Shut up, my show is on: Heated Rivalry, fandom and romance
A few weeks ago, I sent a video of actor and “Heated Rivalry”(HR) star Hudson Williams to a friend. Leaving his Tonight Show taping at NBC Studios, Williams, flanked by four individuals, pushed through a screaming crowd of mostly women; the energy was reminiscent of boy-band craze and the crowd size rivaled that of Taylor Swift’s.
Similar to how networks are now turning to influencers with built-in audiences for content, the HR stars Connor Storrie and Williams now come with an attached mob of followers to drive box-office success. But what’s the reason for all this hype?
HR follows the rivalry (and mainly romance) between two professional hockey players: Canadian Shane Hollander, portrayed by Williams, and Russian Ilya Rozanov, portrayed by Storrie, across eight years. The first half of Rachel Reid’s 2019 novel, which the series is adapted from, is almost entirely sex with minimal dialogue between the two who meet up for hookups when their teams face off. While maintaining a public rivalry, Hollander navigates his queerness, and Rozanov, his troubling family dynamics. In both the series and the book, fans see their relationship shift from purely sexual to one of yearning, emotional intimacy and love.
The success of HR, as Kase Wickman of Vanity Fair wrote, feels “inevitable,” especially “in a world rife with anxiety, patriarchal structures and celebrity obsession.” In another example, an Instagram user commented that HR “absolutely riiiiipped me out of my numbness.” HR and its success have felt like a perfectly timed remedy for ever-persisting anxiety towards our crumbling socio-political world. I typically pick up more than 60 romance books a year, including smutty books ranging widely in tropes and pairings. I enjoy doomscrolling through romance books. The books, though not always plot-driven or well-written, are comforting in their reliable happy endings.
Historian Jim Downs wrote aptly in his New York Times op-ed that “culture has not kept up with queer people.” Queer stories on screen are often trauma-filled, centering on homophobia, AIDS and violence, including Carmen Emmi’s 2025 film “Plainclothes”and Showtime’s “Fellow Travelers.”
And when these stories aren’t trauma-filled, Hollywood creates queer media focused on making queer people appear “palatable, monogamous and mortgage-ready” to straight viewers, with Downs pointing to sitcoms like “Modern Family” as an example. HR stands among peers that are shifting genre norms, including “Heartstopper,” “Bottoms” and “Young Royals.”
There is a certain prestige assigned to “trauma-porn” queer films. Dramatic performances of toil and longing, albeit often award-worthy, remain central in the genre (e.g. cult classic “Brokeback Mountain” and “Queer.”) Love gets just 30 minutes of light, as we wait with bated breath for the floor to fall out and for love to be lost.
Although HR is not completely free of homophobia and denial, at its center are two queer men navigating an evolving inertia towards each other. The explicit scenes are intimate and leave nothing to imagination. Instead of cutaways and fades to black, HR features sex moves from lingering touches to heaving breaths (not overtaken by soundtracks), to aftermath reflections.
Yes, the sex is sex — the content is explicit — but calling HR merely porn is a cheap shot. This deduction is rooted in the hypersexualization and fetishization of queer people and intimacy. When viewers focus entirely on the taboo consumption of queer sex, the show’s narrative and the actors’ talents are overlooked. The actors’ bodies become grounds for discussion. The show is sexy, but its intimacy exists beyond skin. It’s yearning, playful and silly. Despite sometimes clumsy writing and awkward exchanges, the show is charming, steamy and achingly soft. HR is a win, simply because they don’t die at the end.
Although the show was developed and written by Jacob Tierney, an openly gay man, and stars several openly queer actors, queer men are the minority in readership and viewership of HR. The novel was written by a white woman, for white women, about a white sport. Straight women continue to monopolize fan spaces and rhetoric, excluding queer viewers — even from public viewing parties.
Many experts have explored this voyeurism, pointing to issues of fetishization or female readers looking to escape classic tropes. Downs referenced the conversations around “bachelorette parties in gay bars.” Straight, white female audiences get to traipse through queer spaces, stories and bodies for entertainment and “spectacle.”
On the other hand, some women seek the soft masculinity of queer romances, using it as an escape from powerless heroines and toxic leading men. Kevin Maimann from CBC News wrote that women are done with classic heteronormative tropes. As a reader, I have read countless tales of a petite, pale-skinned white heroine with adequate wit, trauma and delicate sensibilities. She, of course, falls epically for a 6’3” man who’s largely one-dimensional except for his bulging muscles, possessiveness and incomparable sexual competence. Men in queer romances, however, tend to exist on another axis where their desire is complex and interesting, and, frankly, to many, hot.
HBO released HR with little advertising, however, a key point to its booming success is its post-release press run. Cast interactions made up nearly my entire feed from the middle of December to mid-January. From editorial interviews to podcast clips, they responded to culture and fans in real time, with Williams even touting the term “boy aquarium” on The Tonight Show, a word coined by stans to describe hockey arenas. This dynamic builds the illusion of a conversation between the stars and viewers, as the world watches the previously unknown actors become stars.
Watching HR win is like watching people realize they love romance. I have spent years reading novels with NSFW cover art of men with straining muscles embracing windswept heroines or another man. I’ve tilted my Kindle app screen away from unsuspecting bystanders, and once, a woman on a plane whose iPhone background was an equally-ripped Jesus.
HR is not a cure-all, but its reception is worth noting. The validity of its story is not focused on the critical appeal, but its dutiful audience. Its success demonstrates that entertainment can and should be a buyer’s market.
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