The Last of Us Lets Gay Love Flourish the Apolypse - IGN

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’.

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

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.

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

Bella Ramsey Says Trolls Will Have to "Get Used" To Gay Storyl.

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

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. ” 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 LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

”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. 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’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. 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. “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. 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!

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

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.

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. 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.

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

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.

But The Last of Us Part II -wrer Halley Gross nfirmed no uncerta terms that Ellie is gay.

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

While Jackson, Ellie is harassed by a homophobic man for kissg her iend Da. And yet The Last of Us was there 2014, nfirmg that one of the bt known characters gamg history was gay all along and handlg her first love as serly as this anchise handled the ath of Joel’s child.

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. 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.

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

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.

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. “Long Long Time” has sparked several plats om the worst si of Twter about how The Last of Us allegedly shoehorned a gay relatnship.

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

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

GAYS THE “LAST DAYS”

Unlike Da, Bill tri to hi his homosexualy and ially only refers to Frank as someone he had red for. 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 Most Sought After Eln Rg Sword Has A Storied HistoryOffEnglishAs 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.