Bella Ramsey Casually Dismisses Homophobic The Last Of Us Viewers

Bella Ramsey is holding no space for homophobes angry about inclusion in The Last of Us.

An early episode of the HBO series had bigots fuming when it featured a same-sex relationship between characters played by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett. While these types of people frequently hide behind claims that they just want stories to be true to the source material, these characters were, in fact, gay in the video game upon which the show is based, and the story was just tweaked and expanded to serve one episode of the show.

Of course, any homo is too much homo for homophobes, and they lashed out at the show all the same. But anyone familiar with the video game knows this won’t be the last LGBTQ+ inclusivity that occurs — Ellie (Ramsey) is a lesbian and has a romance storyline in the sequel game, which also introduces a teen trans character.

Ramsey, who plays Ellie, didn’t mince words when addressing the backlash that’s existed so far and that’s likely to come in a recent interview with GQ.

“I’m not particularly anxious about it,” she said. “I know people will think what they want to think. But they’re gonna have to get used to it. If you don’t want to watch the show because it has gay storylines, because it has a trans character, that’s on you, and you’re missing out.”

It’s a refreshing perspective, and one more people involved in the making of TV and movies should take. Hollywood is a business, of course, and fretting over making bigots feel included has long been the default stance — but The Last of Us is one of many properties currently proving that’s not necessary. Let them cry and complain all they want.

Part of Ramsey’s defiance is also undoubtedly due to her own identity as non-binary; she came out publicly just last month, but told GQ she wore a chest binder for 90% of The Last of Us shoot and spent a lot of time on set discussing gender and sexuality with co-star Pedro Pascal (a vocal ally who's sister is transgender) discussing gender and sexuality.

“We were just very honest and open with each other,” she said.

Like we really needed another reason to be completely obsessed with The Last of Us.