Contagious disease regularly dominates the news, sometimes suggesting a world on the brink of apocalyptic crisis. Our cultural obsession with contagion is inspired by viral disease and infectious dangers: AIDS, bio-terrorism, West Nile virus, SARS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, and most recently an E. Just as atomic anxiety infused Cold War-era pop culture, fear of contagion dominates recent pop culture in the form of apocalyptic zombie plagues, viral pandemics, infectious vampires, parasitized bodies, and microbe-caused mutations. As the central monsters of the 21st century, they reflect our culture’s nightmares in such recent work as Steven Soderbergh’s new movie Contagion, The Walking Dead, True Blood,, Daybreakers, Stake Land, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Left 4 Dead, The Strain, Justin Cronin’s novel The Passage and even the apocalyptic ending of Rise of the Planet of the Apes.īut why do we respond to these specific monsters now? What do they have in common? Most people look at vampires, viruses and zombies as separate entities, but in fact they are linked as contagious fiends that use the living to reproduce themselves.Ĭontagion is the dominant horror of the 21st century, an era marked by epidemics of terror, war, and economic crisis. Pop culture runs rampant with vampires, viruses, and zombies. Guillermo Del Toro in his novel The Strain We are on the verge of a world wide pandemic, an extinction event.” Official Richard Haas, speaking after the killing of Osama Bin Laden Last night we cured one disease, but we have not gotten rid of the threat of germs or viruses or diseases all together.” “When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out/Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood.”
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