The Last Of Us Episode 6 Sparks Debate Over Communism
The latest episode of The Last of Us has left plenty of discussion in its wake. Spoiler warning for the content ahead, for those who have not yet seen episode six. The eventful episode saw Joel and Ellie busting into a couple's home in the beginning, where they're warned off crossing a river as the other side is full of dead bodies. The pair do not heed these warnings.
Turns out, there's a bustling community on the other side, with the thriving settlement understandably protected with a firm hand as Joel and Ellie are ambushed by armed horsemen and women. Joel is saved as his little bro Tommy is a major figure of the settlement. They're brought into the small town and a reunion occurs. The starring pair are then given a tour of this Wyoming community, with new character (for the show) Maria talking through its features, which leads to a moment that is kind of amusing but also educative. Viewers have certainly noticed.
Maria talks through how the community works, saying everyone equally contributes and owns resources. Joel – who is Texan let's not forget – quips, "So, communism". His equally Texan brother Tommy replies: "Nah, it ain't like that." But his lawyer partner Maria corrects them. "This is a commune. We're communists", she says, factfully and simply.
It's amusing because of Joel and Tommy's reluctance to call a spade a spade, and perhaps an ideological wariness, left over from their pre-apocalypse days, over communism. The United States has a well-known History of fear of communism, of course, with the Red Scare of the first half of the 20th century, and its rivalry with the USSR. To this day, words such as "socialist" and "communist" are thrown around as villianous words in right-wing US media, even though they're considered somewhat more neutrally in other regions such as Europe.
So it was quite surprising and refreshing that such a high-profile American show dealt with something like this so clearly. And fans of the show have latched on to it. Over on The Last of Us subreddit (linked above), a thread that brought up the above scene has drawn thousands of upvotes and many hundreds of comments. And rather than a mess of warring words, it's actually led to a rather nuanced discussion and debate over the merits of communism, especially since humanity in the show is in a post-apocalyptic phase.
"Communism/socialism seems to work pretty well, until it scales up to a point when something authoritarian creeps in", comments one, with 248 upvotes at the time of writing. "Hey we're getting to that point under capitalism too", comes a reply, netting 300 upvotes.
Elsewhere, it's noted that in the show, Ellie asks something like why didn't the government do something similar to the commune, but Joel says that there were too many people. And in the discussion of the episode, commentors mention the DuNBAr number, a suggested cognitive limit for the maximum number of relationships a person can maintain. This is theorised to be around 150 and it has been suggested that once communities exceed this number, that members should break off and form new ones.
Of course, societal organisation long pre-dates such terms as "communism" and "capitalism", which describe political economic systems, and the mini clash between civilisations was neatly demonstrated in episode six of The Last of Us. The HBO adaptation continues to impress...
Comments
Post a Comment