1173; Week 8 - LJ Idol: A Traveling Travesty
A Traveling Travesty
Let me tell you something. Hollywood might think they are oh so inventive and oh so clever at predicting how various End of the World scenarios would play out but they could not have been more wrong if they tried.
I will say they were right here and there, but these cases are few and far between. The whole Zombie Apocalypse genre blew up for awhile; it lasted pretty much right up until the end, as it were. In a case of Hollywood versus Reality, the zombie apocalypse as the cause for humanity’s demise is about as close to reality as they got. I don’t recall any movies where humanity was wiped out that was not a zombie movie, but admittedly I was never a big fan of the genre.
From what I remember, the zombie genre almost always went along the lines of “There is a mass outbreak of disease and everyone will die!* Except several survivors who have never met before and will band together in an attempt to survive!”. And that is kind of close to what actually happened here.
But they still got a lot of it wrong.
According to the Hollywood version, everyone will know exactly how and when this whole outbreak thing started. It is always a virus, and when they are feeling especially crafty the aforementioned virus is released as a result of viral warfare. I think. Like I said, I was never a big fan of horror movies.
In the Real World version, it was not a virus. It was some kind of parasite but no one knows where it came from or much of anything else because unlike in Hollywood, our scientists were too busy trying to not die to actually look into the issue. That pesky survival instinct struck again. Actually, everyone was too busy trying to not become infected to really care much about the specifics, anyway.
And unlike the Hollywood version, once you were dead, you stayed dead. There are plenty of dead bodies, I’ll give them that, but they are not wandering about. Sure, before people died they took on the whole biting thing. Being bitten did not cause you to become infected and they were not solely biting people. I cannot tell you how many infected people I saw biting non-human things like benches, tree branches, squirrels and the list goes on.
Hollywood’s biggest mistake by far was not the specifics of the outbreak though. It failed terribly in realizing what the aftermath would be like and what the survivors would do to survive. They were accurate in having them move from place to place, never staying anywhere for too long.
But the neighborly camaraderie they depicted never developed here, or anywhere else I have been in the past several months. No one went out and formed a little traveling band of survivors. Everyone held tightly to the people they knew that were still alive and that was that.
A true depiction of what people behave like in a post-apocalyptic world would be more akin to the Hunger Games than anything a zombie movie had ever churned out. I mean the actual Games too, not the civilizations that rose in North America.
People are ruthless in their desire to survive and I cannot say I blame them too much. After all we have been through, surviving and fighting over necessities seems almost sensible. Brutal, yes, but necessary to preserve your own life.
Having to accept an outsider into your small group only gives you another mouth to have to feed and another body to have to help keep safe. And outsiders are strangers; who is to say they will not turn on you as soon as it becomes necessary to save themselves. There is a logical reason to stay with those you already know.
Although, if I am being honest, the strange bands movie characters developed are the one thing I do wish Hollywood had gotten right. It is nice to not be completely alone but having only one other person around, ever, is incredibly lonely.
Let me tell you something. Hollywood might think they are oh so inventive and oh so clever at predicting how various End of the World scenarios would play out but they could not have been more wrong if they tried.
I will say they were right here and there, but these cases are few and far between. The whole Zombie Apocalypse genre blew up for awhile; it lasted pretty much right up until the end, as it were. In a case of Hollywood versus Reality, the zombie apocalypse as the cause for humanity’s demise is about as close to reality as they got. I don’t recall any movies where humanity was wiped out that was not a zombie movie, but admittedly I was never a big fan of the genre.
From what I remember, the zombie genre almost always went along the lines of “There is a mass outbreak of disease and everyone will die!* Except several survivors who have never met before and will band together in an attempt to survive!”. And that is kind of close to what actually happened here.
But they still got a lot of it wrong.
According to the Hollywood version, everyone will know exactly how and when this whole outbreak thing started. It is always a virus, and when they are feeling especially crafty the aforementioned virus is released as a result of viral warfare. I think. Like I said, I was never a big fan of horror movies.
In the Real World version, it was not a virus. It was some kind of parasite but no one knows where it came from or much of anything else because unlike in Hollywood, our scientists were too busy trying to not die to actually look into the issue. That pesky survival instinct struck again. Actually, everyone was too busy trying to not become infected to really care much about the specifics, anyway.
And unlike the Hollywood version, once you were dead, you stayed dead. There are plenty of dead bodies, I’ll give them that, but they are not wandering about. Sure, before people died they took on the whole biting thing. Being bitten did not cause you to become infected and they were not solely biting people. I cannot tell you how many infected people I saw biting non-human things like benches, tree branches, squirrels and the list goes on.
Hollywood’s biggest mistake by far was not the specifics of the outbreak though. It failed terribly in realizing what the aftermath would be like and what the survivors would do to survive. They were accurate in having them move from place to place, never staying anywhere for too long.
But the neighborly camaraderie they depicted never developed here, or anywhere else I have been in the past several months. No one went out and formed a little traveling band of survivors. Everyone held tightly to the people they knew that were still alive and that was that.
A true depiction of what people behave like in a post-apocalyptic world would be more akin to the Hunger Games than anything a zombie movie had ever churned out. I mean the actual Games too, not the civilizations that rose in North America.
People are ruthless in their desire to survive and I cannot say I blame them too much. After all we have been through, surviving and fighting over necessities seems almost sensible. Brutal, yes, but necessary to preserve your own life.
Having to accept an outsider into your small group only gives you another mouth to have to feed and another body to have to help keep safe. And outsiders are strangers; who is to say they will not turn on you as soon as it becomes necessary to save themselves. There is a logical reason to stay with those you already know.
Although, if I am being honest, the strange bands movie characters developed are the one thing I do wish Hollywood had gotten right. It is nice to not be completely alone but having only one other person around, ever, is incredibly lonely.