The third episode of The Last of Us received widespread homophobic criticism.
Episode 3 of The Last of Us, which centers on Bill and Frank, was praised by the majority of fans. However, there is a certain fringe of the audience, which strongly criticizes this episode of the series, embarked on a smear campaign on social networking sites, considering this episode hostile and inciting against homosexuality.
The series The Last of Us, which fans are eagerly awaiting, is sure to convince a large segment of the audience. A real hit for fans in the US on HBO, the massively popular video game is adapted every week on social networks. The third episode, titled "A Long, Long Time", is the one that generated the most reaction since the series began airing.
This episode differs from the previous two by abandoning its main protagonists, Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), and this episode focused on the romantic relationship between Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett).
The episode focuses on two minor characters from the video game and develops a new plot. The audience attends, for twenty years, the beginning and the end of the wonderful and beautiful love story between Bill and Frank, through moving sequences that provoked beautiful tears in the spectators.
However, not everyone liked this episode. Some viewers criticized this episode for being too far removed from the plot of the video game and for looking at a secondary story "not essential to the progression of the main narrative".
In addition to the hype and criticism, this episode of The Last of Us is basically facing a wave of homophobia with violent comments on social networks and also on IMDb. Some queer fans set themselves the goal of significantly lowering this third episode's rating, which currently stands at 7.9/10 as it was nearing its rating cap shortly after airing.
This episode in particular is clearly the victim of review bombing, an increasingly prevalent practice on websites and media outlets that offer a rating system. This crystallization is evident in fans' dissatisfaction, often unjustified, with the action of an organized community to rate the work in an overwhelmingly negative way on reference sites.
Looking at the comments of the people who gave the episode a 1/10 rating, we can read and note the harsh criticisms like: “Once again, just another example of a small minority of homosexuals wielding their influence in Hollywood to further their publicity in the world” or “The series bill is not just ruined.” It was also used for a silly love story" or "We know it [it's] so [the producers] can make money by wooing the LGBT community with cheap sex and romance scenes".
It is noteworthy that Bale's homosexuality, although implied in the video game, does not come out of nowhere and that it was also confirmed by creator Neil Druckmann in the year following the release of The Last of Us: Part I.
Showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin decided to move away from video games in order to present an original adaptation and embodiment of characters, whether major or minor, adding a new layer of emotion and humanity, which is the essence of a video game. a job. And the episode on Bill and Frank is proof, no offense to some critics.
