'The Last of Us' TV Show Perfectly Recreated the Game's Gay Adult Mag

Contents:

• HBO’S THE LAST OF US IMPROV ON THE GAME’S IMPLIED GAY ROMANCE
• WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME?
• THE LAST OF US’ GEO GAY LOVE STORY COULD NOT BE MORE TIMELY
• THE LAST OF US’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE
• HBO’S THE LAST OF US GETS REVIEW BOMBED AFTER HISTORIC GAY EPISO
• BILL AND FRANK’S GAY LOVE STORY THE LAST OF US GAME IS PLETELY DIFFERENT
• WAS BILL GAY IN THE LAST OF US GAME? THE SURPRISG ANSWER

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.

WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME?

The game’s storyle don’t avoid trop altogether, though: It was cricized for “buryg s gays. “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.

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

” 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.

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

”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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

WAS BILL GAY IN THE LAST OF US GAME? THE SURPRISG ANSWER

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.

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.