“Some Rules are Made to be Broken”: Zombieland and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

As the weather gets colder, the days get shorter and the leaves begin to change colors, it is once again time for everybody’s favorite fall holiday — I am, of course, talking about OCD Awareness Week. Taking place this year between October 8th and October 14th, the week focuses on educating the public, sharing stories and experiences, and spreading awareness of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). But what is OCD? OCD is a mental illness that affects roughly 1 in 100 adults. The International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) describes it as “when a person gets caught in a cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwanted, intrusive thoughts, images, or urges that trigger intensely distressing feelings. Compulsions are behaviors an individual engages in to attempt to get rid of the obsessions and/or decrease distress.” 

As a person with OCD, I’ve struggled to find depictions of this condition in media that are accurate and cathartic. Part of what makes OCD so tricky to represent in media is that its symptoms are extremely varied. While the structure of obsessions and compulsions stays the same, there are many different things that people can have obsessions and compulsions about  — the content varies from person to person. But there’s one movie that I think does a great job of depicting and humanizing the experience of OCD — Ruben Fleischer’s 2009 movie Zombieland. The movie follows anxious college student Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), and his ragtag group of allies as they try to make it to Los Angeles in a world infested with, duh, zombies. The film may not be explicitly about OCD, but it’s one of the best representations I’ve seen of what it’s like to live with this mental illness.

One of the main throughlines of Zombieland is Columbus’ rules. As the film's narrator, nearly the first things he shares with the audience are the rules he credits with his unlikely survival in the post-apocalyptic world. I would argue that these rules function in a similar way to compulsions in OCD. The rule that most clearly mirrors a real life symptom of OCD is “double tap”: Columbus emphasizes over and over the importance of always checking to make sure a zombie you believe you’ve killed is actually dead. Checking is a classic form of compulsion. Columbus’ checking immediately calls to mind my own — except instead of killing zombies, I’m double-checking the locks on my front door. 

If you’re thinking “now hold on, Columbus’ checking may mirror real life checking compulsions, but in his case it’s actually necessary” — that is how compulsions feel in real life, too. To a person with OCD (me), double-checking a lock may feel just as necessary for survival as holding off a hoard of zombies. Additionally, the way Columbus strictly follows the rules that he’s created to survive echoes the IOCDF’s explanation of compulsions: “Rather than being a source of pleasure, people with OCD perform compulsions because they believe these rituals are necessary to prevent negative consequences and/or to escape or reduce anxiety or the presence of obsessions.” Again, sometimes with OCD, compulsions can feel necessary for survival — and sometimes they are! But they’re still compulsions.

I also want to draw attention to compulsions not being “a source of pleasure.” Later on in the film, Columbus makes the conscious choice to break one of his rules, removing his seatbelt while driving. He then tells his love interest Wichita (Emma Stone) that “it’s kind of freeing.” What Columbus does in this moment can be read as a kind of DIY post-apocalyptic exposure and response prevention exercise, a popular method of OCD treatment which involves (per the IOCDF) “making a choice not to do a compulsive behavior once the anxiety or obsessions have been ‘triggered.’” When Columbus breaks his rules/resists his compulsions, he opens himself up to happiness and connection, things that can often feel impossible for people with OCD. As I’ve discussed before, I don’t believe that representation in media is the only way to do mental health activism, but this is one of the ways that representation can help — it can show us that there are other, more joyful, ways to live.

The climax of the film occurs when, with Wichita in mortal peril, Columbus is forced to break one of his cardinal rules/compulsions: “don’t be a hero.” Here, we see the ways in which compulsions and connection often come into conflict, as Columbus’ rules dictate that he should leave Wichita and there will-they-won’t-they romance and save himself. But he doesn’t do that — defying his rules/OCD, he chooses love and community, rescuing Wichita and her sister (Abigail Breslin). The role of love in this choice is specifically highlighted in Columbus’ narration: “it had to be Wichita for me to finally understand that some rules are made to be broken.” This is both a heartening moment for people with OCD and a great representation of what OCD is like for people who don’t have it. In many ways, Columbus smashing a zombie clown’s head to smithereens with a comically large hammer in order to save his loved ones is a lot like what people with OCD have to go through every day in real life. Like Columbus, I take active steps to break my own rules for survival in order to heal and to make sure my loved ones are given the best and kindest version of myself — the version they deserve.

When I was first diagnosed with OCD back in 2020, I went through a period where I felt extremely alienated from everyone around me. My brain was working in strange ways that I thought no one outside my own head could understand, ways that I believed cut me off from everyone else in the world. Representation isn’t everything, but media about people with OCD would’ve helped me a lot back then. I’m sure it’s out there, but there’s not a lot of it, and the condition is often infuriatingly played for laughs. So, we take what we can get. Zombieland is far from perfect — it’s not very well written, to say the least — but when I revisited it for the first time after my diagnosis, I felt a little bit less alone. And if Zombieland has taught us anything, it’s that connection is just as important for surviving the apocalypse as food, water, and a fast car. As the film ends, Columbus says that “without other people, well, you might as well be a zombie.” Over the past few years I, like Columbus, have learned to break my rules for the people I love, and in doing so have made amazing friends and found communities that I’m so unspeakably grateful for. Like everyone else on earth, I have my good and bad days — but I never have them alone. If the apocalypse comes, I have people in my life who I trust to have my back.