start-ver=1.4
cd-journal=joma
no-vol=12
cd-vols=
no-issue=1
article-no=
start-page=
end-page=
dt-received=
dt-revised=
dt-accepted=
dt-pub-year=2026
dt-pub=20260112
dt-online=
en-article=
kn-article=
en-subject=
kn-subject=
en-title=
kn-title=Racialized Contagion and Defensive Biopolitics in The Last of Us
en-subtitle=
kn-subtitle=
en-abstract=
kn-abstract=In the opening moments of the video game The Last of Us Part I, players are introduced to an emerging pandemic via Austinfs Texas Herald newspaper. Below a headline warning of mass hospitalizations from a 'mysterious infection', players read of a recall of imported crops 'potentially tainted with mold': 'Initial lists distributed to vendors nationwide warned against crops imported from South America. However now the scope has extended to include Central America and Mexico'. This scene immediately suggests the racialization of the franchisefs Cordyceps brain infection (CBI), with the
contagion germinating in the global South, invading the US via its southern border, and spreading fastest in the nationfs diverse urban centres. By highlighting tainted crops as the vector of dispersal in the US, however, rather than infected humans, the franchise resists making this a simple invasion-scare narrative and instead suggests that the spread of the infection is in part a result of the capitalist exploitation of cheap land and labour in the global South. Despite its inconsistent record on racial representation and the near-absence of discussion of race across the franchise, the structures reflecting the racialization of contagion and the perpetuation of racialized hierarchies through defensive biopolitics remain present. Drawing connections with the discourse around immigration and the southern border and contemporary pandemics and epidemics, this article makes the case for reading the franchise in terms of racialized contagion and defensive biopolitics, a reading that highlights how the games and their television adaptation reflect urgent contemporary issues around race in America.
en-copyright=
kn-copyright=

en-aut-name=YeatesRobert
en-aut-sei=Yeates
en-aut-mei=Robert
kn-aut-name=
kn-aut-sei=
kn-aut-mei=
aut-affil-num=1
ORCID=

affil-num=1
en-affil=Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Okayama University
kn-affil=
en-keyword=the last of us
kn-keyword=the last of us
en-keyword=contagion
kn-keyword=contagion
en-keyword=pandemics
kn-keyword=pandemics
en-keyword=race
kn-keyword=race
en-keyword=immigration
kn-keyword=immigration
en-keyword=biopolitics
kn-keyword=biopolitics
END