Why We All Want to Live in Zombieland

(Please forgive any bad grammar or poor style in this post--it's difficult for me to edit in this format...)

It's possible you've been to a gift shop with one of those trays of rocks. Small stones are sorted by kind, and you can put a selection of them in a little leather pouch and beg your mother to buy it for you; so you can take it home and put it on your dresser until you outgrow rocks and it goes in a shoebox, where it is lost until your mother finds it (when she goes to clear your room to convert it into a workout room) and throws it away. As a teenager, you may have wanted to take one bloodstone and thrown it in the aquamarine tray. Imagine, now, dumping over the entire table of rocks--watching the hundreds--possibly thousands--of tiny stones mixing and mingling into a cascading mosaic of multicolored chaos. This is Zombieland.

The world of Zombieland is overrun by former humans who have been turned into flesh-eating maniacs by a parasite. Jessie Eisenberg's rules have kept him alive and zombie-free until the beginning of the movie. And the world he lives in is one of infinite possibility. Cars line the highway, waiting to be driven. Fully-stocked supermarkets invite survivors to sate their appetites a hundred times over. Hollywood homes stand empty--plebeians can finally indulge in the luxuries of the wealthy. Theme parks have no lines, and it is not necessary to knock down the effing bottles in order to obtain a massive pink teddy bear.

This world is not only empty, but it is full of solitude. Every person hates people in some way. I wanted to knock out the teeth of the girls talking behind me during the movie. No person has never been annoyed by another, particularly a group. But if I went to Zombieland's Pacific Playland, I wouldn't have to watch a forty-something couple make out in their swimsuits for an hour just to ride the Dragon Blaster. The highways of Zombieland have no speed limit, and I don't have to deal with people doing fifty on the interstate. Theoretically, the supermarket has an endless supply of twinkies. But best of all, I would be free. I could think and act completely independently.

This independence also bespeaks another need--the need to get by using one's own strengths. Children like to be taken care of by their parents, but eventually everyone wants to find out if they can support themselves. I am twenty-one. I can't run a mile continuously. I'm still scared of the dark. I'm fairly certain I can't throw a punch. And I'm afraid to use a gun because I'm fairly certain the backfire would knock me down. Yet I want to know: could I do these things if I truly needed to? Would adrenaline keep my legs moving away from a zombie, or would my hand instinctively make a fist? Can I even aim a gun? Yes, I am terrified of everything. Yet an infinitesimally small part of me wants to confront an unarmed robber in a dark alley, just to test the strength of my arm. Actually, I don't want that. At all. But I need it. This is what Zombieland offers.

Back to the gift shop. When the characters of the movie smash up the "Indian Trading Post", there is an infectious sense of something like joy--the engaged audience member cannot help but feel deeply the boundless abandon in this scene. It is not joy--it is beyond joy. It is so strong as to be palpable to the audience because the audience secretly, desperately wants to participate. This is catharsis. It is the explosion of pent-up emotion--it is release. In the normal world, people find a sense of release through working out, hitting a punching bag, or going for a drive. But in Zombieland, these things are necessary to survival--they only build tension. The destruction of glass knick-knack counters, the overturning of rock displays, and the use of stuffed animals as baseballs is what allows the characters to break free.

This world of solitude and sole survival--wouldn't it get lonely? The movie offers a solution to that. Columbus and Tallahassee begin alone, having lost their respective families. But then they meet Wichita and Little Rock, who have a survival strategy as well--they stick together. The four form a new family, and Columbus acknowledges that it is tighter than what he began with. The strongest families are those that support each other and rely on each other--who ultimately save each other. This is what happens to the four companions. They become family because of what they go through together and because they are the only people left in their world. We all want a family like that.

I know this is an idealized version of the movie. I'm fairly certain I'd last less than 2 minutes in Zombieland. I'd be devastated at the loss of my family. Although I would enjoy destroying a gift shop, it wouldn't be worth it to me (again, it's not likely I'd last that long). However, there is something that I think speaks to everyone. We all want to live in Zombieland. If only we could do it without the zombies.