This is pretty cool. Or not. Depends on your perspective. After viewing repeated episodes of THE WALKING DEAD, a young woman had absorbed the show’s basic philosophy for survival: kill or you will be killed. Zombies don’t stop until they kill you or you destroy them. When she was attacked by a sexual predator in a parking lot, this philosophy kicked in and she treated the guy as an attacking Walker. This likely saved her life.
With the series now back on the air, its cultural saturation is hardly liable to lessen any. Will we be hearing of more would-be victims turning the tables on their attackers and crediting the show with inspiring them, or even helping to save their lives? I couldn’t think of a better legacy for a TV show to have, honestly. If some criminal psychopath attacks you, treat ’em like a Walker. We could even turn that into a hastag. #treatemlikeawalker. What with all the talk about that Fierstein guy and sexual predation and the “me too” social media movement, I say we could do with a little more zombie-fightin’-inspired retaliation. Some perv grabs you inappropriately, ladies? #treatemlikeawalker. This applies only for up-close encounters, it goes without saying, and only once the female in question has been attacked. You can’t shoot ’em in the head beforehand, like you do with one of the reanimated dead. Unfortunately.