The obvious social message of MAD MAX
Anthropologists, social scientists, historians, and like minded would find the background story of MAD MAX obviously interesting.
I'm writing this because I'm watching FEAR THE WALKING DEAD and I've been a fan of THE WALKING DEAD and that series' season ender made me come here.
MAD MAX and THE WALKING DEAD show us what happens when human society collapses, totally, and completely. Humans descend below even the tribal stage, which is the bare minimum for human civilization. Instead, the lowest human stage of society is the 'war band', which MAD MAX and the WALKING DEAD show.
But if you want real-life examples of this human social regression, two examples come to mind:
1) EASTER ISLAND
2) GERMANY (the Thirty Years War)
Easter Island, being vastly smaller than Germany, was the worse example. After eating Mother Nature out of house and home, introduced diseases from chance random European ships decimated the population, killing off tribal clan leaders, priests, and others who kept tribes together. Easter Islanders scattered into a myriad of war bands based on old tribal clan ties, for survival. In the end, the dwindling islanders - still in war bands - resorted to cannibalism, which only reduced their numbers fewer. Today on Easter Island the most common artifact found - besides the finished and unfinished moai statues - are thousands of dual purpose, knife/spear points, scattered across the island. When the statue sculptors ran out of work as society collapsed, the only demand for sculpture work was weapons.