0. Zombies and Beignets.

Fear the Walking Dead: A Podcast

Episode 0. Quinn, Stephen, and Bruce are joined by guest Savvy Woods at the Parish Press Coffee Shop in Ruston, LA, as we discuss the upcoming pilot episode of Fear the Walking Dead. Unfortunately, the beignet machine was broken, but we persevered.

1. We summarize what we know about Fear the Walking Dead. We discuss the main actors and characters, the setting in Los Angeles at the very beginning of the epidemic, and speculate about the year that this could be set. Modern society is incredibly complex and therefore easily disrupted and possibly destroyed.
2. We also discuss The Walking Dead as the first show set in this universe, both the comic book and the television show on AMC. In this universe, the monsters aren't called zombies; they are called walkers or biters. The pathogen that creates zombies in mysterious; at some point, people realize everybody is already infected and will reanimate if they die with their brains intact.
3. We move back from there to zombies in movie and television. The White Zombie from 1932 is more closely based on folktales of people who are controlled by a sorcerer called a bokor.
   
   
   
   Oddly enough, the James Bond movie Live and Let Die in 1973 stuck fairly closely to the traditional folklore, possibly because it was based on the 1954 book by the same name. Only this time, the voodoo elements were just a cover for what the boss was up to.
   
   
   
   Night of the Living Dead introduced the new kind of zombie, one produced by natural rather than supernatural causes and not controlled by anybody. These zombies crave human flesh, sometimes brains.
4. We end with the earliest zombies, based on African traditions and developed in Haiti. Voodoo theology held that the human has various aspects; the bokor could capture one part of the soul and control the person's body through it.
   
   
   
   
   The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was the only successful revolt by slaves, and many people fled the violence. A large percentage ended up in New Orleans, which doubled in size from the migration. The immigrants came with zombie stories along with the larger voodoo ideas and spread throughout the south until they made their way to the broader culture.

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