning to the riots Meaning that they had someone in mind that they could blame Rather than a system that was rotting from within I that they could blame rather than a system that was rotting from within. I think that's what that means. And in a similar poll, respondents were asked if the

cause of the riots was racial discrimination or lawless hoodlums. 32% said racial discrimination. 49% said lawless hoodlums. The desire to not see race is a problem. In the dominant culture, they were not understanding what was actually going on. And I don't want to quite say deliberately, but I'm going to say that they gaslit themselves. Well, yeah, I mean, the thing is there was a great commentary about the horror movie Bird Box, which was beginning of the pandemic. Oh, no, no. It was a couple of years prior to the pandemic.

Was it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I know you're right. Sorry. Time has no meaning anymore. But I remember reading a commentary about it that the metaphor for bird box is racism and white fragility in the face of confronting the reality of racism.

When you realize close. Yeah, when you see the monster, you are driven to kill yourself. Uh-huh. And, and the only way to survive is not, is literally not to see it. Yep. And I think there is, and at one point to get in a car and drive over people as you're not seeing it.

Yeah. Which, you know, I just, I think about what the police did prior to the Ferguson riot that created the Ferguson riot. But yeah. Yeah. And the... So, when you hear that 60 something percent of respondents said, oh yeah, no, it was it was you know, hoodlums, it wasn't it wasn't about, you know, it wasn't about racism. It's like there, there is a level of,

there is a level of semi conscious ignorance. There is, there is active denialism, I think is a better way of putting it. Yeah, I like that. That is that is no, no, I understand you have evidence. I know you can point to all of this, but I am just choosing not to believe it. Yeah. Because it is very hard to wrap one's head around the idea of racism as a systemic issue. Yes. And if racism is real, then we all have to be bad people. No. Right. That's not how it actually works.

And these are the same people that have black and white moral ideas about abortion, who have these very absolutist ideas about unemployment, about the social safety net. And it goes hand in hand with the conservative attachment to a very bipolar, the word that comes to mind, but very, it's either black or white, view of things where, you know, well, if your poor, it's gotta be your own fault because there's a moral component to poverty.

There's a moral component to everything. And so if race, and so's a racism can't be just a systemic thing. It has to be a moral failure of an individual. So when you say that somebody is involved in systemic racism, you are calling them a racist. Right. And so you are, you are accusing them of a moral failing.

And it's like, well, okay, if you are a racist, then it is a moral failing. But I can say that something you've said is racist without meaning to say that you are, you know, I'm not labeling you as I'm trying to tell you, stop saying that shit. You know, right now, listen to what's coming out of your mouth. Now what you're talking about is current though. I'm talking about in 1968. Yes. So it's much, much more desperate to do that. And it's much more, I'm going to say aggressive or belligerent in the desire to do that.

So when you have a zombie movie, where in a black man is the only one who really knows how to handle the situation and then he gets shot dead anyway after the crisis has passed, it really makes a lot more sense. But if you fast forward to 1990, which is still 30 years ago, If you've asked for it in 1990, the version that was filmed from April to June of 1990 and released in October in the United States, during that time, most of what happened felt diffuse. It felt not as urgent and fairly understated,

which I think is getting more toward the urge that you're talking about. Because I think people who are aggressively slamming their heads into the ground hoping for soft sand are the ones who are very comfortable in 1990s saying that racism is over. Let's move on. Yeah. I would point out in 90 you've got a lot of stuff going on there. You've got Mary and Barry getting arrested in an FBI drug sting. You had driving Miss Daisy getting awarded best picture Oscar. Jesse Owens posthumously got the Congressional Gold Medal

by President Bush. Nelson Mandela had gotten freed in November or in February. So just think about that combination of things. You have a movie about an old white woman and an old black man getting along to spite racism and it's set in the 50s and that's the movie that everybody likes and it's a great movie um, Marian Barry, he has a moral failing, he gets busted, that's what happens, you have a moral failing it's not because he was black that he got busted, it's because he was addicted to drugs and that's clearly a moral failing

Jesse Owens, see, we made it better he's dead, but, you know, we, we honored him. And Nelson Mandela, see, we, yeah, South Africa, let him out finally, never mind our support of apartheid for way too long. We're on the right side of history once he comes out. So all of these issues of racism that were so So acutely felt in 68 they felt distant or muted in 1990 Even if you take a look at the movie do the right thing which was 100% a movie about relate race relations at the time It still felt very New York centric which means that racism is in New York maybe, in that one neighborhood maybe, but that's it.

It keeps the problems in one location. And some colonists at the time said that the film could incite black audiences to riot. To which Spike Lee said, white reviewers really shouldn't be suggesting that black audiences are incapable of restraining themselves while watching a fictional emotion picture. And that was 89. Because that's some bullshit right there. And evening. Yeah.

And killing a black man right when we think he survived the onslaught of zombies, therefore isn't necessary because of what we've told ourselves, right? Having him die off camera as the result of a fight with another character and having the white woman as your focus makes a lot more sense, the producers in 1990 evidently. Granchu is also Hollywood, right? It's not an independent film. Yeah.

And I don't think that this is particularly deliberate choice to invert, invert the prior script either, but it is where the zeitgeist is taking their minds as compared to the original. Now, the guy who played Ben in this is named Tony Todd, and if you look him up, you'll be like, oh yeah, that guy. He turned right around in 1991 and got into another zombie movie that centered around a pretty white woman called Voodoo Dawn. And this time he plays a Voodoo priest who wields a machete. So I'm thinking he's like a fighter cleric multi-class. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah.

Hey, wait. Yeah. Yeah. He not only did that, he's much more famous for a film he made in 1992 Mm-hmm. I thought it recognized his name Candyman yes Okay, yeah, which is a ghost movie not a zombie movie, which is why I'm not covered here Yeah, yeah, okay, but so he's in Voodoo Dawn in 91 and this time he's the Voodoo fighter cleric

He turns Haitian migrant workers into zombie slaves and Haiti back to this who are of the flesh eating variety of zombies To college students who are looking for their missing friend foil his plans and the same writer who helped for Merrill right the original night of living dead wrote this one Really yeah John Russo seems to really have kept to just one subject. So we're starting to see a real return to the Haitian model of zombies and the like, but it's blending with the gaur of the Romero's flesh eaters here. And it makes sense given who the writer is, right? Now here's something that I'm bookending this episode with because we kind of started with

almost started with certain the rainbow and 88 serpent in the rainbow and 91 voodoo dawn. There was a coup in Haiti in both years. In 88 there were two coups actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah that's what popularized the grain couscous I hate you so much So okay, so the first two The first coup saw the overthrow of the president Leslie Magina It spelled Magonat He had won the election in February of that year, and of course the military controlled that election. Now, on Renomfee declared himself president,

and of course in September of 88, NAMFee was overthrown in another coup by Prosper Avril. Avril, or probably Avril, had prior links to John Claude de Vallier, baby doc, the son of Papa doc, who specifically had ties to voodoo practices, and de Vallier had been overthrown by a popular revolt in 86. So 86 to 88, then 88, two kuz and then in 91, right? yeah the interesting tie-in here is when the Avril military took over it was with was was something there was something called the Saint John Bosco massacre and numbers vary but 13 to 50 people

died when the church was besieged and then burned down by a group of people who were probably formerly of an organization called the taunta mccout Because oh shit. Yeah, because John Bertrand recognized the taunta Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, John Bertrand Aristide was speaking there now he escaped The taunta mccoutute specifically started in 1959 by Papa Dr. Volier, they were loyal only to him. They ended up numbering somewhere in like the three thousands range or something. And he would never pay them. Because then they're they're supporting

him on their own volition. They pay themselves through spoils. Okay, all right. They were basically a spec ops group. And if you look up Tantam Makut and see their uniform, it's pretty funny. But Papa Doc got them starred in 59. Now Tantam Makut is the name of the boogie man in Haiti that translates to Uncle Gunny sack, and he would come and steal children. And he'd carry them off to eat them for breakfast.

So they were called that, which is horrifying. Now surf, yeah, you see the uniform. I love the hats. Yeah. Yeah, what I find interesting is that in a country with the infrastructure trouble that we know maybe historically has, they're somehow able to supply themselves with uniforms that are that striking.

You gotta love fasci. You know, fasci fasci? Yeah, wow. That's a real, quite a thing. It's an interesting shade of blue. Yeah. That's like the first thing I noted is, oh well. Okay, because you know, you think of, you know,

the paramilitary supporting some, you know, tropical dictator, and the first thing you think is like, tiger stripe camo. You know, like in my head, that's the first thing I think I've been, no, no, that's like, you know, a New York cop blue. Yeah, like, yeah.

Now, Serpent Rainbow touches on Duvalier's political repression and its connections to voodoo It does okay. There's this reference that but the voodoo priest and voodoo dawn's name Makut Okay, that's Tony's character's name and in 1991 Aristide who'd become president the prior year in 90, was overthrown in another coup and replaced by Raoul Sadras. Yes. Both of these movies came out in years of tremendous turmoil for Haiti.

And it's interesting to me that so far all the Haiti-based zombie movies seem to come out in years that have specifically been difficult for Haiti to prosper. And also a 91, and I'm going to stop it after this, but also a 91. And only because I like the title, Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Sun of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack attack, of the evil mutant alien flesh eating hell-bound zombified living dead part two, shocking 2D was released. Wow. That's a mouthful.

It was clearly a spoof. And as far as I could find it never actually released, it just went straight to DVD. Several of its sequels got screened in like like you know Fan conventions kind of thing though. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow and that's where I want to leave us With with a reference to so if anybody wants to go and see it It's called night of the day of the dawn of the Sun of the bride of the return of the revenge of the terror of the dawn of the sun, of the bride, of the return, of the revenge, of the terror, of this attack, of the evil mutant alien flesh-eating hellbounds, omified living dead, part two, shocking toodie.

You know, you know, what I want, I want more than anything else for somebody to translate that title into German. Oh, because that would be one word. And I want the shirt of that. Yes. Because you just just wall. Yeah. Just walk.

I'm going to be perfect. Yeah. So all right. I'm not going to ask you what you've gleaned because we're like in the middle of yeah. Yeah. So all right, I'm not going to ask you what you've gleaned because we're like in the middle of Yeah, yeah, massive change. Um, okay, but I am going to ask you what what you would recommend for us to read. I am I'm going to go back to a prior recommendation and I am going to very very very strongly recommend that anybody in our audience who is a fan of the zombie genre go and

find the Kurosaki corpse delivery service the manga No, it's actually I don't actually need even qualified by saying the manga because there has not been an anime made of it sadly. But I very, very highly recommended. And again, it is a Buddhist take on undead horror comedy. And so it's very different from the western kind of outlook that we're looking at in all of these films. The undead in the comic are less often the enemy than the people who made them dead. Which is a very very Buddhist kind of take on the whole thing. very Buddhist kind of take on the whole thing. And so it's, yeah, no, it's an awful lot of fun.

Cool. And so I very highly recommend it. It's an alternative to Western zombie tropes. It's a very refreshing and just really cleverly written. Nice. So there you go, how about you? You know, I'm gonna go a far field on this one. I'm gonna say go a far field on this one. I'm going to say go go check out of the library because I like socialism.

Sinclair, Lewis, is it can't happen here. Okay. I think a lot of the themes that run through these zombie films tend to be man's inhumanity to man. And yeah, I think that that's that's worth another look. Especially since we talked about like the lists of the worst presidents, which just still tickles me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It goes. The worst was James Buchanan, then Donald then Andrew Johnson then Franklin Pierce then William Henry Harrison Um, so Harrison was still down there near the bottom. Yeah, by the way I do I do find it interesting that you know, and of course friends of the show will know that that you know The suppose would surprise us that you know Trump is second to last yeah, you know

Well to be fair, Buchanan, let the Civil War happen, which killed fewer people. Yeah, so there's that. By the way, you asked who, who number 23 was? Yeah. And I think this is due to a huge efforts in the lost cause era, Ulysses S. Grant. I think all their efforts pulled him down and the rehabilitation has pulled him up to the moon. I would agree. I think so. I think, yeah, Grant deserves more credit than he gets and less censure than he gets. Yeah, no, I agree, I, because you see Because here's the thing. I didn't say it at the time, and I know I wish I had, but I figured he was going to be somewhere near the middle,

if not in the middle. Yep. So, sorry. Okay, cool. So, where can people find you on the social medias? I can be found on the social medias at Mr. Blaylock, on TikTok, and at EH Blalock on the Twitter machine and on Instagram and

If anybody wants to shout out the two of us, they can go to geek history time on the Twitter machine And if they so if you have a correction or, you know, you're angry at us for, you know, something we've said, that's the place to go shouting at us into the void. But if they want to get angry at you for something, where would they go? Oh, Lord, people line up for that. At the Harmony on Twitter,

you want to do angry, go to Twitter. Instagram is just pictures of me and my kids. If you go there to be angry, you're really weird. So those are good places. Also every Tuesday night, Twitch.tv, forward slash capital puns. First Tuesday of every month, we do a pun tournament. All the others, you see us playing games.

So it's a lot of fun. Did you have a question you wanted to make, by the way? Which, now I feel like I had one. Somebody's age or something? Oh, yes. So, yeah, well I wasn't the one who told you about it, which is why I'm having trouble. But on Facebook, we got advised by the father of a friend of the show and listener, Joshua, that I mentioned Joshua as being 11 in an earlier

episode, Joshua is not 11. Joshua is 10 and 12. And we strive for accuracy on the show. Yes, we strive for accuracy and I want to apologize for overlooking that critical six months in in Joshua's life and development but for those of you who are having trouble connecting to when I mentioned Joshua Joshua is the youngest member of my current D&D game campaign, which we're playing virtually, and is the

one in our party responsible for picking a fight with a group of fantasy space Nazis. Well done, Joshua. It's over. Yes. Yes. Joshua deserves a very great deal of credit for that. Playing chaotic good cleric in the party as soon as the Bard said, oh yeah, no, I'm going to pick a fight. I was like, all right, I'm in. Yeah, like, we're, there we go. We're done. So, you had Joshua been 11 that might have been a more measured response, but 10 and a half,

that makes sense. Like, 10 and a half that makes, yeah, it all kind of ties in and it's very clear now. So, but I do, I do want to, yeah, very, I legitimately, yes, I'm sorry, I felt overlooked in that way. So there you go. Cool. Well, thank you.

Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, remember, aim for the head. MBC 뉴스 김