The Last of Us’ Nick Offerman Casting Makes Sense (But It’s Problematic)

After Con O’Neill stepped down from the role, HBO’s The Last of Us has recast Bill with Nick Offerman. While this is perfect, it’s also problematic.

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HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation recently cast Nick Offerman as Bill, and while the casting is perfect for the character, it is also potentially problematic. The long-awaited The Last of Us TV series is expected to arrive in mid-late 2022. A The Last of Us movie was originally planned, but it was changed to a TV series after the creative director, Neil Druckmann, decided that it would be more appropriate to the feel of the game’s world.

In the original The Last of Us video game, the player-controlled Joel Miller (Troy Baker in the game, Pedro Pascal in the TV series) as he transported Ellie (Ashley Johnson in the game, Bella Ramset in the TV series) across the cordyceps-infested United States. In their effort to get from the Boston quarantine zone to Pittsburgh, they team up with the smuggler and survivalist Bill (W. Earl Brown in the game) who lives in the town of Lincoln by himself. Bill is paranoid and sarcastic and maintains an uneasy alliance of convenience with Joel but helps them to get a car so that they can leave him alone.

Con O’Neill had originally been cast as Bill; however, he had to step down due to reported scheduling conflicts. In his place, HBO’s The Last of Us cast Nick Offerman as Bill. This casting makes a lot of sense based on Offerman’s appearance lending itself to Bill’s video game presence and Offerman’s well-established talent for playing cantankerous characters who are sometimes stoic and at other times aggressive in an understated and impatient way (see: Parks and Recreation). However, in the video game of The Last of Us, Bill is clearly gay. While it is only a small aspect of a well-developed character, Nick Offerman’s casting as Bill plays into the longstanding issues of apparently straight actors taking on queer roles. At its worst, this can lead to stereotyped or offensive portrayals of the LGBTQ+ community, but even at its best, it prevents a queer actor from receiving an LGBTQ+ role and being a part of their own community’s representation.

While this is a problem, some elements of Nick Offerman’s personality and the other casting in The Last of Us TV series might help to mitigate the issue. Nick Offerman has been a longstanding, outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and has stated that he prioritizes progressive representations in all of his scripts. Additionally, Bill’s partner, Frank, is being played by Murray Bartlett who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community himself.

Both The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II provide some great queer representation; however, there are some key moments where it falters. There are few happy endings in the world of The Last of Us, so the LGBTQ+ characters often feel like they’re receiving the trope-ish unhappy endings that so many queer characters have been forced to receive over the years. HBO’s The Last of Us seems to be taking the adaptation as an opportunity to improve on some of this representation: given that they have cast an actor to play Frank, the show presumably plans to expand on that relationship. In the original game, Frank’s only appearance is as a corpse, and Bill’s relationship with him is alluded to beyond a shadow of a doubt without ever being explicitly stated.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/last-us-show-nick-offerman-casting-perfect-problematic/