On Zombies and Capitalism?

So I read World War Z on the train ride home on Sunday, and my reaction got me thinking.

Because of course I got the book because I saw the trailer for the movie. The trailer, I admit, has moments of absolutely stunning visuals, mostly the masses of rushing undead, almost like a tsunami, and absolutely, absolutely inhuman.

Intercut of course with scenes involving Brad Pitt. Which, well, my interest was like a flicking strobe light. OH INTERESTING oh Brad Pitt. OH INTERESTING oh look one man fighting to save his family yawn that's totally done to death.

As is not news to anyone who's read Brooks's novel, the novel is MUCH different and absolutely fantastic. The whole point of the novel, the whole point of the novel's structure, really, is that there is NO one monumental hero, one person who has all the pieces (other than the invisible collator of the documents), who has been everywhere and done everything. It's a book determined to assert humanity in all its forms--the hateful creator of the fake drug Phalanx, the nerdy otaku who finds he has to confront the world outside himself on its own terms rather than his own, the K9 officer, the Chinese nuclear submarine crew, people from all over the world, everyone telling their story, creating a history. The reason it's set up as historiography is the WHOLE DAMN POINT.

But the trailer looks like it's just your typical action movie 'man brings his family some place safe while he goes to fight for them' which is so conservative, so 1950s and dismissive and OH YEAH can I mention it primatizes WHITE MALE AMERICANs as heros? That whooshing sound is the movie sailing past the point Brooks was trying to make and straight for what it hopes is a huge pile of 'we know our demographic is white American men' money.

And clearly I'm angry, lol. Now, honestly, I am not sure how the book's entirety could be translated to film. (But surely at least some of it could? American film viewers are more sophisticated than Hollywood seems to credit us--we can understand interesting narrative structure like in Angelheart or Memento or even Fight Club). (I'd add that for so many years Transformers insisted people wouldn't read a story that didn't have humans in them 'to relate to' and I can gleefully chortle, looking at the successes of RID and MTMTE that AHAAH WOW that was wrong.)

But what I'm wrestling with is why I'm torqued off about this. Because I'm very vocal about The Walking Dead and the people who pooh-pooh the TV series because it's not exactly like the comics. I wonder what would be the point of watching the show if it was just...the comic, which is already a half-visual medium? I thought the neat things happen when you lay them side to side, and see the changes done to, say, the Governor or Michonne, and figure them out, what they add to the narrative they inhabit. Or the differences in V for Vendetta--how the ending is so tight and closed and heavy handed in the movie, but not the graphic novel. (And let's think of the trainwreck of Watchmen, which attempted to be close to the comics and...was pretty incomprehensible to outsiders?)

But here I am getting all Comic Book Guy about the fact the movie seems to be not at all like the book.

I think...I think what it is is that the differences seem so money-driven and so creatively bankrupt. I don't like some of the Walking Dead changes, but at least I have some reason to have faith that they're going somewhere interesting, that it's not a money grab.  (Partly because any tv show has to be in it for the long haul and makes money through advertisers--movies can bait and switch  you for your ticket price and two hours). Yes, AMC has a history of TV series that panders to the white male demographic (but a fandom that regularly bashes any female character means the women in fandom sure are contributing to that and that's...something else I need to figure out), but I find myself emotionally engaged with the characters in the show, just as much, because they do break type. Rick was 'dad trying to save his family' and....look what's happening to that, right?

Now, of course, I'm getting all fretful about a movie *trailer* and god knows I could be eating my words, but...even so, then the question becomes why would Hollywood try to market the movie that way? (And I saw the trailer when I saw Iron Man 3 AND Star Trek so they're clearly aiming at sci fi nerd types and geez, dude, we're not all white males!).

In the end, I just hope that the movie at least makes people run out and read the book. If it does that, and they do get to read an amazing book out of it, that can't be a bad thing.