Through her tears

We have our monsters and they seem to cycle through periods of popularity. In recent times, the vampire has been the top monster, in either guise of soul-stealing blood-sucker or romantic lead. Before this, there was the popularity of the serial killer, featured in such films as "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), "Se7en" (1995) and "Monster" (2003). Recently, we have had the popularity of the Zombie - "The Walking Dead" (2010 -), "World War Z" (2013) and, the recurring, "Resident Evil" (2002 -). And a plethora of zombie fiction, including - "The horror! The horror!" - "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies".

What is it that makes a particular monster flavour of the month? There must always be an individual attraction, of course, but, to make an impression on the Nielsen ratings, there has to be individuals in the millions with the same desire.

You can see it with serial killers. After all, what could be more fascinating than a very real human monster preying on ordinary people; people we could very well know suddenly disappearing or being found dead, actually dead, no conspiracy necessary?

One can even see it with vampires - a creature that catches us unawares in the night, feeding off my life to sustain his/her own. Don't we all know people like that? How many times have you had to deal with somebody and found yourself feeling completely drained afterwards?

But, Zombies?

Where's the attraction of a horde of mindless morons wandering mindlessly around looking for brains?

Oh!

I think I just got it!

Duh!

I wonder though, those who watch "The Walking Dead", where do they identify?

Aliens, watching from a safe distance, might think, after the recent election of Donald Trump and Brexit, that the majority would identify with the zombies!

I can't imagine too many people admitting to this, even if it were true.

Surely, viewers are more likely to identify with the survivors?

Of course, if the survivors numbered the same as the viewers then there wouldn't be much of a zombie problem worth watching!

But, if they did, in fact, identify with the zombies, then there wouldn't be so many viewers as they'd be too busy trying to work out how to turn the TV on!

The serious question behind this tomfoolery is where do we tend to identify and what is the impact of such identification on our behaviour?

For we do identify with others and we do allow outside influences to determine how we behave. There would be no advertising industry if this were not the case.

Having been given a B.B. gun by her brothers, young Dana Scully is learning to use it by their instruction. We're told Dana had always been a tomboy, so it was natural for her to want to fit in with her brothers rather than with Melissa, her sister. And, like boys anywhere, it was natural to use a living creature as target practice. When her brothers begin to shoot at the garter snake, Dana joins them.

Scully, in this moment of identification with the crowd, becomes capable of doing something so against the nature of the adult that we know. In becoming subsumed into the "group-mind", Scully's behaviour is altered to coincide with that of the group, and the life of an innocent is forfeited.

Ah, but hold on.

They killed a snake - big deal, right?

In those parts of Africa - principally Zambia and Tanzania - where I have lived, if a snake ventures anywhere near the house, it most die! Period!

And we all hate snakes, anyway. Don't we?

Some of us, have a completely irrational fear of the serpents that slither around on their bellies, smelling the air with their tongues, ready to bite the unaware passerby in the ankle.

So, she killed a snake!

Let's think about this symbolically.

As "One Breath" begins, Dana is in the woods with her brothers. Eve, in the Garden of Eden, reached up and took the apple from the tree, then offered it to her man. Dana's men, her brothers, reach down to the ground and pick up a snake, inviting Dana to join in its destruction. Eve's action led to her and Adam's eviction from paradise; Dana's action led to her realising the value of life and becoming a doctor. Eve's action, symbolically, represents our willingness and readiness to disobey whatever law or command may be standing in our way, preventing us from taking what we want, when we want it. Dana's action, taken in the anonymity of the group-mind, forces her to realise her individuality, strips away all her efforts to identify with the father who, she was always so sure, was disappointed in her. Eve's action was meant to gain us the knowledge of good and evil, thus making us as like God. Dana's action gains for her the freedom to be the person she is meant to be.

Identifying with the group makes us dangerous, destructive zombies, with the urge only to feed our insatiable appetites, a marauding mass of unpitying, unremorseful and, worse, unthinking automatons, programmed only to satiate the hunger.

Society can have that effect on people.

It can also make us realise that life is worth living, worth saving and, sometimes, worth dying for.
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent was the devil in disguise. In the woods, that day Dana went shooting with her brothers, the serpent was God in disguise.