Home Box Office's The Last of Us (Season One, 2023) vibrates with symptomatic meanings that transpose contemporaneous sociopolitical anxieties. The horror/monster-genre series constructs contrasting models of “the art of governance” in a febrile moment in the United States when formerly presumed as settled questions about governmentality have been challenged. The analysis argues that the series enacts transposition from the human penchant for flawed governmentality to the monstrosity of the fungal infection, a move that can be interpreted as the locus of symptomatic meaning in the series. During their transcontinental journey in which the infected are often spectral, Joel and Ellie encounter communities that assume different forms of governmentality: Hobbesian Leviathan (and corruption of it), neoliberal gated community, and fundamentalist/authoritarian, each of which fails to meet human needs. By contrast, the “small socialism” of the compound in Jackson, Wyoming briefly presents governmentality that enables subjects to flourish. While the series is broadly progressive and favorable toward equality, it conveys chimerical accents around gender and LGBTQ.
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