Nick Offerman Slams ‘Homophobic Hate’ Against His ‘The Last of Us’ Episode: ‘It’s Not a Gay Story. It’s a Love Story, You A–hole!’
Nick Offerman Slams ‘Homophobic Hate’ Against His ‘The Last of Us’ Episode: ‘It’s Not a Gay Story. It’s a Love Story, You A–hole!’
Nick Offerman was a winner at the Spirit Awards and used his acceptance speech to take aim at the homophobic backlash to "The Last of Us."
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I loved the episode but it is very much a gay story
Do you also refer to romantic stories between man and a woman (traditionally referred to as "love stories") as "heterosexual stories"?
It's okay to clarify and specify when something is gay.
Its clearly its own sub genre, Netflix has specific categories for it and Asian culture has an acronym (BL for boy love). Many people prefer it over the rest, even without being gay themselves.
Acknowledging a difference isn't necessarily an insult.
The ENTIRE POINT is that it is NOT from the "gay" culture, you numpties. You are CHOOSING to miss the entire point.
It is NOT a "gay" story. It's a homosexual love story. The fact you don't know there even is a difference says a lot about how far you need to grow.
If I were asked to qualify one, sure. It's a love story about a gay couple. It's a gay love story. If they were Indonesian it would be an Indonesian love story.
The story isn't about them being gay. Its about them being in love and dealing with the post apocalyptic bullshit along with their relationship. To call it a "gay story" is to single out the one tiny part of it that is them being gay and reduce the whole thing to that. I doubt you'd just classify Schindlers list as a "Jew story" or Black panther as a "Black story". I do like how you slipped from it being a "gay story" to a "gay love story" tho, nice save. The quote was about people calling it a gay story, not a gay love story. I think even subconsciously you understand that "gay story" is not really a good way to summarize that story.
In no world is somebody asking for more detail on a story going to want to hear "its a gay story" and be satisfied. If they want details you'd tell them more, and if they didn't a more accurate summary would be "love story" or even "post apocalyptic gay love story" but just "gay story" is like calling lord of the rings a "travel diary"
That argument is a bit like the idea of colorblindness when it comes to discussing race, however. It doesn't do justice to be dismissive of identity in the name of equality because that ignores the different social contexts that are inherent to that identity.
I would say the fact that it is a gay love story is very significant to note for that particular episode given the time period that The Last of Us takes place in. What I mean is: society collapses in summer of 2003 in the Last of Us TV series (10 years earlier than the game). These characters are living in Massachusetts, which is one of the first states to recognize gay marriage, but would not have occurred until late 2003 if society hadn't collapsed almost overnight earlier that year. Obergefell v. Hodges would be another 12 years off, making widespread legitimacy of gay marriage a distant fantasy.
These two characters, effectively, had to live their entire lives closeted in a broadly homophobic society that would not recognize them. But it was after the collapse of that society that they were at liberty to be their true selves and, as we see, become happier after the apocalypse than they were before. It would not be the same story at all if it was turned into a hetero relationship.
You see, if they had mady ANY commentary about all of that stuff you said, THEN I'd be OK throwing "gay" on "love story". But it didn't.
Being gay was not a critical part of the story, no matter how much people celebrate it for that. It WAS NOT an important part of the story, even if it was an important part of why people got emotional over the episode.
The ENTIRE POINT is that the episode was otherwise normal. That's what Offerman is saying. It's NOT a gay story. It's a love story where the characters happened to be men. If society were actually progressive, "love story" would be far more accurate, because that's all that happened.
If the sexual orientation and origin of the characters don't make a difference in the story, why do you feel the need to qualify it anything but a love story? Because doing it honestly makes you look like a bigot...
Because they were asked to specify what kind of love story it is?
If they were black, it would similarly be a black love story - but what do you think choosing to describe it as a black love story indicates?
There's a million different lenses to look through when describing a story or a relationship - the aspects we choose to point to (particularly unprompted, as was the case for the trolls) tend to indicate more about us than the story - particularly when they have no meaningful bearing on the story.
It indicates that it is a love story between two black people. You drawing attention to it as if saying "black" is some forbidden, taboo word / description is the problem.
Saying they're black or gay when it has no bearing on the story doesn't tell anyone much. You didn't choose to say they were loving, outdoorsy, not super-physical, middle-aged, wealthy, blonde, family-oriented.... Noone is coming out to crucify me here - talking about race isn't taboo - but the non-relevant aspects of the relationship you choose to highlight for reasons tells plenty about you.
By who? Unless you're clicking tags on netflix I don't think anyone is going to have this hypothetical convo:
Oh there's a great episode you should watch
Oh whats it about? Tell me more?
Its gay
Oh ok thanks, all I need to know.
The quote is about them calling it a "gay story" not a "post apocalyptic gay love story". The reductive 2 word description is rightfully annoying to a man who brought a well written and fleshed out love story to life, only to be told he made a "gay story"
By literally the OP above? They were specifically asked how would they clarify and they responded as a "gay love story".
Buddy, you can be angry about whatever you want, but it is not "irrellevant to the plot" that there is a relationship between two people in the series. It is not irrellevant that it is between two men or two women. They can desribe it any way they want to, and it is not reductive to call it a "gay love story".
No.
I've had more dick in my mouth than your mother, don't call me a bigot for using adjectives.
"I've got a black friend, I can't be racist!"
Yeah... Go take a walk and have a good reflection on the way you see things.
If the sexual orientation and origin of the characters don’t make a difference in the story, ...
I would argue that the sexual orientation of the characters does make a difference in the story.
They're living in a world with little trust, and they have to overcome that. Neither one can be sure that the other is trustworthy, and won't kill them when they're not looking. And they have to overcome the remaining stigma of same-sex relationships, which could end very badly in the same way. They are both walking through two minefields, in a way which is different from how a similar heterosexual story would play out. Maybe?
It is definitely first and foremost a love story, but it's not only a love story, and looking away from other aspects does a disservice to everyone.
But the same story could have been told with an heterosexual couple or even two people that had a platonic relationship...
Each of those (especially the platonic relationship one) would be a different story, even if they would all be first and foremost "love stories."
Yet nobody is here calling it an American love story.
well, did America still exist in the story?
I don't recall them naming it. However, it was in the geographic region of America, even if society had broken down.
They also didn't identify the characters as gay. They could have been bi or pan. That do snt seem to be a point of contention though, oddly.
And yet in the original comment you never said it would be a gay love story. You just said gay story.
But let me rephrase that then - would you call a love story between a heterosexual man and a woman a "hetero love story"?
The "gay" in "gay love story" is a secondary classificator - it's a love story of two people who happen to be gay. A "gay story" could be a love story, but could also be a story of someone finding their identity, about their struggles in the world as a gay person etc.
Exactly. Just like that classic 1970 film staring Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw: Straight White American Love Story
I think they're innocent in their meaning, but don't understand the nuance of what you're trying to tell them.
I disagree.
The characters involved happen to be gay, but there's nothing in the scenarios that are exclusive to gay couples. The same messages can be taken from it even if they were a hetero couple.
there's nothing in the scenarios that are exclusive to gay couples.
There definitely are. Before the collapse of society, these two characters would not have been allowed to marry in the place where they live. It was only after societal collapse that they were free to be their true selves without discrimination or government oversight to tell them that their love was wrong.
It would not be the same story if it was a hetero couple, and it is dismissive to the unique challenges faced by gay people to suggest it would be.
Does it really matter though? Because from what I watched that episode was what someone would do for love. And to be honest, I don't think it would've had as big as an impact with a hetero couple.
I mean I think that's the point of the episode. Love is love.
I just disagree with the idea that the context doesn't matter, because heterosexual love and homosexual love were not viewed the same before societal collapse and so it wouldn't have been liberating in the same way for a hetero couple.
Before the collapse of society, these two characters would not have been allowed to marry in the place where they live. It was only after societal collapse that they were free to be their true selves without discrimination or government oversight to tell them that their love was wrong.
Before the societal collapse, these people were early
teenagersinfants, if that. They never lived an adult life under such a regime, and have just as much an understanding about life in such a regime as hetero couples that did live under it: they probably heard about it, and know that on paper it was bad, but they never had to live it.Ellie is 14 when we first meet her, some
6 months20 years after the collapse. She has zero understanding of what it was like to live under the pre-infection government.Edit: initially got the time jump wrong. It's 20 years not 6 months
This whole thread is about the two middle aged guys who we meet somewhere around halfway through the first season, not the reveal that Ellie is gay near the end.
Ah. Huh. In the games, specifically the first one, you not only get this info much earlier, you even get to meet her partner pre-infection, albeit in flashback form.
I thought it was this that would have gotten people pissy.
Still this episode is a nice addition IMO. Don't get why the pissiness, it's not like this is even anywhere near off-brand for TLoU.
Honestly when I first watched it, having not played the games, I probably eye-rolled a little and thought about how recent streaming shows have been going full tryhard mode about incorporating LGBTQ characters into existing storylines, but then I learned that was how the original character was portrayed in the game and thought no more of it.
Back when the game was first released, the inclusion of so many LGBT characters was pretty avant-garde (remember this was before things like Gamergate).
I don't doubt this helped the series gain the fanbase it has. Besides being an excellent game with a well written story and Nintendo ERD levels of technical wizardry, it gave a lot of LGBT people actual characters to connect to, out of a desperately small pool at the time
I haven't seen it but I don't follow why it can't be both
Hetero couples do have the added difficulty of scoring contraceptives in a post apocalyptic world though.
And gay people are safer without enemas and douches? Nevermind hiv treatments?
Lol do you understand any of that? Why would they need HIV treatments unless they had HIV?
Lets be real. In a post apocalyptic world HIV will go untreated and with that it will be a quick death sentence. Especially if we are talking about a zombie infection making rounds.
I had a friend who stuck his finger in his butthole while washing his ass, liked it, and died of AIDS 2 weeks later. True story.
/s
I'm not sure they have cottaging in TLOU world.
Does that mean every other story is a straight story?
Gay guy here. It was a gay story and I don't get the pearl clutching on calling it what it was. Getting that much representation on such a show was amazing, but saying it wasn't a gay story is like saying Cinderella was not a straight story.
Keyboard warriors, Am I right?
The point is that nobody calls Cinderella a straight story. Yes, it was great representation and the reason it was great was because it wasn't cliché or leaning into stereotypes for characterisation.
It was certainly a gay story, but it was first and foremost a love story. The only people who would choose to name it a gay story first and foremost are saying so to minimize it or demean it.
You can be technically correct and still call it wrong.
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with something being a gay story, you shouldn't have to erase that in order to normalise it to those who will never accept it as normal anyway (I'm sure he means well, but I think it's important to make these observations).
I guess that's not enough of an opinion.