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

Contents:

• HBO’S THE LAST OF US IMPROV ON THE GAME’S IMPLIED GAY ROMANCE
• THAT ‘THE LAST OF US’ GAY LOVE STORY IS GROUNDBREAKG
• THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

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

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.

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.

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

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. 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.

Acrdg to crics who have seen the show, we're gettg a whole lot more of The Last of Us' gay characters than we Last of Us follows Joel and Ellie as they travel across a post-apolyptic Ameri tryg to avoid fung-fected zombi. “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 gamers who tuned said felt like a watershed moment for LGBTQ reprentatn vio gam.From left, Murray Bartlett as Frank and Nick Offerman as Bill HBO's "The Last of Us."Courty WarnerMediaBill’s story, while a first for some, is jt one queer storyle an dtry which LGBTQ narrativ are beg more proment.

THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

Exampl of queer characters clu transgenr man Tyler Ronan 2020’s “Tell Me Why” and Dorian Pav 2014’s “Dragon Age: Inquisn.” 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 Bonatsakis.Back then, he was his early 20s and still the closet about his sexualy. This was excellence.”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 Last of Us” also will spotlight Bill and Frank, a gay uple played by Nick Offerman (“Parks and Rec”) and out gay actor Murray Bartlett (“Lookg, ” “The Whe Lot, ” “Wele to Chippendal”). That same year, he lled the Tmp admistratn “pigs” for undog nondiscrimatn protectns for LGBTQ people health re and health surance, and he said that Supreme Court showed “the f*ckg basics of humany” by lg that gay and lbian people n sue for workplace bias.

He won two awards and received a nomatn for his reportg on the lol LGBTQ muny, cludg a two-part vtigatn that exposed anti-gay bullyg of lol high school stunts and the school districts' failure to implement state mandated protectns for LGBTQ stunts.