Bored Druid Thread: The Next GenerationFollow

After looking at it, my only comment is that I learned European geography before the Cold War ended, and all those countries to the right were "U.S.S.R."

Speaker = The Hon Dr Peter Phelps



ZOMBIES


The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS [7.20 p.m.]: I speak about a significant development in the cultural malaise greeting the West, and I speak of nothing else than zombies. Yes, zombies. Zombies are the proverbial canary in the cultural coalmine. One might be tempted to say, "Where go zombies, so goes the nation." I speak in particular tonight about the moral menace posed by the concept of fast zombies. Frankly, zombies do not run. Zombies are lumbering; they are eternal; they are blind and brainless. They rise from the grave, but they do not run. In the 1970s, the zombie mythos was created by the great George Romero films such as the Night of the Living Dead and the Dawn of the Dead. The dead rise, but they do not run. They lumber, they lurch—you can run, but you cannot hide. You think because they are slow you can outrun them, and thereby save yourself from the apocalypse that awaits you. You can grab your shotgun, but eventually it will run out of shells. You can grab your chainsaw, but it will run out of fuel. You can grab your baseball bat, but even the strongest maple will one day splinter and break. Indeed, zombies are a powerful cultural symbol. They are a metaphor for the death that awaits us all—the strong, the smart and the brave. It does not matter because zombies eventually will be feeding on your innards.

What do we see in the current cultural crisis facing the West? We see fast zombies. Fast zombies go against the entire mythos of zombiedom. Once upon a time you thought you could run, but now you cannot even do that, because you are being chased by the Usain Bolt of the undead. Consider the current zombie shows that have been foisted on us: 28 Days Later, Dead Set, Zombieland. All these movies have zombies running faster than CityRail. All this phenomenon of fast zombies or pseudo zombies, as they should be, is a disgrace to the zombie mythos. Even I Am Legend has zombies running about and showing feelings. I will put aside the fact that the movie I Am Legend is a disgraceful attempt to steal the vampirism in the original book and then turn it into a quasi-zombie story. Movies such as Warm Bodies have zombies falling in love. Worst of all, we now have pole-dancing zombies in the movie Zombie Strippers. This is an outrage. Zombies do not fall in love, they do not dance, and they do not express feelings.

Even World War Z, which is arguably the finest zombie book ever written, has been completely destroyed by Hollywood—and how many times has that phrase been used—by making them fast. The great zombie mythos has been rewritten and it has now become the Stawell Gift of horror movies. Why is that so? It is because of the demand for instant gratification from Generation Y. They cannot wait 90 minutes for the eventual evisceration or to have your brains being eaten by a lumbering zombie; they have to have a disembowelling every 30 seconds or they are onto the iPhone and then onto Twitter complaining about how boring the movie is and running a #oldpeoplezombies. I warn the people of New South Wales, Australia, Western civilisation and the world that we will continue to decline until we get our zombies back under control and stop them from running around like a bunch of undead chooks. Merry Christmas.

Question—That this House do now adjourn—put and resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.
The House adjourned at 7.25 p.m. until Tuesday 4 March 2014 at 2.30 p.m.

Ah, I don't see much need for a screen beyond the 22" I've got right now. Although if I get a larger screen sometime in the future, I'll probably wonder how I ever survived with such a tiny screen.


Also, in case you didn't want to sleep for the coming week: Here's some interesting history/horrifying nightmare fuel.

The stuff we're usually hunting for bargains on though are baby/kid clothes related.