surrealestate | What's your opinion? We'd like to know. (tm)

My something else answer was "dumb". I can't bother to be outraged or overly offended or righteously indignant or any other emotion. I share no conspiratorial giggling with those who think it'll be soooo great to "mess with the mundanes" or think this is really gonna sock it to those Christians (or Xtians or whatever.) But on the other hand, I also share no desire to attend Easter services and I'm of a denomination which holds 'em.

And I find neither Easter nor Memorial Day to be offensive, either, though I am sure in some alternate pocket of this reality there's someone who feels the same way about those holidays as I feel about the holiday zombie marches.

I fully admit to feeling quite curmudgeonly about the entire situation, honestly.

Personally I find them a little funny, and a touch offensive, but I think the latter is me projecting more than anything else - and I can see more potential to "go over the top". A zombie dressed as a soldier, modern or otherwise, would be in poor taste, and hurtful to some.

What I hate most is that they've taken a fun and harmless flash mob/cosplay tradition and turned it into such an offensive gesture. It's not enough to have fun; the fun had to be at someone's expense (the Christians). It think it fucking sucks that zombie marches in this neighborhood might be spoiled because of this.

Well, it seems to me that a lot of Christians would think it was funny and not get hung up on it. I might test that theory on my mother, actually. If I do, I'll tell you what she says.

Why? What's so significant about Ash Wednesday, other than marking the beginning of Lent? If I saw a bunch of zombies marching past on Ash Wednesday, I'd probably think they were holdovers from the previous night's Mardi Gras celebrations and think nothing more of it.

I'm not sure what "closer to Jesus" means.

Dead?

*laugh* You have a point.

I picked a holiday that isn't full of people being joyous and celebrating and eating chocolate and such.

*grin* Oh, you know what I meant -- they do religion for a living. Presumably Jesus is a pretty big deal to them.

But seriously, you'd honestly be offended if you saw a zombie march on Easter? Because that really doesn't fit with the you I think of, and yes, of course I know you are deeply religious and respect that. But when I imagine you exiting your church to see some undead lurch by, I can only picture you laughing a deep belly laugh.

Speaking of offending people on Easter, I had a crossdressing friend who was very religious. He didn't try to pass or anything -- he was mostly bald with a long beard and liked flouncy shirts and long floofy skirts. One Easter I happened to be hanging out with him and as we wandered the streets of Baltimore, he strummed his guitar and called out Easter greetings to random people, "Christ has risen!" that sort of thing. I imagine he bothered people on all sides of the matter and then some.

I'm sure many would, you're absolutely right. And that is completely irrelevant and entirely misses the point.

A zombie march that targets a specific group of people, say Christians on their holiest holiday, for ridicule has the potential for negative repercussions on both sides. It's a lose-lose situation. As

plumtreeblossom has pointed out, zombie marches are a fun and harmless flash mob sort of thing. Somerville is an open and accepting place where this sort of thing is generally well received. Christians in this area tend to be more liberal-minded and accepting. To some it's the natural thing to accept all peoples. Others are well-meaning but struggle to accept behavior they feel runs counter to their beliefs, yet they make the effort to try to accept all people because we're supposed to love and not judge. Flash mob behavior is an alternative lifestyle choice, and some will lump all perceived "alternative" lifestyles (flash-mobbing, LARPing, poly, same-sex partnerships, etc.) together into one category. So along comes a group of people marching as zombies deliberately on the day these Christians celebrate their Christ's resurrection, and it doesn't take a great leap of logic to for some to conclude that their lifestyle is being mocked, ridiculed, attacked. And they might feel offended, or even hurt and betrayed, depending on their level of activism in liberal causes. And they might begin to wonder why they make such an effort to accept "people like this," to convince their narrower-minded churchgoers that these folk are just normal folk with different ways of living. They might wonder, for example, why they bothered showing up at Cambridge Rindge and Latin a few weeks ago if this is the thanks they get. So maybe they stop giving money to some of these causes. And so on.

Far-fetched? Maybe. But the potential most certainly exists. An event like this on a date like that is pushing a lot of buttons, and the expectation that folks won't or shouldn't be offended or that there won't or couldn't be broader repercussions is just plain naïve. Why do something that logic tells you is likely to generate ill-will, that if it has any positive aspects to it, those are very limited in scope? And do the organizers really want to make a political statement that could come back and bite them in the ass? Are alternative issues such as same-sex marriage (the dots are easier to connect than you may acknowledge) standing on such firm political footing that they can afford to piss off potential allies? Overblown, you say, yet all big to-dos grew from small seeds such as this. The whole thing is poorly considered, unnecessary, and easily avoided.

Now, if the zombies were eating chocolate BRAAAAIIIINS!!!… Aw, hell, I might set a new personal record for failing on my Lenten goals.

Would *I* be offended? I dunno, maybe a part of me would, and that probably wouldn't stop me from lurching towards one of them and pretending to devour their brains. ;) But the issue isn't whether I would be offended, as I won't be anywhere near Somerville. (And besides, it usually takes an awful lot to really offend me.) I just see a whole potential for negativity up against very little if any potential for positivity. Perhaps for non-Christians (or non-practicing Christians) it's difficult to comprehend the heightened emotions that accompany this day. If you've followed along and participated in the entire Triduum, it can be a powerful experience, closely following Jesus' Passion, death, descent into hell, and finally His glorious resurrection. Emotions get run through the wringer. I've seen ordinary people burst into tears as they read the Gospel on Easter and the full impact of its significance hit them. We're not all even-keeled and level-headed, as you can imagine from a group of people that take all this on faith alone. So what is accomplished by mocking them? If nothing else at all, it's just not very nice.

I think Jesus stands up to the inference of fun being made better than somebody's dead grampa does. I think it would take a delicate and creative touch to make either one likely to be enjoyable for everyone.

You forgot a question.

Which is funnier?

My answer is Easter.

Easter is brilliant -- it makes sense!

My only issue about Memorial Day is that most Americans don't know which war it commemorates. It honors the dead of the Civil War and it was originally called Decoration Day.

I'd say that a zombie march on Memorial Day should have an extra piece: march to a graveyard that has dead soldiers. Make it part of the gig that the zombies come to the entrance, go in and stop. They are at peace with being dead again.

Cuz, like, we still have two wars we're running. We're starting a new front in Mexico. Every time the live soldiers come home, we tell them to repress it and get on with living. We have walking zombies and we pretend they were just out of town for a while.

Why not do something useful with a zombie march?

Sorry to get all serious.

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