HBO’s The Last of Us expands Bill & Frank’s gay romance om the game - Polygon

Contents:

• HBO’S THE LAST OF US IMPROV ON THE GAME’S IMPLIED GAY ROMANCE
• THE LAST OF US’ GEO GAY LOVE STORY COULD NOT BE MORE TIMELY
• ARE BILL AND FRANK GAY THE LAST OF US? WHAT’S THEIR RELATNSHIP?
• WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME? RELATNSHIP WH FRANK EXPLAED
• ARE BILL & FRANK GAY ‘THE LAST OF US’ GAME? HERE’S HOW THE SHOW EXPAND ON THEIR STORY
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ CONFIRMED THAT BILL WAS GAY YEARS AGO
• THE LAST OF US: BILL AND FRANK STILL FULFILL THE 'BURY YOUR GAYS' TROPE - HERE'S WHY
• ARE BILL AND FRANK GAY THE LAST OF US? RELATNSHIP EXPLAED
• BILL AND FRANK’S GAY LOVE STORY THE LAST OF US GAME IS PLETELY DIFFERENT
• WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME?
• ARE BILL & FRANK GAY ‘THE LAST OF US’ GAME? THE SHOW DEVELOPED THEIR STORY
• WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME? EXPLAED
• THE LAST OF US PART 2 BURI ITS GAYS BEFORE RELEASE (AND MAYBE THAT’S OKAY)

HBO’S THE LAST OF US IMPROV ON THE GAME’S IMPLIED GAY ROMANCE

Bill is gay the game, but ’s referenced so vaguely that plenty of players missed .

The cisn to keep muted, hted at a sgle le of dialogue and a hidn letter, was both praised and cricized — was easy to overlook, but also avoid a lot of gay-character trop, and allowed Bill to be a human and not “a maniftatn of sexualy, ” as Polygon’s Danielle Rien put at the time. The game’s storyle don’t avoid trop altogether, though: It was cricized for “buryg s gays. She told CNN that, while playg the game for the first time, her “gaydar pged” when Bill mentned his “partner, ” but by the time she read Frank’s suici note, she wonred if she’d misunrstood – maybe the pair were jt bs partners and nothg more, she thought.

” Riley MacLeod of the Washgton Post noted that however movg their story was to viewers, Bill and Frank still “fall to well-worn gay ath trop” – a gay man phg another gay man, sickened by an unknown disease, a wheelchair; an image often shown storyl about HIV-posive characters – and are seemgly the “only two queer people the world. A cric for Logo TV wrote that the game rced Bill to a “punchle” after Ellie jok about a gay porn magaze she fds. Fanbyte reported on Bill’s stg the TV seri as a “gay (the show) will probably bury.

THE LAST OF US’ GEO GAY LOVE STORY COULD NOT BE MORE TIMELY

” Even the wily praised 2022 remake of the game was a “remr of s ‘bury your gays’ romance, ” said Ja Kg of The Gamer, an article that year. (The “bury your gays” trope refers to the equent killg off of gay characters media.

“To get almost two full s wh someone you love is a gift, and to get a time of so much ath and stctn feels even more special, so ’s really nice to see happen for gay people, ” she told CNN. What we got stead was a psule episo, and a particularly bracg one, given the show’s opprsively bleak mood th far: The hour is dited to the love story of Bill and Frank, a gay uple who—due ially to Bill’s skills as a bunker-stockg, booby-trappg, Don’t Tread on Me survivalist—manage to build a largely happy existence together an abandoned and eventually fortified ral hamlet for almost 20 years. Wh Bill and Frank, we were given a portra of love—specifilly gay love—that feels surprisg and urgent.

In our own 2023, we are not exactly lackg for media imag of whe gay men.

ARE BILL AND FRANK GAY THE LAST OF US? WHAT’S THEIR RELATNSHIP?

For one thg, we see gay sire portrayed all s plexy, but wh a touch as light as a breeze playg through curtas. Bill’s is not a “type” of gay man I n say I’ve ever seen mastream media before, and watchg him slowly reveal and epen that aspect of himself wh Frank’s help—sexually, y (Hollywood: more hairy bear love scen please! But Bill and Frank create somethg else, a ltle oasis of their own that’s regnizably gay, full of quiet bety and joys the size of new strawberri.

WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME? RELATNSHIP WH FRANK EXPLAED

Frank wants to fix up the block and some of the “not stupid” shops—the we and furnure stor, the clothg boutique—bee he hop they might one day have unfected guts (which they eventually do, the form of Joel and Ts), but really bee makg thgs nice, pecially when nicens isn’t valued, is one of the great gay llgs. As an echo of the gay experience wh AIDS, is, as veteran activist Peter Staley put a Facebook post, a ftg tribute to the “tenr love & bravery gay men summoned when facg ath durg the plague years, cludg those who did so on their own terms.

How powerful, then, to see not only a gay uple given an entire hour of a marquee show, but a gay uple who are held up as the keepers of civilizatn, as stewards of bety, as emblems of human digny and possibily.

In stark ntrast to the game’s hopels take on their relatnship, the HBO seri’ versn of Bill and Frank feels like a reclaimg of a gay post-apolyptic romance the two never got to see, and the survival of a queer history the world of The Last of Us illtrat is long gone for the next IV Strongholds Are SweetOffEnglishAs the HBO show, the game’s Bill is a gff survivalist so guard agast the world that even his partner, Frank, n’t break through and fd a real emotnal nnectn. ” Of urse, he knows Bill don’t have a girl wag for him out there the zombie-fected apolypse, but asks, as most gay men would have the mid 2000s, as a safety buffer to fd out the tth. There are hts of their liv as middle-aged gay men before the apolypse, such as their nversatns which Frank, for his own safety, tak the most direct route possible toward askg Bill if he’s gay, and Bill explag that his only prev partner was a woman.

ARE BILL & FRANK GAY ‘THE LAST OF US’ GAME? HERE’S HOW THE SHOW EXPAND ON THEIR STORY

In the absence of existg, often opprsive social stctur, they make their own ntrast to Bill and Frank’s lived experience of navigatg society as gay men, knowledge of queer history feels pletely absent for queer youth The Last of Us, but that don’t feel like an oversight.

” It’s a fascatg se study how queer inty still manifts cultur that don’t acknowledge or teach , but is sad that Lev has to be a trailblazer whout the years of history and ntext of people that me before, and then face the persecutn that isn’t origal to The Last of Us, ’s somethg we see morn queer history, as new generatns of LGBTQ+ kids e up a time after the AIDS crisis took the liv of so many people generatns of gay men and the wir queer muny through the ‘80s and ‘90s.

‘THE LAST OF US’ CONFIRMED THAT BILL WAS GAY YEARS AGO

If you are wonrg whether Frank and Bill are gay the show and the 2013 Nghty Dog vio game is based on, we got you vered.

It gradually be apparent to the men that they both are gay. It is que apparent that Frank was openly gay the world before the outbreak, whereas Bill had never been wh a man before Frank.

THE LAST OF US: BILL AND FRANK STILL FULFILL THE 'BURY YOUR GAYS' TROPE - HERE'S WHY

“Frank’s an out and proud gay man, but Bill is Bill, ” Peter Hoar, the director of the episo, told Variety. “Even though I’m not a middle-aged, married gay man, I’m a middle-aged, married man, ” he stated.

*WARNING: Spoilers ahead for The Last Of Us*The story of Bill and Frank is only briefly touched upon The Last Of Us vio game, but episo 3 of HBO’s adaptatn has dramatilly expand on their relatnship what is a notable viatn om the source enthrallg episo is filled wh tensn, joy and heartbreak as tells the pair’s story over almost two s, begng wh their first meetg after Frank fell to one of Bill’s follows is a betiful love story that has left fans wh a number of qutns, wh some askg whether Bill was gay The Last Of Us game self.

ARE BILL AND FRANK GAY THE LAST OF US? RELATNSHIP EXPLAED

TERMINAL ILLNESS: FRANK’S FATE IN THE LAST OF US SERIES IS A HUGE DEPARTURE FROM ORIGINAL GAME© HBO | Liane HentscherWas Bill gay The Last Of Us game? Y, Bill is nfirmed to be gay The Last Of Us vio game. Speakg The Last Of Us podst, Craig Maz reerated this pot, sayg: “This wasn’t a new ncept that Bill was gay, that’s the game.

BILL AND FRANK’S GAY LOVE STORY THE LAST OF US GAME IS PLETELY DIFFERENT

If you watched ‘Long Long Time’, the third episo of HBO’s post-apolyptic seri and are only jt emotnally reverg, fans of the crilly acclaimed Sony exclive got the answer to a qutn that has been teased and theorized about for years: are Bill and Frank gay The Last of Us game?

Here’s how the show diverged and expand on their story and if Bill and Frank are gay The Last of Us om StyleCaster'That 90s Show' Star Ashley Aufrhei Plays 'That 70s Show' Trivia--See If She Nails ItHere's How to Watch 'Married at First Sight Atralia' the US to See Which Coupl Are Still TogetherWhat Disease Did Frank Have 'The Last of Us'? Here's How His Death In the Game & Show DifferAre Bill and Frank gay The Last of Us game? “Long Long Time” has sparked several plats om the worst si of Twter about how The Last of Us allegedly shoehorned a gay relatnship.

WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME?

But the fact is Bill has always been gay. So yeah, Bill has always been gay.

HBO's The Last of Us troduced Bill and Frank Episo 3 wh a well-wrten romance, but fails to fully subvert the Bury Your Gays trope. When discsg the chang ma to their storyle for the TV adaptatn, The Last of Us -creator, Craig Maz, sought to avoid the Bury Your Gays trope.

What The 'Bury Your Gays' Trope Actually Is.

ARE BILL & FRANK GAY ‘THE LAST OF US’ GAME? THE SHOW DEVELOPED THEIR STORY

As fed by TV Trop, Bury Your Gays is characterized by a recurrg trend narrativ of treatg queer characters as more expendable than their heterosexual unterparts. " The "exceptnaly" of queer aths has led to variatns of the Bury Your Gays trope, cludg "Gay Guy Di First", "Gaynst-Induced Suici", "Homophobic Hate Crime", and jt as popular is the "Tragic AIDS Story.

Per his terview wh GQ, Maz felt Bury Your Gays was a se of treatg gay characters as an stment for straight people, "My feelg about that trope is that 's really about gay characters dyg so that straight characters n mourn them and improve their liv and move on. Unfortunately, he still ends up wh a different fatal illns, and this is where Maz fails to subvert the Bury Your Gays trope. The Last of Us Fails to Consir the Soccultural Context of 'Bury Your Gays'.

By still cidg to kill off Bill and Frank at the end of Episo 3, Maz fails to acknowledge the full soccultural ntext that rms the perpetuatn of Bury Your Gays.

WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME? EXPLAED

In fact, was a pot of discsn the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet, which var queer members of the film dtry discsed the impact Bury Your Gays had on their liv. How The Last of Us Could've Fully Subverted 'Bury Your Gays'.

THE LAST OF US PART 2 BURI ITS GAYS BEFORE RELEASE (AND MAYBE THAT’S OKAY)

If Maz's goal wh Bill and Frank's story was to subvert the Bury Your Gays trope pletely, one ccial change to his script would've easily acplished that: keep both men alive recurrg rol.

Given the progrsive chang Maz ma to the characters already, there was no need to give Frank a fatal nrologil disease that put him back on track to beg the next gay man to m suici a mastream story.