Imaginary Worlds - Zombie Therapy

Episode Date: March 25, 2015

Zombies. I hate them the way Indiana Jones hates snakes. I know it's a ridiculous phobia -- they're not real, and zombies are a classic genre full of rich ideas. So I decide to undergo zombie immersion therapy. My friend Patrick O' Connor forces me to watch The Walking Dead. And I talk with psychiatrist Steven Schlozman, author of "The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notesboks from the Apocaplypse."Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Eric Malinsky. Stephen Schlossman is a psychiatrist at Mass General Hospital in Boston. And he's been obsessed with zombies since he was a kid. I could walk to the theater where I grew up. I snuck into Dawn of the Dead when I was 11 years old. I told my parents I was going to see The Jerk, but instead snuck into this R-rated movie. Run! But I loved it. It was a great movie. The first time it occurred to me that horror films could also have kind of embedded social commentary.

I couldn't have phrased it that way when I was 11. And then on top of that, I think the thing that really got to me, it was funny. There were funny, I mean, zombies on an ice skating rink are funny. They're objectively funny. And the ability to sort of laugh and be frightened at the same time, that was scary. And then I had to call my parents and tell them that, you know, I'd lied to them and I needed them to come pick me up because I was too afraid to walk home. And they said, didn't you just see a jerk?

I said, no, it's not the other day that I lied. For a long time, zombies were a guilty pleasure for him. But a few years ago, his personal and his professional interests collided. My wife, who's totally fine now at the time, had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. So I wouldn't tell you the story, but we're in a happy ending. But it's a happy, she's fine, we're more than five years out. But at the time, I couldn't sleep. My kids were little. I was scared. So I just was up late. Night of the Living Dead was on TV.

I've seen it a million times. And it occurred to me, I can't make the cancer better, but I could maybe treat these zombies because they're not real. So he broke down the zombie virus as scientifically as he could. And then he wrote a novel called The Zombie Autopsies, Secret Diaries from the Apocalypse. George Romero, who made Dawn of the Dead and all those other films, bought the rights and now they're friends.

But the real thrill for him came in 2014, when the Center for Disease Control put out a fake website for zombie preparedness and mentioned his fictional virus. But they misspelled my last name. So if you want to piss off a nice Jewish mother, you misspell her son's last name. So she actually called the CDC and told them to correct the spelling. So the reason why I wanted to talk to Dr. Schlossman is because I have a massive, very irrational fear of zombies. Now, the only zombie movie I've actually seen all the way

through was Shaun of the Dead, and that was by accident. I was working at my desk at WNYC, and one of the interns was watching that movie because Simon Pegg was going to be on our show. I mean, I know it's a comedy, but the images were so disturbing. I had flashbacks seriously for years, especially the scenes where Simon Pegg's parents became these mindless, monstrous zombies and had to be killed. Yeah, yeah, it's so freaking dark. Vampires are all, you know, they're sexy, they're libidinal. They really make you feel special, even if you're not special.

A vampire's whole shtick is to make you feel like you're the sexiest thing alive so it can get to you. Zombies don't care about you. And I think it's really disturbing to think that Zombies don't care about you. And I think it's really disturbing to think that someone who used to care about you a lot, your grandmother who's become a zombie, doesn't care anymore. She could care less because she's not she. She's a zombie, a totally made up monster that could never ever exist in the real world. monster that could never, ever exist in the real world. I decided it was time for me to get over this stupid fear and do some zombie immersion therapy.

I asked my friend Patrick O'Connor to come over with an episode of The Walking Dead. He chose the pilot. So Patrick is an assistant district attorney. He prosecutes gang-related homicides in Brooklyn. Hey! How are you doing? So Patrick is an assistant district attorney. He prosecutes gang-related homicides in Brooklyn. And it amazes me that after a hard week at work, dealing with some pretty grim stuff, he really likes to kick back and watch the zombie apocalypse.

This show has freaked me out. This show has had spots where my wife and I, after an episode, we just sat still for like a minute, just staring at the television, like unable to talk about what we had just seen. So, I mean, is this first episode even going to be disturbing enough for me? Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, you don't like zombies. So yeah, this, this should be terrifying or disturbing. I mean, it sets the tone. In the first scene, Sheriff Rick Grimes sees a little girl that he thinks he can save, but it's too late. And she reaches for the, she's reaching for her bunny.

She still retains memories. The death of innocence starts out this show i can think of so many horrible movies or disturbing things that we could be watching right now that i would be less apprehensive about than a zombie thing and it's that whole thing that like that you you saw what they were like as people and now that humanity is forever totally revoked and gone and it still looks like the person you love but it is now a soulless monster and you have to kill it exactly exactly that's why it's horror that's what horror is right i mean pushing it to the limits you know bringing out the worst that could happen and

you're correct i mean on the walking dead they make a point of showing how the zombies, and they talk about how the zombies still somewhere, they retain, like, memories. So there's something there, but not there. At one point, Rick meets a survivor named Morgan, whose wife is now one of The Walking Dead. And she keeps shuffling back to their front door out of some kind of dulled instinct.

Morgan can't get himself to shoot her. Yeah, nobody takes pleasure in killing these things. This is, oh my God, the crosshairs in her. She looks so... I mean, it almost reminds you of a disease. mean it is a disease but it reminds you of when somebody it's like somebody having alzheimer's and then being a shadow of themselves yes yeah and it's just like you know as you i mean when you watch your own if any loved ones get really really sick and they just become a shadow of themselves except here she's she's a threat yeah like seeing them move so slowly is like it's so freaky it's so it's like

the slow inevitable the inevitability of it the slow movement it's like you think you can run away but you can't because there's so many there's nothing and they don't stop like you get tired you can run as far as you can and fast as you can, but you'll get tired and they just keep walking and keep walking. It's that moment of empathy, looking at the zombie and seeing their humanity that slows you down and can be your doom. I mean, who are the true monsters?

When you watch the show, you find out the true monsters are the people, not the zombies. The zombies just do what zombies do. They're just, you know, animals. They're running on instinct. They're not evil. People are evil.

In the last sequence, Rick rides into town looking for survivors. But the zombies overtake them. Thankfully, the horse is there. Oh, they're going to eat the horse? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, they're gonna eat the horse? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. This makes me afraid to go outside tomorrow. This didn't cure you of your zombie phobia, huh? Oh, God, I can't believe we have to eat right now. After seeing the horses' entrails coming out. I'm like, you know, we're eating beef tamale pie. Oh, wow.

Okay. Like, oh, my God, it's just so horrible. Like, I wanted to see it. Like, it's good, but it's, I mean, it's obviously like amazingly well done, but it's so depressing. Yeah. Why do people love zombies? This is something that I've been trying to figure out, but also lots and lots of academics, too. There's one theory that zombies are particularly popular after times of war or some catastrophic disaster where we're contemplating massive amounts of dead.

South Park actually had three different zombie episodes, one where the zombies represented people's fear of catching pink eye. Pink eye. Get the hell out of here, Johnson. I don't want no goddamn pink eye. There was one where the zombies represented people's fear of the homeless. And most recently, zombies represented Cartman's racist fears of black people rioting after the George Zimmerman verdict. Oh, wait, is this a Tesla? What's going on? Get to an airport! An airport? But lady, we've got about 10 minutes before this entire country is up in flames.

If you want to live, you better step on the gas. Oh wait, is this a Tesla? Stephen Schlossman has a simpler theory. I think zombies speak more broadly, more culturally, to the sense we all have that we kind of matter less and less. Look, that's the guy in front of you when you're stuck in traffic and on the road going to work. He doesn't care about you. It's not that he's mean. He just doesn't care.

It's not about you. So you can yell at him all you want, and he can yell back at you all you want, but you might as well be yelling at a zombie. It doesn't care. It's still going to get in front of you or not, depending on what else grabs its attention. That experience of not mattering, I think, is increasingly part of our modern world. I think a lot of people like the idea that the zombie apocalypse would wipe out modern society and bring us back to the days of hunters and gatherers. They're walking dead out of a plot twist to make sure things stay that way. Anyone who dies for any reason catches the airborne virus

and turns into a zombie. How do you have a society in that? How can you have a large society? You can't. So if you imagine, if you keep thinking, well, who would I be in this situation? What would I do? What do you think? Well, I would hope that I would be like Rick.

You know, he has maintained his humanity. He's been pushed to the limit, but he's still maintaining. And he also has a real world ability to do what needs to be done. He doesn't let his heart get in the way. One of the things in this show is like there are characters who are all heart, who are all humanity. And those are the characters who get killed right away. That's it. That's why I hate zombie movies. That's why, because I know that I am that person.

I am all impulse, all, all, all good, not all good, but just like, I'm totally impractical. You know, I'm all about feeling and thumbs up on that how does it feel my wife would be awesome in a zombie apocalypse she wouldn't be happy yeah but she'd kick ass she's super practical she just would she's able to compartmentalize you know and just to be like you know what i gotta do this shit now this sucks and i'm going to do it it's like every single fault that i have as a person would count against being zombie world this this is correct right i mean you'd be like herschel or or or there's another character i forget his name um he's the voice of they always have a voice of reason a voice of let's do the right thing and every single character who has that voice gets killed and then they replace it and just the last episode the voice of humanity the most human

character in the show who like really struggles with the morality of the issues and really wants to do good he even takes a vow that he's not going to kill anybody again any human being again he even tries to stop from killing zombies he wants out that character who's so, you know, feeling he's dead now. He died, you know, and the show. How did he die? He got bitten by a zombie while he was looking at a picture on the wall. It snuck up on him and bit him. And the whole episode was about his death, which is a very well done episode. You know, he he was dying and then they brought back all these other characters.

You mean after he's been bitten? After he's bitten and while he's going through the fever of dying, while he's dying from being bitten and while he's losing blood. It was so poignantly and beautifully put. He's talking with a character, how his father told him to be engaged in the world, to listen to the news. And that's how you hold on to your place in humanity.

And that's important to be a good person, to be aware of what's going on. And at the end of the episode, when he's dying, there's like a news broadcast playing. The group has continued their campaign of random violence, moving across the countryside unfettered with the Republic's military forces in disarray. And as he's listening to it, he says,

oh, just turn it off. You know, just turn off the news. And the ghost in the car, are you sure? Are you sure you're ready to turn off the news? And he's like, yeah, just stop the noise. And then he dies. So I think I just heard about my own death in The Walking Dead.

I'd be looking at a picture picture wanting to listen to the news yeah yeah i would i would be i wouldn't survive a day and would you want to i mean uh that's true i mean you know maybe that's why because a part of me wouldn't want to yeah well i mean why do we live? I mean, that's another question that the zombie show asks. Like, what's the point? If you're just going day to day trying to find food, it's just a struggle to survive. Is that living? Is that a life worth living? Amazingly enough, Stephen Schlossman thinks I actually could make it in zombie world, even though I don't even like living in a neighborhood where I can't get a good cappuccino.

Look, I can't even hang a picture. I grew up in the suburbs. My dad was a physician. I'm a physician. I like camping, but that hardly qualifies me for surviving a zombie apocalypse. So what I always say is probably I wouldn't make it. But then I remember Homer, who told stories for a living.

He was blind in the most barbaric of times. And he went from feudal lord to feudal lord telling these stories, and they gave him some food, and he was smart enough not to make it end, which is why the Illiniadacy go on forever. So I think the skill that you could use, and hopefully that I could use, would be just to drag my family around and say, if you give me some baked beans, I'll tell you a story, and I promise that it won't end. So I think we'd be okay. That survivalist ethos, it is a fun one. The problem with it is

it wouldn't work. Like, ultimately, humans need more than just every single day worrying that they're going to be attacked by the hordes. We need each other. We need to actually tell stories. That makes me feel slightly better. I'm glad to do that. I actually did feel better. I kept thinking about The Walking Dead, but not in a bad way. I really wanted to know how Rick got out of Atlanta, surrounded by walkers. So I watched the next episode.

And the episode after that. And then I skipped to the current season, because I wanted to see how the characters had evolved. And then World War Z was on cable. I didn't turn the channel, I watched it. And I was like, oh my god, it worked. And this is great, because this genre is so interesting, and filled with all these rich ideas and great stories. And then I noticed that I was kind of expecting zombies

to show up in every show that I was watching. You know, somebody would go up to a closed door and unflinch, be like, there's a zombie there. Or, I mean, actually this happened twice in the last few weeks that I saw somebody kind of limping and shuffling on the street. And I just seized up, you know, like, shoot, I don't have a gun or a knife on me. I shouldn't have rushed it. Well, that's it for this week's show.

Thanks for listening. You can like the show on Facebook or leave a comment on iTunes. That would be awesome. I tweet at emolinski. The show's website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org. Special thanks to Stephen Schlossman, Patrick O'Connor, and Chef Serena. The beef tamale pie was really delicious. Although listening to that tape, dude, doesn't that sound gross?

I feel like we're eating that horse or something. I gotta turn that off. Oh, one more thing. Patrick's wife, Beata, has a habit of falling asleep to my podcasts, and she says it's because my voice is very soothing. I don't know if that's really a compliment, but Beata, Beata, time to wake up.

The episode's over.