You know, I think that this conversation is sometimes had in a very unproductive way that risks crossing some lines, but I've been seeing it online for months now and it's right up my alley so I'm going to throw in my 2 cents into this well: Heated Rivalry's massive popularity has just further proven what many of us in wlw fandoms have been saying for years now about what kind of queer rep gets prioritized, when the "allies" show up, misogyny in society and fandoms, etc. There's obviously some undeniably big positives to HR's success, but there's also stuff that has me incredibly annoyed and I'm glad that people are calling out the blatant hypocrisies/thinly veiled misogyny. I'll start with the positives.
I DO recognize that Heated Rivalry's success is forcing conversations and reflection about homophobia in the male sports world and might end up helping normalize gay male athletes. My friend sent me this podcast episode by a bunch of cis het dudes that normally just talk hockey who were talking about Heated Rivalry in a really positive way. That stuff is important, and I'm glad it's happening.
Also, yeah, seeing homophobes seethe about its success is always a huge plus. Heated Rivalry (along with Pluribus's success) is further proof that DEI isn't dead and people in the US aren't overwhelmingly MAGA now because of Trump's re-election. This shit matters as a barometer of where general cultural sentiments are, even in such a polarized political landscape.
Finally, the gay men in my life fucking love this show, and I'm genuinely happy for them. It's not their fault or the fault of other gay men just happy to have a sexy gay romance that there's also all this other....bullshit to put up with and people are covering their ears about what wlw are trying to say. Because, yeah, while we definitely should appreciate that a gay show is such an immense hit and what this one in particular might do to tackle homophobia in the male sports world, there are also some very important conversations to be had about why exactly Heated Rivalry has been such a juggernaut success while most other LGBTQ shows have struggled to achieve this kind of reception.
Let's not beat around the bush here - Heated Rivalry would never, ever have reached this amount of popularity if it didn't center around two conventionally attractive, cis gay men.
Heated Rivalry's massive success has made it breath takingly obvious how media centering around conventionally attractive, often white, gay men will have legions of fans of all sexualities and genders ready to support and promote it as important LGBTQ rep, but nobody aside from wlw fandoms will vocally support and promote wlw media. I won't even go over the list of wlw centered shows that have been canceled because it happens so often that another one would probably be announced and then canceled by the time I'm done with it.
"But what about the success of shows like OITNB, Killing Eve, Euphoria, Arcane, Pluribus -" Ok how many of those are romances like Heated Rivalry? Every show with a wlw romance needs to have some sort of "hook" to lure audiences in, it can't just be about two women being in love and fucking. It has to be some hard hitting sci-fi or drama or an animated masterpiece that people watch because the wlw being in love isn't the most important or central part of the show. It can't just be a sapphic show, it has to be some genre with more mainstream appeal that also happens to have sapphic characters.
Heated Rivalry deals with homophobia in the male sports world, yes, but even then the tone is mostly light and I would firmly categorize it as a romance above all else. People aren't tuning in because it's a sports drama, they're tuning in to watch the gay men fall in love. So, what popular, mainstream show does the same with wlw characters? Give me a single example of a super popular, mainstream show or movie that's a wlw romance first and foremost.
Would many of the people that watched Heated Rivalry tune in for a show mostly about two female and/or trans characters in love and fucking? No. Fuck no. We all know this. Cis het men will go to pornhub instead to watch "lesbian porn" that caters to them, while cis het women won't watch because they're only attracted to conventionally attractive cis men.
Here's what's probably going to be my hottest take - a good chunk of the queer community evidently also couldn't give less fucks about wlw rep. Hell, there are even wlw that couldn't give less fucks about wlw rep and will instead devote all their time to watching mlm content, bi women and lesbians alike.
I am so, so tired of being expected to watch every show centering around mlm, but then nobody aside from a subset of wlw will campaign for and support our shows. Mind you, I still watch mlm shows and movies to support and boost queer rep in general, but you can bet your ass I resent how this isn't reciprocated with equal enthusiasm. Wlw media gets paid absolute dust even by the wider LGBTQ community unless it has one of the "hooks" I mentioned above. Shows with wlw need to literally be award worthy to get any hype or consideration from the general masses, but Heated Rivalry gets to be first and foremost a romance and was catapulted to the mainstream.
I think my resentment is also in part because, throughout more than a decade of being in fandoms, which are composed mostly of queer people, I've seen how even those spaces will center all their attention around male characters while paying no attention to or actively hating the canon central wlw rep. It happened to CaitVi in Arcane, Chaggie in Hazbin Hotel, MiziSua in Alien Stage, and probably others I'm not even aware of (somebody on Bluesky told me this happened in Deltarune too and I believe them). I'm tired of being told that we're all in this together supporting the community and all kinds of LGBTQ rep when, no, clearly the only rep even many LGBTQ people care about is conventionally attractive, white/light skinned cis men.
These are just recent examples, of course I remember the hatred towards Clexa and Edeleth and other wlw ships because characters in those were deemed fascists for actions that are properly contextualized or outright celebrated when done by male faves. I'm tired of being told I'm a bad person for liking these fictional women/ships when we see male characters be actual demonic assholes and still have fandoms gargle their balls.
I'm also fucking tired of people's excuses for obsessing exclusively over mlm media/characters but never touching wlw media. I honest to god have much more respect for the people that are upfront about being fans of hot cis men fucking vs the ones that make up 50,000 bullshit, misogynistic excuses for never consuming wlw media. "I like seeing two dudes fuck" is an infinitely more valid reason in my eyes than "Well I can't relate to any female characters because they're all satanic whores that killed my dog" or "Removing women completely from stories is actually peak feminism 🤓" or "Wlw content is always for the male gaze."
To be clear about several things: no, it's absolutely not a matter of supporting only wlw or mlm rep. Ideally, people would support all kinds of LGBTQ rep. The call to action here isn't to declare war against one kind of queer rep or people, it's for people to look into themselves and do some real soul searching about the biases they hold. It's for people to realize that they can be a minority and still hold biases against even communities they belong to, to do the work to dismantle internalized misogyny, lesbophobia, racism, etc.
(I didn't dive into the racism of it all but, yeah, while I fully recognize that Shane is mixed-race Asian and how important that rep is for East Asian/mixed race mlm, mlm media starring dark skinned characters doesn't ever receive even a fraction of this hype. A version of Heated Rivalry with at least one of Shane and Ilya being dark skinned would absolutely not have taken off like this, and I will bolster the voices of queer dark skinned men pointing this out.)
So, in conclusion, the past few years have made it incredibly obvious how misogyny still permeates every corner of society, down to the fandom spaces that claim to be oh so progressive and woke and are supposed to be an escape from it. I'm tired chief.
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