ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
Where do zombies come from? Do they rise from the grave? Do they emerge from a pandemic of mind-controlling fungus?
(SOUNDBITE OF CLICKER ZOMBIE SHRIEKING)
NADWORNY: Maybe they're conjured by a malevolent demon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ZOMBIE GROANING)
NADWORNY: Well, it turns out the real origin of the zombie is the Caribbean.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BLACK ZOMBIE")
TANANARIVE DUE: Hollywood didn't have a lot of nuance when it came to depicting Black religion and zombies.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) One of the Voodoo people got into your house last night.
NADWORNY: The word zombie was first brought to the U.S. by a white man who visited Haiti in the 19th century, and he returned telling mystical tales about the local religion, Vodou. And in the century since, the concept of the zombie has transformed. You might even say taken on a life of its own.
(SOUNDBITE OF SQUELCHING)
NADWORNY: Maya Annik Bedward is the director of the new documentary tracing the history of Voodoo, zombies and how American pop culture has taken that word and run with it. It's called "Black Zombie." Welcome.
MAYA ANNIK BEDWARD: Thank you so much for having me.
NADWORNY: You're Afro Caribbean and Canadian. Had you heard of the zombie's cultural connections before you started working on this film?
BEDWARD: No, so that's really what brought me to wanting to make this film. My father is from Jamaica, and I always wanted to understand more about where our family came from, where our ancestors came from. As I got older, I started to learn that a lot of the record is actually in a lot of spiritual practices like Vodou, candomblé, obeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing, inaudible).
BEDWARD: But when I found out that the zombie was connected to Vodou, I didn't know that, and I was really shocked that I didn't know that. I realized it's just not widespread knowledge. And then the more I learned about what the zombie is in Haiti and how it was taken and brought to Hollywood, the more I realized how fascinating the story was and how important it was, and it really needed to be told.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing in non-English language).
NADWORNY: One of the interesting details from the film for me was how zombies in the Haitian tradition have this link to the island's past history as a French slave colony. Can you tell that story?
BEDWARD: In Vodou, one of the central ideas of the religion is that when you die, you - actually, life doesn't end. There's this return that happens, this return to this mythical Africa where a person can finally reconnect with the ancestors and the spirits. And what happens if someone wishes ill will on you, they can turn you into a zombie, and so you don't actually return when you die. Instead, your spirit is enslaved and forced to be labor and toil for eternity. And so you don't have this reconnection that happens with where you came from. And I just thought this was actually such a powerful way to actually talk about the enduring legacy of slavery. I thought it was a great metaphor for that.
NADWORNY: How are zombies depicted traditionally in Haiti?
BEDWARD: So in Haiti, zombies are kind of these lifeless figures that are seen - or allegedly seen - in the distance toiling the sugarcane or doing other types of labor that they are enslaved to doing. And you, yourself, are afraid of being turned into one. Like, the idea of someone taking your spirit and turning you into a zombie is what you're afraid of. So you don't want to lose your agency, and that's what you're afraid of. But you're not actually afraid of the zombie coming to attack you. That's not what they are at all. They're not monsters. They're actually victims.
NADWORNY: And then when do zombies become part of American pop culture?
BEDWARD: Definitely the turning point was when the U.S. occupied Haiti in the 1930s, and there were a lot of U.S. soldiers there and a lot of Americans who were writing stories about the culture. One writer named William Seabrook learned about the zombie, and he wrote a chapter in his book called "The Magic Island"...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED TALKSHOW HOST: Tonight, we have as our guest a man who penetrated to the very innermost part of Haiti - ladies and gentlemen, the distinguished lecturer and author William Seabrook.
BEDWARD: ...Which talked about the zombie, and it was that chapter that was later turned into the very first zombie film, "White Zombies."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WHITE ZOMBIES")
CLARENCE MUSE: (As Coach Driver) Zombies, corpses taken from their graves who are made to work the sugar mill...
BEDWARD: And he's the one who took the idea of the zombie and brought it to the United States.
NADWORNY: Well, it's pretty remarkable just how different today's, like, modern pop culture zombie is from its Haitian roots. I mean, there's very little overlap, right? Like, why?
BEDWARD: Yeah, I think you know what's interesting is in these early Hollywood films, like, there still was this rooting of the zombie in Haiti or some unidentified Caribbean island. And so the early Hollywood zombie very much still was kind of taking from the idea of the Haitian zombie. But then in 1968, with George A. Romero's famous film "Night Of The Living Dead"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD")
CHARLES CRAIG: (As Newscaster) ...Wave of murder, which is sweeping the eastern third of the nation, is being committed by creatures who feast upon the flesh of their victims.
BEDWARD: ...He created these creatures that he actually never intended to call zombies, these flesh-eating creatures that were rising from the grave. Ever since then, this monster he created has become the zombie we know today.
NADWORNY: Why do you think it matters that we know this backstory? I mean, do you think that we should be looking at film and television that use these tropes differently?
BEDWARD: Well, I think what's interesting is that, even though the zombie very much changed after "Night Of The Living Dead," a lot of those early zombie films and the representation of Haiti, the Caribbean and Vodou were very racist, and those representations still exist in so much of the storytelling we see today, whether it's horror films or other type of films. The reason Vodou has become Voodoo and has become very synonymous with black magic is from these early representations. And so I think it's important that we know this history and understand this is a complete fabrication, that this was always a very inaccurate portrayal of what is actually a very beautiful and important religion.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing in non-English language).
NADWORNY: That was director Maya Annik Bedward. Her new documentary is called "Black Zombie." Thank you so much for being here.
BEDWARD: Oh, my pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
