Everyone is watching ‘Contagion,’ but ‘Zombieland’ has the lessons we need

By Jake Skubish

Steven Soderbergh is one of the most prolific directors of his generation. He’s the man behind the Ocean’s heist movies, crafted a smash hit with Magic Mike, and was once nominated for Best Director twice in the same year. Yet right now his most widely seen and discussed movie is a thriller that was quickly forgotten after its initial release: Contagion, the hyper-realistic saga of a viral pandemic that shuts down the globe.

Contagion is currently the 35th most searched-for movie on IMDb, sandwiched between A Quiet Place II and Bloodshot—two blockbusters hampered by coronavirus, the global outbreak which Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns seem to have predicted. It’s also the fourth-most purchased movie on iTunes, topping Joker, Parasite, and a slew of recent hits.

The logic behind the surge is both crystal clear and entirely confounding. Burns put a lot of work into talking to epidemiologists to create a story that was realistic, and on rewatch Contagion is eery in the extent to which it has captured the chain of events that coronavirus has caused. The film’s tagline, “Nothing spreads like fear,” also suggests its intention beyond modeling reality: to tell us that society will not only be bureaucratically inept in the face of a global health crisis, but that people will psychologically crumble as the catastrophe unfolds.

But I’m still not sure why that means we are all watching Contagion. It’s a prescient film and as well crafted as any Soderbergh output, but it's more a feat of accurate docudrama than anything that can provide lessons for our present situation, let alone comfort. Contagion is admirable for predicting a real-life event, but won’t do much to feed the soul.

Let me make the case instead for the movie we should all be watching to cope with coronavirus: Zombieland, the 2009 comedy about a global (zombie) pandemic that wipes out the country. “It’s amazing how quickly things can go from bad to total shitstorm,” Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) says at the beginning of the film. That increasingly feels like where we are headed now.

Zombie movies, as a genre, are inherently bent toward social metaphor, and Zombieland opens by positioning itself as a film about American isolation. “I wish I could tell you that this was still America,” Columbus narrates over an electric guitar version of the national anthem. “But I’ve come to realize that you can’t have a country without people. And there are no people here.”

This is literally true for Columbus as he walks the deserted streets alone and it feels true for us right now, as the government tells us not to gather in large groups and social life vanishes. But it’s also reflective of the social disconnect Americans experience no matter how many people are walking down the street. I thought in a calamity like this people would be freaking out, but Zombieland captures the quiet, alienated unease that actually sets in.

How did Columbus, an awkward, meek college student, make it in the zombie apocalypse? By adhering to a strict set of rules. Some of these rules are analogous to the logistical steps we’ve all memorized by now: maintaining good health (Rule #1: Cardio), avoiding high-risk locations (Rule #3: Beware of Bathrooms), and taking precautionary measures (Rule #4: Always Wear a Seatbelt). But the glue that holds his rules together is isolating himself from other people. It wasn’t a difficult transition for Columbus: he was a reclusive loner before there were any zombies, and he believes his solitude has continued to help him into armageddon.

His isolation ends when he encounters Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a truck-driving, gun-toting, cowboy hat-wearing, Twinkie-loving man who perfectly captures unapologetic American individualism. The odd couple agrees to stick together as they head north—until two sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), rob them of everything they have. The fact that the characters go by the name of their respective hometowns rather than exchanging their real names is indicative of just how little they want anything to do with other human beings. When Columbus tries to make an appeal to the sisters’ humanity, Wichita snorts, “Better you make the mistake of trusting us than us make the mistake of trusting you.”

Eventually the four of them reconcile and decide to stick together on their way to Pacific Playland, a fabled California amusement park that Little Rock has dubiously reported is zombie-free. They start to open up to each other, becoming a makeshift family, and Columbus even adds a crucial new rule to his guidelines thanks to Tallahassee.

Traveling along the desolate roads, society in ruins and in constant survival mode, Tallahassee still makes a point to seek out the doughy delight of the last remaining Twinkies on planet Earth. “Gotta enjoy the little things,” he tells Columbus. He’s right, Columbus immediately realizes: even amidst the apparent downfall of civilization, we still have to set aside time for the pleasures that make life worth living.

As the ragtag foursome grows closer, Wichita becomes hesitant about risking this level of emotional intimacy in the face of impending doom. “I like you,” she tells Columbus, “but my sister and I are going to do whatever it takes to survive.” The beauty of Zombieland is that Wichita comes to learn these concepts are not antithetical: we only survive by sticking together.

The finale of Zombieland does not solve our heroes’ problems in a cosmic sense: sure, they’re still breathing, but the world remains infested with zombies, and that’s not changing anytime soon. Yet there is a brighter future than there was just days before. “Even though life would never be the same again, we had hope,” Columbus says. “We had each other.”

Columbus is right: it feels uncertain if life will ever be the same, but it’s also true that hope is other people. And as literally lonely as social isolation measures are, they are inherently communal—we separate ourselves for the good of people we’ll never even know. It’s going to be strange for a long time, things will get stressful, and we will have a tendency to prioritize our own well-being over others. But remember to enjoy the little things, and to maintain a love for other people. Because if we don’t make it through together, we don’t really make it through at all.