r/HeatedRivalryTVShow

Going to keep this intentionally vague, but I’m starting to, once again, see a bunch of complaints about a “straight” actor being cast in a gay role. Maybe we can just leave it alone this time around?

When an actor who has worked consistently since he was a teenager has never been publicly linked romantically to ANYONE, perhaps we can accept that it might be “complicated”, and is ultimately none of our business.

Also, many of these posts claim a guy who presents as a bit of a “bro” cannot possibly be gay or bisexual, which really disrespects the whole freaking point of the show.

Thanks

I don’t know if this has been covered anywhere, but I have to believe that Jacob Tierney knew exactly what he was doing to a huge chunk of his queer audience with that long, drawn out, driving sequence behind the final end credits.

Raise your hand if you were yelling at your screen for Shane to keep his eyes on the damn road, or at least seriously considering doing so.

I’m willing to bet it wasn’t just me.
So many of the queer folks old enough to watch this show are of generations that have been conditioned to expect a queer story to end in tragedy (at least for productions as well done and widely distributed as HR was).

I Know how the romance genre works, I Knew they weren’t going to finish the credits with them in a fiery wreck. And YET. And yet, I was still waiting for it.

AND THE RELEASE OF TENSION WHEN THE SEQUENCE FINISHED. I hadn’t realized I’d been building that tension through watching the entire show. And then it was gone. And I knew I had to watch it again from the beginning. Have a chance to experience the story without that tension I hadn’t even realized I was feeling. And it was such a different experience. So much easier to sit in the feelings of the individual scenes as they were, instead of keeping one eye on the future, wondering when that shoe will drop. It was so nice. And so I did it again.

I’ve heard this show gets an unusual number of rewatches. And I think this is part of why. And I think the show’s creator absolutely knew what he was doing. He found a way to leverage our (and his) collective trauma (for lack of a better word) to serve the story he was trying to tell, and he did it in a way that wasn’t callous, it was healing.

At least it was for me.

The game Fortnite plays music in the background, but it's just background noise to me and I rarely recognize songs.....the WAY my head whipped around 😆 and what went through my head was literally "what in the heated rivalry?!" Despite being in the room (working) I had a flash of panic that my 8yr old had somehow stumbled into my HBOMax profile. I don't know anyone IRL who could relate so you all get my silly little story.

>Yep, I’m eight months late to the hubbub. Gay friends kept telling me to watch, but I resisted. Having been burned by gay-eye-candy shows without much substance (Red, White & Royal Blue, anyone?) I was done with watching gay-leaning content just to “support the cause.”

>Then my discerning Canadian pal James was emphatic — “You need to watch it, Joe. It’s only six episodes. It’ll change you.” Oh, come on. A gay sports story? One that’s believable? And well done?

>I wasn’t holding my breath.

>I took the plunge earlier this month. By episode four or five I felt like I’d been smacked over the head by a sledgehammer — in a good way! Now I’m floating here in the blessed honeymoon period, where it’s another day, another 24 hours and somehow I haven’t stopped thinking about the “Little-Gay-Hockey-Show-That Could,” weeks later. I’m one of those crazed, over-thinking fan converts, needing my Shane and Ilya daily-reflection fix.

Hi, everyone,

I’ve really been wondering about something. The comment “Consent is sexy” comes up a lot in Heated Rivalry fans’ praise for the show. Personally, that phrase doesn’t signify a lot to me—not that I don’t think consent is important! It’s just that I see Ilya and Shane’s equilibrium in athleticism, fame, power, wealth, etc. as a big piece of what makes this a really different kind of romance. That equilibrium leads to a different kind of respect between two equals. Is sexual consent just another way of expressing this equilibrium?

I’m wondering about the demographics of those who do a lot of talking about consent. Is it mainly something people in their 20s and 30s talk about? Older? I must have encountered it in the California public school system in the 70s—I understand it was taught!—but it still feels a bit foreign, like something I wouldn’t have thought to say myself. It didn’t have the thingness it now seems to have. With whom do you do the most talking about consent—your partner, your friends, in the medical field or trauma-based teaching, in activism?

Something that stood out to me on my second watch was how safe I felt.

But why did I feel safe? Because the filming was done in a slower pace than many shows and movies. They take time to linger.

The didn’t have sex on a mattress on the floor (iykyk) but in clean, pleasant hotel rooms or clean and aesthetically pleasing homes.

They men had good family members who were kind and loving, they didn’t rush intimacy scenes like so many other shows do.

I don’t know if it was just me, but I felt like I caught my breath and slowed down too.

Hi everyone!! I’m not sure if this is allowed (so pls just delete if it isn’t ☺️), but I recently wrote an article on my Substack regarding the reception of HR when the show came out, and thought maybe I could share it here? If anyone’s interested I’ve linked it ☺️🏒

I know this is probably going to be controversial, but as someone who is part of the LGBTQ+ community, the way Heated Rivalry has been treated by parts of its audience has genuinely started making me uncomfortable.

First, the show itself is amazing. It’s beautifully written, the characters are compelling, and seeing queer relationships given this level of attention and popularity should feel like a win. But sometimes when I watch it now, I can’t separate the actual show from the incredibly weird discourse surrounding it.

And yes, I’m specifically talking about a certain section of the fans, straight women. Obviously this is not every straight woman who watches the show, and queer fans can absolutely cross boundaries too. But from what I’ve personally seen, a huge amount of the obsessive sexualisation is coming from straight women, including plenty who are middle-aged or older.

There’s a difference between appreciating a queer romance, finding the actors attractive etc. and turning two gay/bi men into objects for your own sexual entertainment. You can call it whatever you want, but at a certain point it starts looking like fetishisation.

What frustrates me even more is how defensive people become when that possibility is brought up. Fetishisation doesn’t suddenly become progressive because the people doing it are women or because they consider themselves allies. You might not intend to fetishise gay men and still participate in behaviour that feels fetishistic.

I genuinely wonder whether the reaction would have reached this level if the show centred two women, or if the male leads weren’t conventionally attractive. I really don’t think it would have.

Queer people have spent decades fighting to have our relationships portrayed as actual relationships rather than spectacles, fantasies or something inherently sexual. So watching another piece of queer representation become dominated by straight people loudly sexualising it feels incredibly strange.

And before someone says “men fetishise lesbians all the time”. exactly. That’s also gross. That behaviour doesn’t become okay when you reverse the genders. There is a point where obsessively sexualising two men together starts feeling uncomfortably similar to the way certain straight men treat relationships between women.

And please, stop shipping the actors together in real life. They are actors. Their characters being in love does not mean the people portraying them are secretly together. Analysing their interviews, touches, eye contact and friendships for “proof” of a relationship crosses a completely different boundary.

You can love Heated Rivalry. You can think the characters are hot. You can enjoy the romance and the intimate scenes. Straight women are absolutely allowed to connect with queer stories. Just please remember that queer relationships and queer people aren’t toys. You can be a fan of something without making it weird.

And lastly, I’m genuinely not posting this because I want to make anyone angry or start some argument. I’m talking about behaviour I’ve personally seen that makes me and others uncomfortable. Once again, straight women are not the only people doing this. Queer fans, men, women and people of any sexuality can cross these boundaries.

But if your immediate reaction to this is intense defensiveness rather than simply thinking, “I enjoy the show, but I don’t behave like that,” then maybe consider why it feels so personally targeted at you.

Because if none of this describes how you behave as a fan, then this post isn’t about you.