How Hollywood stole the zombie from Haiti

The cultural weight of zombies

0:00Hey, everyone. You're listening to Code Switch, the show about race and identity from NPR. I'm B.A. Parker. And I'm Gene Demby. All right. So, Gene, are you a zombie guy? You mean, like, the Cranberry song? Like, in your head. Like, that kind of zombie? Please never do that again. But, I mean, like, in the pantheon of horror monsters, do you like vampires, werewolves, zombies, those things?

0:32Oh, so you're asking if I, like, prefer creepy sex pests or cannibals or shambling, slow-moving societal apocalypse. I mean, like, I guess zombies? I don't understand. You? Do you have a preference? Golly, that was a lot of judgment in what you just looked at. Because it's a safe space. Yes, because it's a safe space. Because I am, I've always been a werewolf person. Oh, say more. Like, I didn't, like, I didn't mess with anything living forever or, like, undid forever. Okay. But I think that, you know, zombies have had a long chokehold on the culture.

1:05The last, like, two decades or so, like, they definitely are everywhere, yeah. Yeah, like, from, like, Walking Dead to this, like, another 28 years later movie. Like, we are a culture that has remained enthralled. Yeah, I feel like they've become much more central to the fabric of, like, horror in American life, right? Like, over the last couple decades, like, they used to be, like, bit characters. Now they are the main characters. They are the main characters. And I think, like, a lot of things within our culture that we enjoy, there's something upsetting behind it. Uh-oh. So do you know about the film White Zombie?

1:39Oh, no. I don't know about the film, but my antennas went up, like, uh-oh. I mean, it's not just a band that sings Dragula, but it's this 1932 film about a white woman who visits Haiti and becomes, you guessed it, a zombie. Okay. So that is the world's introduction to the zombie film. But also, I mean, just so you can see it in the name, if the movie's called White Zombie, that implies that the default zombie is not white.

2:11Ding, ding, ding. The corpse is taken from that grave. For me to work, the sugar mill feels at night. Yeah, so I recently spoke with Maya Anique Bedward. Okay. She's the director of the recent documentary Black Zombie, which narrows in on the relationship between zombies and horror and the history of Haiti. Black Zombie is a feature doc about the most misunderstood monster of our time, the zombie. And it's looking at its origins in Haiti and how it's actually a Haitian voodoo metaphor for slavery and why we don't know that, you know, when we think of the contemporary zombie today.

2:53So that's what we're going to get into today. Maya traces how the zombie was stolen from its voodoo origins, repackaged as a flesh-eating monster, and sold back to the world. While real-world Haiti continues to be cast as something to be afraid of.

Original zombies in Haitian voodoo

3:11Who or what are the original zombies?

3:20So the zombie in Haitian voodoo, it's this idea of almost like having your spirit taken. And so one of the stories of the zombie that, you know, really moved me and was the reason I decided to make this film was that a central part of voodoo is this idea that when you die, things don't end. It's an opportunity to return. Return to this place that's often referred to as Alada or Guinea, which is this kind of mythical Africa.

3:51So it's this place where you can travel to and return to be connected with your ancestors and with the spirits. And that's just such a powerful idea, especially when you think about people who were enslaved and taken from their homelands. This idea of dying was actually an opportunity to return. And then so in this context, the zombie is this thing that can happen to you, can be turned into a zombie. Someone takes your spirit and prevents it from doing this return to this mythical Africa, to Guinea.

4:23And you're forced, not only in the present life, if you are enslaved, to kind of toil the earth, but actually in the afterlife, for eternity, you are enslaved and you lose your agency. Your spirit has lost its agency and you are forever an indentured laborer. In your documentary, the voodoo priest, Yves Gregory Francois, talks about this. Les zombies, ce sont des victimes. He says, turning someone into a zombie. Zombifier quelqu'un, c'est comme

4:53It's like putting them back into slavery forever. Prendre quelqu'un et le remettre en esclavage, éternellement.

Discovering the true roots

5:01How did you learn about the relationship between zombies and Haiti? I'm not Haitian myself, but my dad's Jamaican, I'm from the diaspora, and I've always been really interested in learning more about where my ancestors came from before colonialism. And learning more about our cultures that predate colonialism and who we were. And I think a lot of that information is actually housed in a lot of spiritual practices that have come across the Atlantic.

5:35So spiritual practices like you find in Haiti, voodoo, or Santeria, Candomblé, Obeya. A lot of these practices have stories and knowledge about who our ancestors were. So I was always very, very interested in learning more about these traditions. And because I was coming from this place, I was really shocked I didn't know that the zombie was connected to this, was connected to voodoo. Like, because I had been learning a lot about these different traditional practices.

6:07So when I found out, I was completely shocked. Like, how did I not know this? And how many people don't know this outside of Haiti? Like, in Haiti it's well known, but everywhere else, even if you're a member of the black diaspora, like, it's not something we're taught. You know, the origins of the zombie and how it's connected to these stories. So when I learned about it, and I learned specifically a story that Rachel Beauvoir, who is the daughter of a really well-known voodoo priest in Haiti,

6:39she wrote the story of the zombie that really moved me and inspired me to make this film. But, I mean, this documentary is basically about how Haitian people have been historically demonized. And, like, we're in this moment, particularly in the United States, where the government has been heavily targeting Haitians. How do you feel about releasing this movie right now? Yeah, it's really interesting because I've been working on this film for 10 years, over 10 years, actually.

7:11And I think because the legacy of slavery is so strong, and also the punishment that specifically Haiti and Haitians have had to endure because of the Haitian Revolution and their emancipation. And, you know, a lot of colonial powers wanted to hide this from other enslaved populations. They didn't want this to spread, and they also wanted to punish them for it. So the enduring legacy of this, you know, still exists today.

7:44And even though sometimes if these stories weren't top of minds, like, history just, like, repeats itself over and over again. So, you know, I'm like, this isn't ending. Like, there's going to be more instances where you can point to how the enduring legacy of slavery and what happened to Haiti after the Haitian Revolution is going to hit hard again. I think when the world saw what Haiti had to endure after the earthquake, that was a big event that really, you know, showed the immense poverty in that country.

8:17You know, the legacy of that is this punishment that they were forced to endure after the Haitian Revolution. So, yeah, I just knew, like, this stuff is still very important, whether or not it's, you know, in the news cycle today. And then what's happening with immigration in this country and a lot of these, like, old racist tropes are resurfacing around Haitians. You know, it's like, OK, here we go again. The cycle continues because this happens at different moments. Like, it happened in the 90s with the HIV crisis and how Haitians were treated in that period as well.

8:50So, this hasn't gone away because it's not ever addressed and people don't know what's been intentionally done to this country.

Hollywood steals the zombie

8:59Lynn, how do we get from the original concept of zombies to the Hollywood version? Yeah, so the zombie was taken from Haiti and brought to Hollywood by a writer named William Seabrook and then a lot of films at that time in early Hollywood, although they had these really racist portrayals of voodoo in them, they still connected the zombie back to Haiti or back to some, you know, unnamed Caribbean island where this black, dark magic was happening and sorcerers were turning people into zombies.

9:33Seabrook wanted to write a book about voodoo and his editor said no white man could write a book about voodoo. So, he took that as a challenge. He moved to Haiti, tried to ingratiate himself in voodoo circles. That's Joe Ullman. He wrote a nonfiction graphic novel about Seabrook and described him like this. He's one of those white guys that wants to, like, be part of a thing that is not part of his culture. And that was a part of a lot of these early Hollywood films. But the real kind of change or transformation of the zombie to the flesh-eating monster that we know today happened in the 60s with Night of the Living Dead.

10:11The killers are eating the flesh of the people they murdered. Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up. So, Romero's film really was the film that actually, and as many know, they weren't necessarily called zombies. For them, they were just ghouls and they were these flesh-eating monsters. But the word zombie got attached to them, and then they started using that word to describe their subsequent films, and it just became the monster that we know today. So, that's really when the zombie transformed into kind of these hordes of flesh-eating monsters that you've got to run away from and brutally kill in order to survive.

10:51I'm thinking about, in your film, you go from White Zombie to Night of the Living Dead. Then we get to The Serpent and the Rainbow. From Wes Craven, director of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Bless him.

11:10I remember seeing that as a teenager and being like, that ain't great. This feels problematic. And now we're in, like, the Walking Dead era. We're in, like, this 28-years-later-now era. How do we look at the zombie construct in film now? I mean, the zombie seems to be a standard metaphor for a lot of things.

11:44I think right now, especially, it's popular to put it in this post, like, near-future, post-apocalypse context so we can explore a lot of our fears about what could potentially happen if the world descended into complete chaos. So the zombie is very much, like, kind of living in this space right now, quite removed from its connection to Haiti. Serpent and the Rainbow is an interesting film that you brought up because that's a film from the 80s, which kind of brought the zombie back to Haiti for the first time in a while.

12:20And it remade that connection. And I don't know if what we need to do is to necessarily connect the zombie we know today to Haiti. In fact, you know, often when that gets done, it's incredibly problematic. I think what I want is people to know where the zombie did come from and its origin so that they can be more critical of, you know, should, in fact, that be done. Or, more importantly, if you see voodoo portrayed in films, you have an understanding that it's not this black magic that everyone sees.

12:56And Haiti is not, you know, the scary place that everyone is told it is, but actually is this incredibly important country that was central to one of the biggest revolutions that ever happened. And I would say one of the most important events of black emancipation and should be celebrated. And that's why I made that film. I'm not really as concerned necessarily with the contemporary zombie today. Although I do think, you know, if you give opportunities to black filmmakers to make more films, especially horror films, the potential to do interesting stuff is huge to kind of like almost reclaim some of these stories and really challenge some of the themes that we've seen over time.

13:43And I say this when I think of the film Get Out, because to me, Get Out is like actually a true zombie film. What? Say more, please. Yeah. So I was working on Black Zombie when Get Out came out and a friend of mine saw the film. She's like, Maya, you've got to check this film out. And I went into the cinema and I was like, this is a zombie film. Like this idea of going to the sunken place, this is exactly this idea of this disconnection that happens, your loss of agency, you're exploited.

14:17Now, sink into the floor. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And a lot of the themes in that film about exploitation and racial subjugation and all of these ideas like really connect to actually the Haitian zombies. So I'm like, whether or not Jordan Peele was aware, like he was making a zombie film and that film's, you know, amazing.

14:50Like that film really tackles a lot of ideas and issues in a way that's super innovative. And like I would just love to see more of that kind of stuff. And also to add to that, like Jordan Peele and making that film, for those who don't know, like the ending was actually kind of more of an, you know, the lead character doesn't succeed. And that ending was inspired by the original Night of the Living Dead film. Very Night of the Living Dead. Yeah, because that's what happens to the main character in that film who's Black.

15:25He gets mistaken for a zombie and is shot by this band of kind of vigilantes. But Jordan Peele showed that to an audience, a Black audience, who were like, enough. Like, we don't want to see this ending. We want to see a different future. And so he changed the ending. And I think that that, too, shows kind of how he really saw filmmaking's potential to kind of create new narratives that we're not seeing or, in a way, like unearth old narratives that have been hidden for so long, like the Haitian Revolution.

15:55Like, if more of us knew about that and that was in films more, like how much power that would give Black people. That's so interesting. I lack imagination because I never would have considered Get Out as a zombie film. And now that you've explained it, I think it tracks with, in your documentary, the graphic novelist, Joe Ullman, talks about William C. The Brooks claimed he saw zombies when he was really just seeing, like, disempowered people forced to work.

16:28Like, people in their own version of the sunken place. These workers, they're harvesting cane. He tries to speak to them. There's not much response. Just, you know, kind of blank eyes. He's shaken up after he sees this. He believes it. And you say there are actual zombies to be found in Haiti today? Yes, right now. Well, it's almost incredible. But coming from you, I know it's true.

Dehumanization on screen and news

16:53But it also makes me think about, did you see Matty Diop's Atlantics? Yeah. Which I absolutely love. And it's like, when you talk about this kind of, like, pivot towards more Black filmmakers doing these zombie films, it's this film that came out a few years ago that was made by Matty Diop, who is a Black French filmmaker? Yeah, French Senegalese. And it's a zombie film told about, you know, migration. It makes me want to pivot to one really interesting idea posited in your documentary by Kayama Glover,

17:31a professor of Black and French literary studies. If you've just seen, like, a zombie horde in World War Z, and then you also open the New York Times and you see a picture of 80 migrants in a boat meant for four people, you can't help but make these kinds of associations between what you're seeing in popular media and what you're seeing in the news. I was wondering if you could talk through that a little more. For sure. So, yeah, the early zombie films and, like, the zombie in Haitian folklore and literature often focuses on, like, the zombie as an individual.

18:05It's not this, like, large horde of zombies that really came afterwards with the development of the flesh-eating zombie and how it's this, like, mass group of people you have to fear because you'll be bitten and turn into one of them. And it's interesting how powerful those images are when you juxtapose them to, you know, large groupings of people that have been othered and you're told to fear. I think one of the things that really hit me in contemporary zombie films, that they're really dehumanized.

18:39Like, it's this idea that they are no longer human, the stories are not, are very rarely from their perspective of what happened to, like, a zombie as opposed to in Haitian culture where it's very much centering the human experience and that's what I tried to kind of explore in my film. So, in the contemporary zombie, they're, like, very dehumanized. There are these hordes with no real mission or calling or anything. Like, they just, you know, they just want to eat you. That's, like, usually you're just, like, they've been turned into a zombie and they need to eat your flesh at the end.

19:13Like, that's often. Yeah, and the protagonist has to protect the home front or whatever. Yeah, exactly. It's always about, you know, often the white, not always, but often the white protagonist having to protect the home. But, yeah, this dehumanization that happens to these hordes of monsters. And then so when you do that, it becomes very easy to kind of, like, enact extreme levels of violence on what is still, like, human bodies. Like, you just see heads being blown off and all of these bloody ways that you can kill a zombie.

19:46And we get a bit desensitized to that kind of imagery. And I think, you know, some of the people I speak with in my film very much compare that to the dehumanization that's happening to a lot of immigrants and the fears that are being constructed around immigration and migration. And you can see a lot of these, like, parallels visually between what we see in the news and what you see in these films.

Voodoo and the Haitian revolution

20:13You mentioned it a little earlier, but why is voodoo important in this story that you're telling? Yeah, so voodoo is, you know, in Haiti, for a lot of people, understood as a huge part of what it means to be Haitian. And a lot of these, like, African traditional religions that come from West Africa, you know, they really embody a way of life. It's their music, the dance, the food. All of this is interconnected. It's a part of who you are. Whether or not you even really practice the religion, like a lot of the elements in these traditional practices, like you kind of live and breathe every day, it's a real part of who you are.

20:54A lot of festivals are inspired or organized around important events in voodoo. And I think most kind of powerfully, it is often connected to the story of the Haitian Revolution. And it was this gathering of people, this ceremony, this voodoo, that brought all these different enslaved peoples together to rise up and to defeat the colonizer. And so voodoo is very much that kind of, like, power, that force that united everyone and gave them the strength to finally find their freedom and stop the immense exploitation that had been happening on the island.

21:38And so, yeah, voodoo is kind of a real important piece to that history. You do such a beautiful job kind of weaving how galvanizing and how, like, inspiring it is to be a part of the community practicing these voodoo practices. And in that contrast, why has the religion been so specifically demonized? I think, you know, it was an easy thing for colonizers and later imperialists, specifically the United States, to use as a way to misrepresent and villainize Haitians and black people.

22:25You know, the, quote, unquote, unchristian religion that is only evil and serves nefarious activities. So I think it was one of the many ways in which you could oppress people was, well, banning the religion, but also villainizing it. Right. The cultural historian John Cussins laid some of this out in the documentary. The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934.

22:56During that time, voodoo became a means of manipulating the population and forcing them to work to build the infrastructure. The American Marines would go into villages and arrest people and say, you're practicing voodoo. That's illegal under the Constitution. You've got to come with us and we're going to make you do forced labor. The correlation there is very precise between slavery, zombidom and the colonial plantation economy. I mean, I think, like, there's so much money that's been made off of this flesh-eating zombie phenomenon.

23:29And a lot of people have benefited greatly from the way it's evolved into what we know it is today. And, like, I wish that Haiti could receive some of that money or, like, all of that money, you know, like. A word. I understand. It's, like, it is a huge profitable business. And, you know, the history of this extraction and what's happened to Haiti over centuries, like, this culture that's been taken and then completely distorted and then their presence in it erased and then where they stand today totally undermined, I think, is really tragic.

Making the documentary as an outsider

24:12To that point, one thing you grapple with in the documentary is that in making it, you were also, you know, extracting from Haiti. Now that your film is out in the world, how do you feel about that? Mm-hmm. I spent a lot of time thinking and talking about my role as a filmmaker in making this film. I spoke with a lot of the Vodou practitioners very early on in my research, like, the Mambo and Yves-Greguerie.

24:48They've been involved in this film from the beginning and have been part of an advisory committee that's really been on board in terms of making sure representation of Vodou is accurate in the film. And I'm not perpetuating a lot of the stereotypes or misrepresentations that have happened. I spoke to them at length, you know, when I first began this film, why I was making this film and what my intentions were. Because for me, yeah, I'm not from Haiti and I'm not a Vodou practitioner, which I also think is an important thing to say.

25:19But as a member of the black diaspora, I feel very passionately that Haiti is one of the centers of important historical movements of black emancipation. And I feel, as a black person, as someone who's Afro-Caribbean, that I owe a lot to Haiti and to Haitians. And that the narrative needs to completely change that's in the media about Haiti and about Vodou.

25:51And this film, for me, was really a thank you to them. And also, I think, like, a lot of people in the black diaspora have these misunderstandings of Haiti. Like, we've been told for centuries, don't do what they did because then you'll become an impoverished country. Don't fight for your freedom. Don't, you know, like, this has been a story used against us. And so I see us really learning more about this history and understanding how its misrepresentation has been used against us for us to, you know, really continue fighting and bending together for our freedom and to really counter a lot of the oppressive forces that still continue around colonialism.

26:32So this was where I was coming to make this film. And it's why, like, a lot of the Vodou practitioners came on board because they understood that it came from this, like, very personal, familial place. I see this film kind of as, like I said before, a thank you, but also an opportunity to connect a lot of black people to this history because I think we owe so much to Haiti. That's Maya Anik Bedward, director of the recent documentary, Black Zombie.

27:05Thank you, Maya. Thanks.

27:15And that's our show. If you appreciate the nuance and context we bring you here at Code Switch, look into NPR+. When you join, you're supporting the kind of deep-dive storytelling that makes shows like Code Switch possible. You also get perks like early access and bonus episodes for a wide variety of NPR shows. Join at plus.npr.org. This episode was produced by Jess Kong. It was edited by Courtney Stein. Thanks to Maya and Kino Lorber for sharing audio from Black Zombie.

27:48And we would be remiss if we did not shout out the rest of the Code Switch Massive, right? That's Christina Kala and Xavier Lopez and Leah Dinella and Dalia Mortada and Jasmine Romero and Barton Girdwood and Yolanda Sanguini and Meyer Dangerfield. As for me, I'm Gene Demby. I'm B.A. Parker. B.E.Z.O. Hydrate.

28:09I think Gene might want to retake the Cranberry song in a lower key. Mm-hmm. I don't think the world's ready for that, Jasmine. It was falsetto is what I'm saying. I think that he was trying to be true to Dolores' intentions.

28:28No.