Like many of us, I watched “Heated Rivalry” during finals last semester, and as a queer person, I saw myself in it. So after watching, I took to social media to see what people were saying about the show. In the early days of the show airing, what I mostly saw was positive, with people discussing the themes, highlighting bits from interviews and maintaining a barrier between the actors and themselves. 

Then, the internet did what it does best, and got weird. “Heated Rivalry” is a show about queer hockey players, and like many shows about queer men, it drew an audience consisting not just of queer people, but of heterosexual women too. 

This is not a bad thing. People can and should consume media about people whose life experiences differ from theirs. But what is not okay is fetishization. One example of this occurring is one viral video on TikTok that gained attention when a woman, after having watched the show, went up to men at a gay bar and asked them to kiss.Queer people do not exist for the entertainment of straight people.

The treatment of the actors and their sexualities has also been very disturbing. Hudson Williams, who plays Shane Hollander, and Connor Storrie, who plays Ilya Rozanov, have not publicly disclosed their sexualities, stating in interviews that they wish to remain private, as is their right. 

No one owes you a coming out. People have continued to push and spread the news when Storrie’s ex shared private texts, outing him. 

François Arnaud, who plays Scott Hunter, is openly bisexual. There have been dating rumors about Storrie and Arnaud, and people have responded with homophobia. 

There is an age gap between the two, with Armand being 40 and Storrie being 25, but they are two grown men who met as adults. Arnaud has been accused of being a predator online, an accusation that is especially loaded when directed at a queer man, given the history of how homophobia has historically manifested in accusations of pedophilia and corrupting the youth.

“Heated Rivalry” is a show about the harmful impact of homophobic culture on queer public figures, and yet much of the response to the show is a recreation of that very culture. The fandom would do well to reflect on this and to think about how they have created the very same toxic environment that keeps people in the closet.