The Last of Us’s gay love story breaks new ground for an entire genre

Contents:

• THAT ‘THE LAST OF US’ GAY LOVE STORY IS GROUNDBREAKG
• 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
• HBO’S THE LAST OF US IMPROV ON THE GAME’S IMPLIED GAY ROMANCE
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ CREATOR REVEALS HOW HE CRAFTED THE GAY LOVE STORY THAT HAS FANS TEARS
• THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE
• Y, ELLIE HAS ALWAYS BEEN GAY ‘THE LAST OF US’

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE

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.

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

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

The episo is, among other thgs, a subversn of the much-cricised “bury your gays” trope. Here, y, are two gay characters who die. The show is already garnerg high praise for s third episo, which lved ep to a si story wh two gay characters at s re.

Several more gay characters are sttered among the game’s st, and future episos — and seasons — will see the h characters realized live-actn for the first time. Ellie Image via Nghty Dog That’s right, the lead character The Last of Us is part of the gay muny.

The character’s sexualy is hted at the Last of Us gam, and many players termed that he was gay, but players didn’t get nearly the romance the origal that HBO livered wh “Long Long Time.

THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

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.

Y, ELLIE HAS ALWAYS BEEN GAY ‘THE LAST OF US’

LGBTQ+ them are not somethg entirely new to The Last of Us anchise, as the first stallment of the seri also showsed a gay NPC and then a very graceful lbian kiss the Left Behd DLC.

Bill is gay and had a relatnship wh a man lled Frank, who is later found ad the game, much to Bill's dismay. Unlike Da, Bill tri to hi his homosexualy and ially only refers to Frank as someone he had red for. "[Their] story was ls about their homosexualy, and more about the fact that 's a middle-aged romance, " says the wrer.