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

Contents:

• HBO’S THE LAST OF US GETS REVIEW BOMBED AFTER HISTORIC GAY EPISO
• THAT ‘THE LAST OF US’ GAY LOVE STORY IS GROUNDBREAKG
• THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE
• 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
• THE LAST OF US TELLS A HNTGLY BETIFUL STORY OF GAY SURVIVAL S THIRD EPISO
• THE LAST OF US’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE
• WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME?
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ CONFIRMED THAT BILL WAS GAY YEARS AGO
• THE LAST OF US’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ PRENTS AN ACHGLY BETIFUL GAY LOVE STORY
• THE LAST OF US EPISO 3 REVIEW BOMBED BEE GAYS EXIST

HBO’S THE LAST OF US GETS REVIEW BOMBED AFTER HISTORIC GAY EPISO

And bee of this gay reprentatn on-screen, a ntgent of largely homophobic dience members have been quick to share s vrl. Bill n’t exist whout beg gay Frank’s arms. Apparently the wrers thk Bill and Frank’s inty was jt that they were gay, nothg more than that.

Oh and that person jt happens to also be gay? "And jeroen-10631 even lled out the episo's haters, sayg review bombers should "be ashamed of themselv" and that "clearly the story of two gay men ma you so unfortable:""Some of the people mentg about “polil propaganda” and 'checkg off liberal box' should be ashamed of themselv. Clearly the story of two gay men ma you so unfortable that you only subnscly realized you are so behd the tim and been raised rigid and immature while htg that '1 star' button.

All tak is a simple Google search to figure out that this is simply the act of homophobic ter trolls. In the game, while not overtly shown, Bill is gay. Bartlett, an openly gay actor whose most famo rol have been as gay characters The Whe Lot, Wele to Chippendal and Lookg, is a well-chosen scene partner.

THAT ‘THE LAST OF US’ GAY LOVE STORY IS GROUNDBREAKG

There’s a good chance Bartlett will be playg a gay character: the ia that Offerman’s character might be too blossoms as litely as the pair’s relatnship.

As the gam have been adapted for the screen, there has not exactly been a wealth of gay characters to choose mak Bill’s barely-mentned relatnship The Last of Us somethg of an outlier. Gay storyl on TV, while not ubiquo, are not unheard of.

How The Last of Us creat a betiful oblivn for two gay men love. The third episo of The Last of Us, “Long, Long Time, ” featur a gay love story between two characters, Nick Offerman’s doomsday prepper, Bill, and Murray Bartlett’s wanrg artist, Frank. Stori on TV featurg queer characters are routely mishandled, givg rise to the “Bury Your Gays” trope where queer stori are plagued wh unwarranted pa and ath, so ’s rehg that The Last of Us shows don’t have to be that outbreak ed massive loss of life and stctn across the world, but for Bill, who adms a letter to Joel that at one pot he hated the world and was happy everyone died, the zombie apolypse is a eeg experience.

THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

It’s probably a safe bet that, before the apolypse, Bill chose to stay the closet bee he wanted to spare himself the judgment and discrimatn gay people face, not to mentn humane anti-LGBTQ+ laws. But, thanks to the outbreak, all that disappeared overnight, and wh , seemgly, all of Bill’s fear about beg openly gay. Episo 3 director Peter Hoar and wrer Craig Maz get pots for tellg an excellent story that looks at the zombie apolypse genre through a queer lens, showg how would uniquely (and unexpectedly) affect a closeted gay man, but they go one further by learng om mistak ma by other shows.

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. 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.

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

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

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.

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

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. Over the urse of 80 mut, the episo tak a gay relatnship mentned only passg the source material and turns to a s-spanng character study embodyg the show’s overarchg them of love and we first meet Bill (Nick Offerman) he’s a doomsday prepper who’s happy to watch the human race fall to piec — until a chance enunter-turned-romance wh fellow survivor Frank (Murray Bartlett) giv both men a life-alterg sense of purpose that has major ramifitns for Joel and Ellie years down the le.

But I thk ’s not jt as simple a story as him sayg, “Oh great, here’s a man, here’s a gay man, and we n have a good time together. ”I mean, I’m a gay man, I’m 53. ’s not really a queer drama per se, but ’s about a boy who jos the Mar as a gay man, and of urse at a time where was illegal.

As a rult of that, ’s about what is that mak you a gay man, a queer man, or whether you n hi . I’m very happy if people want to send me their gay terview has been nnsed and Last of Us airs Sundays on HBO the bt of what’s queer.

THE LAST OF US TELLS A HNTGLY BETIFUL STORY OF GAY SURVIVAL S THIRD EPISO

After wng turns Lookg, Tal of the Cy and The Whe Lot, he’s fast beg one of the medium’s most proment gay the episo nears s end, and Frank be curably sick, the uple’s last scen together are profoundly movg. The episo is, among other thgs, a subversn of the much-cricised “bury your gays” trope.

Here, y, are two gay characters who die. He also reported that the episo featurg two gay men, Bill and Frank, om earlier the season was not eded the regn spe havg more kiss and scen of physil timacy.

THE LAST OF US’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE

1677524263Certa regns (ually the Middle East or Rsia) are notor for this kd of censorship of gay scen and 2021, the MCU’s first gay kiss the movie The Eternals was eded out the Uned Arab Emirat, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Ethpia, Palte, Syria, and Turkey.

Then, a year later, referenc to Alb Dumbledore beg gay the film Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore were also eded earlier this year, the Rsian versn of The Whe Lot featured some heavily-eded episos, cludg climactic scen the fale. A scene where Jennifer Coolidge’s character says that a group of “gays” was tryg to kill her was eded to say was a group of “men. The most recent episo of HBO’s The Last of Us has left some fans wonrg if Bill and Frank were a gay uple the origal game.

Wh such drastic chang, pecially when to Bill and Frank’s relatnship, some are left askg if Bill was really gay The Last of Us vio game. The biggt hts towards Bill beg a gay man are his relatnship to Frank and a certa magaze that Ellie steals om his stash the church basement, both of which n be missed by players not engagg optnal ntent or not payg close enough attentn.

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

Acrdg to crics who have seen the show, we're gettg a whole lot more of The Last of Us' gay characters than we Last of Us follows Joel and Ellie as they travel across a post-apolyptic Ameri tryg to avoid fung-fected zombi. A man who his alone a bunker, after all, don’t have to worry about beg rejected, by eher homophob or other gay men who simply aren’t terted.

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

When lookg closer at the one-star ratgs, many brg up the fact that Bill is gay, dubbg the episo a "borg" romance. Other one-star reviews are angry that a gay man met a gay man, dubbg pletely unlikely, while the same breath mentng a girl who is somehow immune to a vis that has torn down the walls of society as we know .

It's fairly obv what the mon thread is across this sudn flux of negative reviews - a gay uple dared exist. Another tertg plat levied at this episo is that 's a disservice to the game, spe beg an episo that revolv entirely around buildg on clu given the game while also makg up for s pfalls reprentatn, namely fallg to the Bury Your Gays trope.

THE LAST OF US’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE

Bury Your Gays, if you're unaware, is a trope which gay upl disproportnately break apart due to ath. It was a gay story that wasn't mired trma, but bee of the "lack of actn", apparently wasn't worth tellg.

Gay people existg is polil, apparently, and so TLOU even darg to show two gay people livg their liv together is to make some grand statement, spe the show already beg heavily polil given that the US ernment turn to psdo-Nazis that fd easier to burn people alive than take re of them. Gay people exist, the ter gets mad, review bomb ensu.

‘THE LAST OF US’ PRENTS AN ACHGLY BETIFUL GAY LOVE STORY

“It was geo, and I was so not expectg , ” said Darn Lowenste, 41, a vio game nsultant, who is gay. “Obvly, I’ve played the gam religly and I know there’s gay characters there, but I was not expectg an 80-mute … tearworthy piece of art.

” Queer-themed gam date as far back as 1992’s “Gay Bla, ” acrdg to the LGBTQ media advocy group GLAAD. Though Bill’s role the game is small, and his mentn of beg gay brief, did not go unnoticed by LGBTQ gamers like then, he was his early 20s and still the closet about his sexualy. ”Adaptatn giv gamers hope for more reprentatnSome queer viewers exprsed excement that Sunday's episo would expose even more people to gay vio game characters.

THE LAST OF US EPISO 3 REVIEW BOMBED BEE GAYS EXIST