I suppose zombie-movies/video games must be popular on some level because they reflect fears we have about society
I'd def agree with that. I think they often reflect people's fears of the mindless/frightening ways in which others can act under the influence of particular propaganda/ideology. Romero set Dawn of the Dead in a shopping mall very aptly...
I went to the anti-EDL demo at Walthamstow yesterday, and the number of people just wandering around their usual business/shopping, gawping as if confused by the whole thing, was predictable but still a little terrifying. OK, so there's going to be a possibly large group of fascists (wasn't a big group in the end though, thank god) marching through the actual place where I live, but hey, I do need a new T-shirt...
I'd sort of understand (but not sympathise) if people weren't doing it out of apathy and just stayed home, but the fact that they were devoting exactly the same energy required to go on a short demo to going shopping...that's something else. Which is where the idea of zombies comes in very useful.
The shopping-mall zombism is ref'd nicely at the start of Shaun Of The Dead, where it's implied that most of us are in a pretty zombic state already.
(Remember at the end of that film, where the remaining zombies are shown 'employed' in Tesco, collecting trolleys and whatnot? The whole Workfare thing really makes you think supermarkets would try that if they could, doesn't it?)
looking studiously unconcerned, bemused even, by the bloated red face of the EDL as you shop for more halal chicken and saudi oil pisses them off more than actually counter protesting and giving their ridiculous little firm a sense of political relevance.
Don't agree with this at all. The reason movements like that are stopped is because they are countered, not because people are able to mortally damage them with their insouciance. History is pretty clear on this; and dismissing the EDL as a 'ridiculous little firm' is also dangerous, as if (organised) fascism is always a niche pursuit. It starts from somewhere, and inevitably it always starts small, in organisations that people dismiss as 'ridiculous'.
"you see organised paramilitaries with a firm belief in a 20th century ideology" - trust me, i don't see that at the moment, not at all. But these things happen over time, organisations build over time, from sometimes incredibly 'risible' roots. They should be stopped before they do become properly organised.
"having an opposition is exactly what they want." And if they weren't opposed at all, then what? Do you think they would just go away? That seems incredibly illogical to me.
Don't agree, but then we've established that. And the 'angry student' caricature of everyone who protests is a bit weak.