Vampires and zombies, just like real life in 21st century America

It Fascinates me that over the last 15 years or so, vampires and zombies have become such a big part of our popular culture.

The beginning

I've had this discussion before -- with people who disagree with me -- and yes, vampires and zombies have been around nearly as long as we've had popular culture. Vampires go all the way back to silent movies and the first film made, 1922's "Nosferatu," is still one of the scariest movies ever.

In fact, it was so frightening that people thought lead actor Max Schreck might actually be one of the undead. When Tod Browning made "Dracula" in 1931, he made a movie that set the tone for all the rest, even if 80 years of bloodier movies and impersonations have left people giggling at Bela Lugosi.

But vampires  became much scarier when they crossed over into modern times. When Stephen King brought vampires into modern-day America in 1975 with "Salem's Lot," all of a sudden the undead weren't guys in capes with funny accents. Joss Whedon added humor to the mix with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," as a movie in 1992 and as a television series from 1997-2004, but there were enough times in the series that things were very serious and very scary.

Buffy

Whether it was King or Whedon, Dracula or Buffy, vampires have always been about the strong preying on the weak. It might be a stretch to call it a metaphor for the way banksters and financiers have preyed on people in this country over the last 30 years, but it wouldn't be that much of a stretch.

Which brings us to zombies. Until George Romero came along, zombies were sort of arcane figures, mostly connected with Haiti and/or voodoo.

But when Romero made "Night of the Living Dead" for $20,000 in 1968, everything changed. All of a sudden, the dead were climbing out of their graves and killing the living in, of all places, Pennsylvania.

Romero was successful enough that he made three sequels and eventually created an entire genre -- zombies in the modern world. And they became something of a metaphor for H.L. Mencken's "great unwashed," people who seem to stagger through their lives without ever thinking very much.

Romero's classic

What Romero started has grown into a cottage industry of sorts, from all sorts of low-budget imitations to the current series "The Walking Dead" on AMC that is starting its fourth season this fall.

"Walking Dead" came from a series of comic books -- sorry, but I refuse to call them graphic novels, even though I read them -- and has gotten rave reviews.

It's far bloodier and more, well, graphic than Romero could ever have been, and it does get a little tiresome after a while to see yet another hatchet sunken into yet another head. Still, the story is compelling.

You can agree with me or not about the metaphors of vampires and zombies in our modern world, but every time I see right wingers yammering about makers and takers, and every time I see people who are convinced that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are sharing the wisdom of the ages, I think about vampires and zombies.

The only question how is who wins in the end.

I'm betting on the zombies.