I’ll say it plainly: I didn’t think “Heated Rivalry” was very good.
Yes, it’s beautifully made. I mean these bodies, sculpted by the gods themselves. The steamy camera work when the rivalry becomes a little too heated … if you know what I mean. While it does know how to grab attention, the show failed to successfully capture an authentic viewpoint on the queer experience.
I will say: I’d gladly accept Hudson Williams’ invite to the rink any time of day, but the whole show felt very bland to me — almost as if it wasn’t made for gay men.
“It’s gorgeous, right?” said Frederick Luis Aldama, affiliate faculty of LGBTQ studies. “I mean, high production value, beautiful bodies, gorgeously filmed and the aesthetics are amazing, but there’s a lot of surface and not a lot of texture.”
Although the show had great production, many raised concerns that it lacked the depth that queer love has, including the ability of having meaningful connections without having to have sex every second. There is a time and place for performing fellatio and confessing your undying love, and it seems to me no one had a clock on set. When a piece of queer romance media, like Heated Rivalry, becomes so palatable and sex-focused, does it lose its credibility?
“We might call (it) the palatability filter … shows with the biggest straight audiences, and in this case, straight women audiences … tend to be the ones that follow (a) formula,” said Aldama. “Two beautiful bodies that never threaten that straight, female audience … it’s a fairytale.”
And fairytales sell.
“Setting this story in a sports context allows for the fantasy a lot of people have … a lot of genders have, of men that are iconically masculine but also vulnerable,” said Lisa Moore, chair of the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Moore gives the perspective to not look at Heated Rivalry to the same caliber as a research paper, but to enjoy two hot dudes checking out each other’s hockey sticks in the locker room.
Heated Rivalry garnered an average of 10.6 million viewers per episode according to Variety. With so many fans, the show has a wide variety of viewers: queer, non-queer, men and women. But, it seems its palatability to the straight audience seems to be its main attraction.
“We want more visibly queer, gender non-conforming, femme characters,” said Aldama.
The media only seems to show the masculine, muscle-galore type of characters in gay stories. Can we really view television shows like this as progress? It seems to me that queer media only becomes mainstream when it’s at its least disruptive state.
“I think it’s great that we have the empathy gap closing,” Aldama said. “Whether … queer or straight or white or black or brown, we have the capacity to step into the shoes of someone else.”
Stories like Heated Rivalry becoming mainstream do offer a chance of visibility for the queer community. In a way, I agree that Moore has it right … we shouldn’t take silly pop culture moments so seriously; not every piece of queer media has to be the next brick thrown at Stonewall.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that Heated Rivalry is inherently meant for a straight audience. Tacky and censored — how yucky. The show romanticized two conventionally attractive men in the closet, and the end result was a cheesy 70s hockey-themed porno. For me, I want something more than a kiss on the ice rink and a more messy and sometimes uncomfortable viewpoint on queer romance.
I want queer media for queer people.
Espinoza is a rhetoric and writing and journalism junior from Laredo, Texas.
