The Last of Us, Part 2 and the Christian Limits of “Jewish Representation” in Corporate Art

Abstract: In this article I present a case study of one of the most massively popular, hugely expensive, and globally influential works of culture ever made, the video game The Last of Us, Part 2 (2020), with particular attention to its creators’ deliberate effort to offer “Jewish representation” to its audiences. I survey contemporary discourse about “Jewish representation” and Jewishness in video games, and attend in detail to the strategies of this particular game’s creators for including Jewish characters and content. Drawing on Adam Y. Stern’s recent “theological-political genealogy” of “survival,” I demonstrate that when a corporation spends hundreds of millions of dollars to produce a cultural product for a global audience, even what that product’s creators earnestly intend as “Jewish representation” can, instead, reflect Christian hegemony.