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
• WAS BILL GAY THE LAST OF US GAME?
• ‘THE LAST OF US’ CONFIRMED THAT BILL WAS GAY YEARS AGO
• THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE
• BILL AND FRANK’S GAY LOVE STORY THE LAST OF US GAME IS PLETELY DIFFERENT
• THE LAST OF US’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE
• 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

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. 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.

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

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. “It was geo, and I was so not expectg , ” said Darn Lowenste, 41, a vio game nsultant, who is gay.

THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

“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.

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

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

So yeah, Bill has always been gay. 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.

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

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’ GEO GAY LOVE STORY COULD NOT BE MORE TIMELY

But, thanks to the outbreak, all that disappeared overnight, and wh , seemgly, all of Bill’s fear about beg openly gay.