The_root_of_all_evil said:
A metaphor? Please...
That's a child being torn up and then killed. Zombie or not. By her father.
That's no longer a metaphor.
Horror is most often a metaphor.
I decided to sit down and watch the trailer, because it's not cool to defend something as art which I have not yet actually experienced.
So let's go through what happens. It's sort of done similiar to Momento. You have one sequence of events going backwards, and another series of events going forwards, both simultaneously, until they meet up at the same event.
The scene going backwards starts with a child on the pavement, which as it turns out, has fallen out of a window, because someone she was biting has tossed her off him. She had lept off the bed, when she was placed there by the man (let's assume he's her father) who had pulled her from a hallway filled with zombies... all the while he's fighting them off heroicly.
Going forward, it's that girl running from those same zombies, who then catch her, claw at her a bit, but she is saved (as it turns out too late) by her father.
I could not walk away from that trailer and not be emotionally affected. There's a sense of futility, of fighting an endless mindless machine, that will grab you and make you a part of it, whether you fight it or not. That's standard zombie fare.
What stuck with me tho, was that girl running for her life, to be saved by her father, who is making a heroic, desperate stance to save her and his wife from these mindless animals... but it is for nothing, and she has become like them. And he has to make the decision... one that will haunt him should he survive this. He has to do something inhumane to survive.
Yes, it's an advertisement. And advertisements carry messages to encourage the purchase of the game. This advertisement was... different. It was designed not to sell the game based on being hardcore... but it carries a subtle promise. This is not just 'fighting zombies.' The advertisement is tapping into primal emotions... fear. Not fear of zombies, not fear of death, not fear of the unsightly.
Fear of those you love turning on you. Fear of love being lost at the whim of fate. The fear of innocence turned into hatred and destruction. That unfair hand of god coming down and saying that all the pillars you hold dear, all the things you take for granted can be taken away and turned on you... and that you will be forced to do horrible things to those you love because of it... or cease to exist.
It challenges us and it forces us to face some very deep questions about ourselves. Would you do the same as he? Could you throw your daughter out the window if she was turned into an unstoppable mindless killing machine? If you could... would this linger with you? Could you put that aside to survive, or would you give up and die with her? His wife is also there... that complicates things too. Now he has to choose between the undead likeness of his daughter, and his wife who is very much alive.
How does a father face himself after that? Not only did he toss his daughter out a window,
he failed to protect the one person in the world it is his duty to protect above all others. Not because society tells you, but because it's part of what defines a father.
Now, I can't and won't assume anyone else came away from it with these questions, or even looked at it in that amount of depth... nor do I believe people should. But I have... and I believe many of that emotional response is intentional on some level.
I cannot walk away from any media... commercial or otherwise... and ask questions of such importance, of such gravitas... questions that in answering, reveal my soul to myself... and NOT come to the conclusion that it is art. Is it shocking? Yes. Is it horrifying? Yes.
And it is that horror that -makes- it art... this commercial's an artistic expression of one of life's greatest tragedies: Losing a child. Presented in a raw... visceral way. There's no euphemism. And... I am convinced that the message would not be the same if it were an adult. If it were some woman and he were protecting a child... we might not make the husband/wife connection. But in this we automatically do... and that meaning is immediately understood and internalized. Even if she isn't his daughter, we grasp that he is protecting her, that he has taken on, for that moment in time, the paternal duties of protecting a child against violence.
For the message to work, it had to be a child.
It worked. I
am horrified. And it is art. And I will defend it.
