‘The Last of Us’ creator reveals how he crafted the gay love story that has fans tears

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
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ CREATOR REVEALS HOW HE CRAFTED THE GAY LOVE STORY THAT HAS FANS TEARS
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ SURPRIS WH A G OUT, MORE HEARTBREAK, AND GAY FANS HAVE A LOT OF FEELGS
• EVERYONE CHILL. ‘THE LAST OF US’ IS NOT THE BT GAY THG EVER—OR THE WORST
• THE LAST OF US FOUGHT BACK AGAST THE PAFUL BURY YOUR GAYS TROPE. IT PAID OFF
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ PRENTS AN ACHGLY BETIFUL GAY LOVE STORY
• THE LAST OF US TELLS A HNTGLY BETIFUL STORY OF GAY SURVIVAL S THIRD EPISO
• THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

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. 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 Week In Gam: What’s Releasg Beyond WrtleQutOffEnglishAs 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.

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

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. 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. 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.

‘THE LAST OF US’ CREATOR REVEALS HOW HE CRAFTED THE GAY LOVE STORY THAT HAS FANS TEARS

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.

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. 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.

‘THE LAST OF US’ SURPRIS WH A G OUT, MORE HEARTBREAK, AND GAY FANS HAVE A LOT OF FEELGS

“Bury your gays, ” as is lled, is rooted wispread homophobia the late 19th century, and was furthered by the advent of Hollywood’s Puranil Hays Co.

Sadly, n still be seen on a handful of TV shows shorthand implitn of buryg your gays is that queer love is a ath sentence. ”In the official seri podst, hosted by actor Troy Baker (who starred as “Joel” the vio game), Craig Maz says the le, lifted om playwright Mark Crowley, was to acknowledge the harmful “bury your gays” trope.

As Maz scribed to Baker the podst:“There is a tradn, of sentially equatg homosexualy wh tragedy. And that a gay man uldn’t possibly jt age and be happy and live long.

EVERYONE CHILL. ‘THE LAST OF US’ IS NOT THE BT GAY THG EVER—OR THE WORST

"[Their] story was ls about their homosexualy, and more about the fact that 's a middle-aged romance, " says the wrer. As happens, there are gay people, there are Black people, there are whe people, there are disabled people and there are af people.

All of those thgs happen whether you're gay or straight or anythg. ” It’s betiful, really, and most anybody who remembers harborg warm, fuzzy feelgs for their iend when they were a baby gay n relate to the emotn the episo so perfectly ptur.

THE LAST OF US FOUGHT BACK AGAST THE PAFUL BURY YOUR GAYS TROPE. IT PAID OFF

Once aga, the episo has left Gay Twter™ shambl, wh rpons that have been hysteril— every sense of the word. The story expands on the si character of an old iend of Joel’s, Bill (Nick Offerman), seen briefly the game, and flh out his backstory and romance wh another man, played by HBO’s -hoe gay kg Murray Bartlett. The episo was immediately ld wh lavish cril praise, thk piec on “what means for queer gamers” and a lot of cryg emojis and claratns of beg “groundbreakg” and “the greatt gay love story of all time” on social media.

The “bury your gays” trope is ocsnally still a thg, but shownners and wrers have largely wised up to the bad optics of killg off queer characters.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

If you want sentimental or epic gay love stori more broadly, you n probably fd one jt the past year wh Heartstopper, Spoiler Alert, Fire Island and a slew of others. And Murry Bartlett himself has played a gay character on HBO almost half a dozen tim over the urse of his reer. But when we do ame everythg around whether ’s an “important” gay story or not, we end up wh Billy Eichner and Todrick Hall wonrg why their specific poorly ma queer thg didn’t get the “’s important!

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

We n talk about queer storyl whout fantilizg them simply as heartwarmg or groundbreakg for dog the mimum of showg gays on screen who don’t die tragilly (okay, that last b actually do apply to The Last of Us).

Thankfully, we’ve moved past the era of “gay thg on screen = good.

MORE FROM FORBES'The Last Of Us' Season 1, Episo 3 Rep And Review: Bill And FrankBy Erik KaI’ve seen every possible reactn to this episo om rears, rangg om the same enthiasm I felt about to blatant homophobia, plag that ‘the gay agenda’ is beg ‘shoved down our throats’ (or the ‘woke agenda’ etc. Another important pot: Bill and Frank were always prented as beg gay. While Bill and Frank’s mise is undoubtedly tragic, the nature of their ath The Last Of Us flips the script on the pervasive pop culture trope of ‘bury your gays’, which queer characters are killed off at a disproportnate rate, often needlsly btal ways.

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

The Last of Us took a risk on givg s gay uple a new narrative. In 2019, the Atlantic ran an opn piece tled “The stggle for gay rights is over”. The mise of the homophobic Defense of Marriage Act 2013 was followed by the end of the feral ban on marriage equaly 2015.

THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

Wispread acceptance of same-sex marriage rights, gay people servg the ary and the need for protectns for LGBTQ+ people followed. As recently as 2020, the urt, then wh two Tmp appote, led that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protected gay, lbian and transgenr workers. In 1985, 89% of parents said they would be sad if they disvered their child was gay or a lbian.

A rash of laws ncerng the teachg of human sexualy school curricula, banng trans stunt athlet and strippg parents of the right to help their genr-variant children obta appropriate re have popped up numero red stat this same-sex marriage is now part of the fabric of Ameri, nservativ have chosen to explo Amerins’ unfaiary wh trans people and piggyback on parental anger over the perceived overreach of Covid-era school closur, nflatg wh an sid sense of “wokens”, the hop of fdg an electorally viable sluiceway for anti-LGBTQ+ most famo of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws is the piece of Florida legislatn banng stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty schools between krgarten and third gra, the so-lled “don’t say gay” law. Supporters of Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ bill gather outsi Walt Disney World this month. The ernor and his supporters have labeled as a “groomer” anyone who believ children n learn LGBTQ+ people exist, argug that simply by talkg about gay relatnships to a child, you are sexualizg that child.