LGBTQ Representation in "The Last Of Us"

BECCA CARLSON STAFF WRITER

Many video games have been adapted to movies and TV shows, but out of over five million video games, only 179 have had LGBTQ+ representation. Recently, HBO Max's show "The Last of Us," creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have continued to incorporate the representation from the video game. Fans of the video games and newcomers are raving over the new show. The TV show was rated one of the best shows in 2023 so far by Vogue.

"The Last of Us" is an adventure survival horror game where players mainly play as the main character, Joel, in a post-apocalyptic world. Players play with 14-year-old Ellie who is learning how to adapt and survive in a post apocalyptic world without her parents. In the new HBO series, young Ellie is played by actor Bella Ramsey.

Recently, Ramsey has been breaking the barriers of gender and LGBTQ+ representation in TV. The actor recently came out as gender fluid saying that their gender has always been very fluid.

“Someone would call me 'she' or 'her' and I wouldn't think about it, but I knew that if someone called me 'he' it was a bit exciting," Ramsey said in an interview with the "New York Times." “I'm very much just a person.”

Regarding pronouns, Ramsey claimed he doesn't worry about what people use for them, but checks the nonbinary option on a form.

"Being gendered isn't something that I particularly like, but in terms of pronouns, I really couldn't care less," Ramsey said. Recently, Ramsey has been binding their chest during 90 percent of their role in The Last of Us. Throughout her history of acting, she has constantly fought the gender barriers in the acting industry, and representing an LGBT character in one of the most popular shows in 2023 is just the beginning.

With the band's frontman Billy Dunne being played by Sam Claflin and Daisy Jones being played by Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough,I could picture the story immediately. After the show was released, I am now glad to say the series sticks closely to the main plot of the novel.

The strongest part of the show is the connection between the actors. The greatest example of this is Daisy and Billy, two twinflames who embody “right person wrong time.”

When we meet Billy, he is just the front man of “The Six,” the band before Daisy joins. We watch him fall in love and marry Camila, played by Camila Morrone. When “The Six” goes on their first tour, Camila gets the news that she is pregnant. Instead of being there to support his pregnant wife, Billy gets lost in his addiction and begins to cheat on Camila with groupies. When Billy misses the birth of his daughter, he decides to go to rehab and show up for his family. For Daisy, she has always used drugs to escape the pain from her past. It’s all she's ever known, she's never had anyone to support her.

This is what drives the two together. Daisy is what Billy is running away from. We see this shine through Claflin’s incredible facial acting. Claflin tells the whole story through his face. Throughout the story, he transformed the story from what was on the surface to creating the belief that the band was real, that Billy’s story with Daisy and Camila were real. He made me hate Billy Dunne. He made the band feel real.

But the real standout was Keough’s ability to take a complex character like Daisy and show her true vulnerability not only in acting, but through the soundtrack. While watching I was drawn into Daisy. As she fell for Billy, the audience fell for Billy. As she shared a mic with Billy, the audience felt the lyrics she was singing. As she cried, we cried with her.

Keough made me fall apart at the same time the band did. She connected us to the glitter on her face, the lyrics of the soundtrack, the power in her walk, and the love she had for every character in the show.

The series is an experience. From start to end, I was waiting to see what happened next. I couldn’t stop streaming the soundtrack and waiting for the new episodes every week.

The show is more than a drama mini-series, it is Rock and Roll.

The Emery Staff

SATVIKA RAMANATHAN AND MADDIE PALE WEBSITE MANAGING EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER

Bird Hills

- Lots of forests and woods

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