Homophobes are review bombing The Last of Us
Every day, I am begging the straights to be normal about men who kiss each other. The latest episode of The Last of Us seems to have caused many of them to lose their goddamn minds. The cause of their mass dissatisfaction? Two men having a loving relationship on an HBO show. As of the time of writing, one fourth of the ratings on IMDb are listed as one-star.
The third episode of The Last of Us expands on the relationship between Bill and Frank, two gay men who were living together at the end of the world. Players only got to meet Bill in the original 2013 game; Frank had been bitten by a zombie and was forced to take his own life. Their relationship in the game ended on a bitter note and was criticized as an example of doomed queer love that’s all-too-common in popular media.
The HBO show expanded on a different interpretation of their relationship. In the series, Bill and Frank built a home together, and got to meet their ends entirely on their terms. It’s probably the best ending anyone can experience during a zombie apocalypse, regardless of sexuality. The episode was universally praised by critics, who found their relationship to be both incredibly moving and a triumph over the original events of the game.
Kokiriko-bushi
Kokiriko-bushi, a traditional folk song from the Toyama Prefecture in Japan, rearranged by Zuiko Shyamisen
The Chickens and the Bulls
The history behind the rise and incredible fall of a vicious extortion ring that preyed on prominent gay men in the U.S. of the 1960s.
On a sleepy Sunday morning in late July 1965, Detective 3rd Grade James McDonnell received a call in the upstairs squad room of midtown Manhattan’s 17th Precinct. There was a man at the Western Union office in Grand Central Station who might be impersonating a police detective, he was told. The man was in the company of a 14-year-old runaway and had contacted the boy’s father in Texas to wire plane fare so the son could fly home.
The father had grown suspicious when the man had asked for $150—twice the needed amount. McDonnell quickly drove the 10 blocks to Grand Central, parking his unmarked black sedan on Lexington Avenue and hurrying down to the terminal’s lower level. Criminal impersonation of a police officer was an E felony—a “good collar,” as cops like to say, and if the perp had a gun, even better. There’d also been chatter on the detective grapevine about a number of recent cases of phony policemen, so McDonnell was eager to see what was up.
Inside the Western Union office, McDonnell saw a man who looked just like a New York detective—“calm, good looking, sharply dressed,” the now 89-year-old retired detective recalls. But when McDonnell flashed his gold shield to the “detective,” the man was slow to show his own, and was also reluctant to tell McDonnell what squad he was from, making McDonnell suspicious.
McDonnell asked the man if he had filled out an incident report, or a “5” as it was known in detective parlance. When the “detective” asked what a “5” was, McDonnell knew something wasn’t right. “I told the clerk to lock the door so we could sort everything out,” and handed the clerk a slip of paper with the precinct phone number on it so he could call for backup. Meanwhile, McDonnell kept his eyes on the bogus detective’s hands, just in case he tried to pull a gun. In a matter of minutes, four burly uniformed officers barged into the Western Union office, and McDonnell handcuffed the suspect without resistance.
