Warning: this article contains some very light spoilers for HBO’s The Last Of Us. Please proceed with caution.
Content note: this article contains references to sexual harassment that readers may find upsetting.
The Last Of Us – as in, yes, the chilling new post-apocalyptic TV series from Chernobyl showrunner Craig Mazin – has only gone and done it. Proving a runaway hit with critics, it has managed to score that elusive 100% ‘fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes – and that’s even before its first episode drops on Monday 16 January.
Still, though, people aren’t happy. And by people, I mean gamers. And by gamers, I mean… Well, fine, I don’t mean all gamers (“not all gamers!”), because I am a gamer myself. I bloody loved playing The Last Of Us. I was cautiously optimistic when I heard this deeply emotional story was getting a TV makeover, and I had my own thoughts about the casting. Of course I did. But I, like so many others, know that Mazin collaborated with The Last Of Us’s video game creator Neil Druckmann on the HBO adaptation and that he’s got the source material down pat.
No, I specifically mean male gamers who have long-harboured a secret crush on Ellie, the 14-year-old CGI protagonist of the videogame version of The Last Of Us. Because, yes, I’ve seen them crawling out from underneath their bridges to fill the internet with their vitriol, and yes, I’ve noticed that they all have one problem with the new TV adaptation of their apparent-favourite game: Bella Ramsey.
Now, Mazin has called Ramsey the “best Ellie ever” and Druckmann, too, has heaped praise on the “remarkable” young actor – whom they found after watching over 100 auditions.
“It’s a harder role to cast [than Joel],” Mazin told SFX Magazine when asked about the casting process. “We’re trying to cast a 14-year-old girl and acting is an incredibly difficult thing to do, right? It’s an easy thing to do terribly. It’s a hard thing to do OK. But it’s a really, really hard thing to do brilliantly. And children haven’t had that much life experience.
“It’s hard to find kids that can embody this… Plus, she needs to be funny, tough, violent and protective of herself. She also needs to make us believe that she’s going to have this connection with Joel, so it took longer… [but] we couldn’t have done better. She’s just the most remarkable performer.”
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Still, though, so many men (not all men, but a lot) continue to moan about Ramsey’s performance – something they have yet to see – and, honestly, these guys are fooling nobody. Because their issue with Ramsey has nothing to do with her acting abilities: she’s undeniably excellent in her role as the frightened young girl being escorted across a ruined United States. Nor does it have anything to do with her and Pedro Pascal’s on-screen chemistry: her still-pretty-hopeful Ellie is the perfect foil to his hardened and heartbroken Joel (and this writer, personally, can’t wait to watch him come to view his human “cargo” as a person, then a friend, then something not unlike family).
Ramsey is even wearing the exact same ‘uniform’ Ellie does in the videogame: burgundy hoodie, grey T-shirt, jeans, sneakers. Her brunette hair is pulled into the same easy ponytail. Her scar – left by one of the cannibalistic infected (can I please just call them zombies henceforth?) when it bit her, yet failed to transform her into ‘one of them’ – is in the exact same place, too.
So, what digs?
Well, apparently she’s just “not as cute as my Ellie”, according to one incredibly creepy comment. Another notes that “she’s just too old to love” (remember, please, that Ramsey is just 19).
Others insist that she “doesn’t sound like my Ellie” and that she “looks nothing like my Ellie, nothing!” – and here I ask you to note the repeated use of the possessive ‘my’ in all of these comments.
Perhaps the worst reaction to Ramsey’s casting, though, was the one which insisted she looks “too much like an actual child,” and that showrunners should have cast “someone sexy, like Sadie Sink, to play Ellie” instead. Which is… yeah, it’s all kinds of wrong, quite frankly. Especially as they’re likely thinking about Sadie Sink The 14-Year-Old – you know, the one they met in Stranger Things season 2 – as opposed to Sadie Sink The Now-20-Year-Old. Because, if it were the former, that’s seriously gross.
But, if it really were the latter, it’s every bit as bad. Because it means that their problem with Ramsey isn’t with the fact that she’s too old: it’s that she doesn’t look like the fetishised version of Teenage Ellie that they hold in their heads.
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It’s not the first time we’ve seen this happen, of course, and it won’t be the last. Indeed, it’s essentially the exact same issue we had with those viewers who lost their shit when Milly Alcock – who played 15-year-old Rhaenyra Targaryen in House Of The Dragon – was recast after her character hit adulthood.
It made a lot of sense that Emma D’Arcy took over the role of Rhaenyra after the 10-year time jump that occurred midway through the series. Think about it: D’Arcy’s version of Rhaenyra had been through a lot, including several traumatic childbirths – and the character obviously needed to both look and feel more mature than she did as a fiery young teen.
Still, though, viewers – again, mainly men (not all men, but… c’mon) – bemoaned that D’Arcy wasn’t as good as Alcock. That they lacked the fire, the passion, the energy of the younger actor. That they weren’t as “believably sexy”, whatever that means (clearly these individuals have never seen D’Arcy’s iconic “negroni sbagliato” video). That they just didn’t feel like “my Rhaenyra Targaryen” – and, yes, you better believe that possessive reared its ugly head again.
It’s the last elephant in the room, but we can’t avoid this subject forever: too many men still harbour an unhealthy obsession with teenage girls – even if they don’t want to admit as much, even to themselves.
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Of course, the so-called schoolgirl fantasy is still considered to be absolutely fine by way too many people (just type ‘schoolgirl’ into the search bar of any online fancy dress shop, if you don’t believe me) – and it really shouldn’t. Indeed, Plan International UK – which polled just over 1,000 girls aged between 14 to 21 last year – has found some 58% of girls have experienced sexual harassment in their educational institution, with two-thirds of them facing harassment from someone at their school, college or university.
A further 22% had received unwanted comments of a sexual nature, while 12% had been followed. Around 10% had even been grabbed.
“It is appalling that so many girls and young women have experienced harassment in an educational environment. School, college and university should be a safe space for girls to learn,” says Rose Caldwell, chief executive of Plan International UK.
“Instead, just like in high streets, parks and bus stops, they are facing relentless harassment every day and they want it to stop.”
Yes, I know that there is a world of difference between a man who grooms and abuses children and one with a predilection for younger women. The law has provided a line in the sand, and that line is 16. Still, though, the impossible beauty of teen characters in film and TV (don’t even get me started on the world of video games) absolutely has real consequences for how adults conceive of typical adolescence.
I imagine many of those bemoaning Ramsey’s interpretation of Ellie don’t actually spend a lot of time around young teenagers. As such, they may not have an easily recallable image of what a 14-year-old actually looks like to remind them that this character absolutely should never be viewed as ‘cute’ by a grown man – let alone ‘sexy’. And perhaps they ought to consider, and I mean really consider, what’s really driving their hatred over Ramsey’s performance.
Because I have a feeling that, when they dig deep into all that “my Ellie” crap, they will wind up feeling incredibly fucking uncomfortable.
The Last Of Us will air weekly on Sky Atlantic at 2am BST. All episodes will air simultaneously in the UK and US. It will then be available on demand on Sky and NOW.
Images: Sky/HBO
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