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

Contents:

• THE LAST OF US’ GEO GAY LOVE STORY COULD NOT BE MORE TIMELY
• HBO’S THE LAST OF US IMPROV ON THE GAME’S IMPLIED GAY ROMANCE
• Y, ELLIE HAS ALWAYS BEEN GAY ‘THE LAST OF US’
• THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE
• THE LAST OF US’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ CONFIRMED THAT BILL WAS GAY YEARS AGO
• THAT ‘THE LAST OF US’ GAY LOVE STORY IS GROUNDBREAKG
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ PRENTS AN ACHGLY BETIFUL GAY LOVE STORY
• THE LAST OF US’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE
• GAY REPRENTATN ‘THE LAST OF US’ EMPOWERS LGBTQ+ GAMG MUNY
• GAYS THE “LAST DAYS”

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

" The star then fired back at homophobic rpons the ment sectn. Bella Ramsey Shouts Out ‘Gay Army’ of Twter Supporters. Nick Offerman Calls Gay Love Story om Episo Three ‘Betiful Reprentatn’.

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

Nick Offerman Once Authored the Foreword for a Gay Erotic Photobook.

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

Troy Baker Defends 'The Last of Us' Gay Romance Between Bill and Frank. Nick Offerman Fir Back at Homophobic Tweet.

Craig Maz and Neil Dckmann Expla the Gay Subtext Behd Ellie and Riley's Lgerie Scene. Bella Ramsey Says Trolls Will Have to "Get Used" To Gay Storyl. Shutterstock"If you don’t want to watch the show bee has gay storyl, " Ramsey told GQ UK, "bee has a trans character, that’s on you, and you’re missg out.

“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 LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

” 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. 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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. Melanie Lynskey has nfirmed that she is – praise be – backg the “homosexual agenda”.

Although Lynskey don’t intify as queer, and her character seemgly don’t eher, one viewer bizarrely acced her and the seri for “more homosexual agenda phg”; seemgly referencg the sexualy of Bella Ramsey’s leadg character Ellie and episo three’s acclaimed gay love story between Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman.

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

“OMG y let me ph that homosexual agenda jt by showg up! “This man jt seeg my face and beg like, “More phg of the homosexual agenda.

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

After the terviewer rrectly rmed her that she has a passnate gay fanbase, Lynskey said ’s “been a badge that I’ve worn proudly forever” and “’s jt always been a big part of my own muny and life”. OMG y let me ph that homosexual agenda jt by showg up!

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

GAY REPRENTATN ‘THE LAST OF US’ EMPOWERS LGBTQ+ GAMG MUNY

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. 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.

GAYS THE “LAST DAYS”

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. Acrdg to crics who have seen the show, we're gettg a whole lot more of The Last of Us' gay characters than we thought.The Last of Us follows Joel and Ellie as they travel across a post-apolyptic Ameri tryg to avoid fung-fected zombi. In other words, they’re a perfect gay uple, a “normal” gay uple, a world which the mere thought of takg re of someone else is somethg of a ath sentence.

Some might fd the pivot tone and narrative to be rehg, and the seri has already been praised by crics for liverg a gay love story, but the tonal shift om bter loss to lovg oasis feels disgenuo. Watchg the episo, feels as though the wrg beme stuck 2003, which is when the fungal panmic hs the show, rultg the kd of gay love story that would have been groundbreakg TV back then, but is now jt wearisome. To settle for a narrative this bland and dated, one termed to wrg tears while both metaphorilly and lerally buryg s gays — bee, y, strippg them of any narrative purpose is a thematic burial before their actual on-screen aths, is flat-out mortifyg, particularly a world where more and more nuanced and plited queer characters e to life every day.

Ne years before the episo of the same name, Left Behd revealed that Ellie is gay. Those are the qutns plagug Ellie, not the far more played out”Am I gay? Though this storyle ends wh a ad LGBTQ+ character, don’t necsarily follow the Bury Your Gays trope.