Power and failure: The Last of Us exposes a weak government (Blog Post #1)
The government seeks absolute power in times of a health crisis. I chose this topic because I thought it would be complex, and it also is relevant because not too many years ago we had a pandemic so I thought it would be really interesting and relating a fictional pandemic and how the government tried to maintain control to Covid 19 and how governments controlled the health issue would be an interesting comparison. In my blog I will be reviewing to what extent does the use of FEDRA’s quarantine zones, bombing campaigns, and their ineffective public health measures in response to the Cordyceps pandemic display the limitations and abuses of government intervention during a health emergency? My argument that I am taking is that the government is weak at controlling outbreaks, and their campaigns to put them to an end are ineffective. In the body of my blog series, I am going to explore how FEDRA’’s quarantine zones and bombing campaigns were more focused on the government taking power instead of protecting civilians' health. I will also use scenes from the series and articles that explain biopolitics and public health to argue the issues the government creates while trying to stop the spread of the pandemic. In HBO's The Last of Us, the setting of the pandemic serves as a critique of government intervention in the case of public health emergencies, representing the government responding with military observed quarantine zones, and "defensive biopolitics" which prioritize border control over the betterment of the public, through the totalitarian and ineffective FEDRA, this show displays how weak, the government is to contain disease which suggests that the intervention destroys the public's trust and worsens outbreak.









