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color symbolism: orange = vulnerability part 3 (scott + kip)
[Director of Photography Jackson] Parrell hopes you’ll overanalyze his use of color.
hello and welcome to a series analyzing the color symbolism in heated rivalry (tumblr, ao3)! i’m a sucker for color symbolism, and it was one of the first things i started analyzing in heated rivalry (as, earliest message to the friend who’s DMs i flail in about heated rivalry’s color symbolism is from december 1st). for this series, i scrubbed through the whole show and picked out moments where the color i’m discussing is strong and undeniable, to best illustrate my points, avoid potential differences between my screens and other people’s, and because the show likes to use in between colors or multiple colors at once for particularly complicated scenes.
so, let’s get into it! this post is part 3 of 3 analyzing how orange = vulnerability. part 1 covers shane and ilya for eps 1-4, part 2 covers shane and ilya for eps 5-6, and part 3 covers scott and kip. crossposted to ao3 here.
okay so on my red = competition post (tumblr, ao3), i talked about how the light at the kingfisher is a red-orange/orange-red, and pulled out two moments where the lighting was shaded more red to talk about. for this post, i'm gonna pull out three moments where the lighting is shaded more orange to talk about.
for this first moment, it's when maria and kip are telling kyle and shawn about scott flirting with kip during their first meeting. kip's feeling vulnerable about developing a crush on a seemingly straight and unattainable guy. a guy from an extremely homophobic, heteronormative culture who could very well threaten kip's safety if he learned kip is gay and crushing on him. many reasons for kip to feel vulnerable here.
i know red is the admirals' main color, but scott's sweatshirt has always looked more like a dusky orange to me here. anyway. scott enters his apartment after practice, not knowing if kip has stayed like scott asked, and is overjoyed to see he did. scott's an orphan, and doesn't let anyone get close in case they discover his sexuality, so i feel confident in saying this is the first time scott's had someone to come home to since his parents died. and by staying in scott's apartment during scott's practice, kip implicitly promises to stay in scott's life going forward, even though they barely know each other. this is like a mini "i'm coming to the cottage" moment for scott and kip, putting them both in pretty vulnerable positions.
these two intimate scenes represents the newfound vulnerability in scott and kip's intimacy after kip essentially moves into scott's apartment. they're both quick scenes of them smiling at each other, kissing, and playfully having sex. there's no dialogue either. those aspects are what indicates it is a representative scene to me, that it indicates what their sex life looks like at this point in the episode without showing every time they have sex. they're both reveling in the newness of their mutual vulnerability, and expressing that through sex.
there are two orange aspects to the gallery scene: kip's orange shirt, and the orange lighting in the wide shot. first, kip's orange shirt. this is the first time scott and kip try to bring scott into kip's life. kip's assimilated into scott's life through moving into scott's apartment, but their relationship forces absence in kip's life. because of the requirements of scott's life, kip both becomes absent in his own life and has to deny the absence of scott in the limited time kip is with his community. however, scott's absence mixed with the joys of a new relationship prevent kip from fully grasping what the requirements of scott's life mean for their relationship. which is why kip acts relatively casually about their being in a relationship in the art gallery: he doesn't understand that even with scott's disguise, they can't hint at being together. it's the first moment of friction in their relationship as kip confronts that scott can't integrate into kip's life.
second, the orange lighting in the wide shot. to my eye, the lighting shades more orange in the wide while it's more yellow in the closer shots. i talked about the yellow in the closer shots in one of my posts on yellow = expectations (tumblr, ao3). the yellow lighting in the closer shots shading into orange lighting in the wide shot represents how scott's primary concern starts off as the expectations on him shading into feeling too vulnerable to continue being in the space. kip publicly referencing the two of them living together along with affirming the gallery worker assuming the two of them are together in some way are both too exposing for scott even with his disguise. and he can't tolerate that kind of exposure, that kind of vulnerability, so he's gotta leave. to scott, his own lack of tolerance with any public insinuation of gayness reaffirms his inability to integrate into kip's life.
this is another moment in the kingfisher where i think the lighting shades more orange than red. it's when elena makes kip confront the fact that he's in love with scott, and isn't happy with their relationship being closeted. it's vulnerable for kip because it's the first time he admits to anyone that he's in a relationship with scott, as well as how quickly he's fallen for scott, as well as how the secrecy of the relationship is wearing kip down. and for elena, she's hearing her friend admit that he's struggling. he's struggling, and doesn't have a plan to lessen that struggle. it's a lot for both of them, even with kip only scratching the surface of how he's feeling.
this scene also parallels another scene: that of rose and shane in the restaurant. in both scenes, elena and rose prompt kip and shane into confronting the thing they're hiding; for kip it's his love for scott not being enough to sustain him in the closet, and for shane it's that he's gay (and in love with ilya, though rose doesn't know that). and both kip and shane leave the meals knowing what they have to do next: kip needs to break up with scott, and shane needs to go get his man. the two scenes are foils of each other and so strengthen the impacts of each other.
and finally, back to the kingfisher. kip is at the kingfisher with his friends, watching scott's speech. scott is speaking to the hockey world about kip. both scott and kip are able to bring the other into their respective communities, no longer having to separate their lives. however, with the caveat that scott's community is still far less accepting than kip's. scott's up there on the stage alone while kip is surrounded by friends; scott's up there getting tepid applause while kip's friends are celebrating. scott's speaking in front of a brown background, while kip is bathed in red-orange light: even with coming out, scott still can't be fully vulnerable with the hockey world, while now kip can be fully vulnerable with his friends. it's a start, and there's still much to be done so that the hockey world can be a place where scott can be fully vulnerable like kip can be with his friends.
color symbolism: red = competition
[Director of Photography Jackson] Parrell hopes you’ll overanalyze his use of color.
hello and welcome to a series analyzing the color symbolism in heated rivalry (tumblr, ao3)! i’m a sucker for color symbolism, and it was one of the first things i started analyzing in heated rivalry (as, earliest message to the friend who’s DMs i flail in about heated rivalry’s color symbolism is from december 1st). for this series, i scrubbed through the whole show and picked out moments where the color i’m discussing is strong and undeniable, to best illustrate my points, avoid potential differences between my screens and other people’s, and because the show likes to use in between colors or multiple colors at once for particularly complicated scenes.
so, let’s get into it! this post is about red symbolizing competition. crossposted to ao3 here.
the kingfisher
the main lighting in the kingfisher is this really strong orange-red. sometimes it shades more orange, sometimes more red; i'll be focusing here on the times where it's more red, and go over the orange scenes in an upcoming post.
it's the lights over this corner of the bar that are that strong orange-red. in this scene they are more red, as shawn bemoans the fact that kip's friends are losing the competition for kip's attention. kip's friends already barely saw him because he's always working, and then kip's relationship with scott takes over even more of kip's time, even eating into the time kip actually spends with his friends because he insists on watching scott's games. for the moment, scott's winning the competition for kip's attention, though it doesn't last long as kip doesn't want there to be one.
it was this scene of the kingfisher that really got me to think about the symbolism behind the color red (meaning i texted my friend WHY IS IT SO FUCKING RED with a gifset of this moment and then grumbled to myself about it for a bit). beyond contributing to the low-level serial killer vibes throughout this episode, there are multiple levels of competition to this scene of scott staring through the window of the kingfisher at kip's birthday celebration. one, that scott alone can't compete with the community kip already has. scott's community is predicated on his ability to play hockey, an ability he risks losing by acting on his gayness. that conditional support isolates him, meaning he either goes with his emotional needs being unsatisfactorily met, or relies solely on a closeted romantic partner to meet. in contrast, kip's community comes with unconditional support, especially for being gay. he has the majority of his emotional needs met by his community without a romantic partner, and needs his romantic partner to integrate into his community to meet all of his needs. where a closeted relationship between scott and kip fulfills more of scott's emotional needs, that same relationship neglects more of kip's emotional needs, and so they are incompatible for the time being. secondly, the competition of hockey itself puts a literal and metaphorical wall between scott and kip. the culture around men's hockey positions hockey games as masculinity competitions. winning a hockey game reinforces one's masculinity, while losing a hockey game calls into question one's masculinity. winning the cup thus becomes winning at masculinity, and so being gay irrevocably calls both a hockey player's masculinity and ability to win the cup into question. scott cannot afford for either of those questions to be asked at this point in his career since he hasn't won a cup and has a propensity to crash and burn during the season, both of which would be blamed on his gayness and lead to him losing his community. so all in all, much of scott and kip's storyline comes down to a competition between their relationship and their established communities, and is complicated by the competitive nature of the hockey world outside of the actual game.
ilya
this is a short scene from ep 4, during the second texting montage. we can see the thick, red curtains of ilya's moscow house that match the color of ilya's t-shirt so much ilya nearly blends in. the purpose of this little scene is to gesture at ilya's caregiving responsibilities in the off-season after the sochi olympics. based on the tense way ilya holds himself, and the big gesticulations he makes, i suspect ilya's on the phone with andrei/alexei, potentially even arguing with him about taking care of their father. if that's the case, the red in the scene indicates to me that ilya has to enter into a competition on his father's behalf for andrei/alexei's attention against andrei/alexei's various vices and the wife and child he's also neglecting. additionally, ilya's own desires are in a competition within him. he wants to take care of his father, and go clubbing, and be with shane, but those are all contradictory desires on some level and none of them are fully achievable, so they're all competing against each other within him leaving him dissatisfied. ilya can only take care of his father in the off-season and has to harangue his brother to do any caregiving at all during the season. ilya wants to go clubbing with svetlana and enjoy it like he used to, but he's hung up on shane even though he's not supposed to be, and so can't enjoy clubbing activities like he used to. and he wants to be in a romantic relationship with shane and is lying to himself about that because it seems an impossibility between the hockey and russia of it all. so, yeah, a lot of competing desires going on in this one little scene.
shane
the competing desires theme is also present during the locker room scene after the CCM commercial. shane sits on the bench facing a wall of red lockers as he wrestles with attraction to ilya. he wants to have sex with ilya but knows he shouldn't, tries to prevent the sex from happening but caves easily. if you've read the book, you'll know how much shane's desire to have sex with ilya competes with his fear of being unable to play hockey constantly within shane, and how shane's desire for sex with ilya wins out almost every time. this scene establishes that same dynamic within shane.
ciel
the club at the end of ep 4 uses primarily red lighting. the lighting is solid red at the tables and bar, then there's a mix of red, blue, and white strobe lighting on the dance floor (with a little bit of purple lighting when the blue and red strobes overlap). however red is still the primary color of the strobes, and the vast majority blue strobes land on shane while he's dancing with rose and on ilya's teammates. almost none of the blue strobes land on ilya himself. i talked a little bit in my blue = hockey post (tumblr, ao3) on how the blue strobes landing on shane while he's dancing with rose emphasize how shane is fulfilling the hockey world's expectations that he go out to clubs and settle down with a nice girl by dating rose, so i'm gonna spend the rest of this post going over what the red lighting means.
simply put, the club scene is a competition for attention. mainly shane's attention, though beautiful man miles also briefly competes for ilya's attention. it opens with a close-up on the back of ilya's head as he moves into the club, first through a red light and then through strobing white, red, and blue lights. he turns his head to the right, and we transition to a shot of rose lit by red light, giving the illusion that ilya just walked up to rose. then we cut to a close-up of shane's face bathed in strobing lights to show who actually just walked up to rose. this sequence introduces the three main figures in the scene's competition: ilya, rose, and shane. it's interesting to note that villains are often introduced with their backs to the camera the same way ilya is for this sequence. it adds a layer to ilya being an interloper in shane and rose's relationship as he will directly compete with rose for shane's attention.
although rose doesn't really have shane's attention either. he barely looks at her the whole time they're sitting at this table, even with that dress and with rose hanging off him. he's much more interested in talking about the game. looking at this small scene through the lens of competition, something big jumps out at me: rose saying platitudes about the game even though she knows them to be false. in contrast, ilya would be frank about shane playing badly and challenge shane to be better. shane and ilya both have a fundamental competitiveness that makes them compatible, a fundamental competitiveness rose seems to lack. mark that as another incompatibility between shane and rose.
ah, beautiful man miles. he competes for both shane and ilya's attention and is ignored both times. astounding how So Much happens in the club scene that everyone glossed over how beautiful beautiful man miles is. really drives home how shane and ilya have eyes for no one else.
after noticing miles at the bar, ilya scans the crowd for shane and rose. once he spots them, ilya makes the decision to place himself in direct competition for shane's attention by finding a woman to make out with.
where shane gets a mix of red, blue, and white strobes on him as he notices ilya's teammates and then ilya, ilya only gets one blue strobe. he's mainly lit in strobing red lights as he makes out with a woman in shane's eyeline.
by the end of the scene, when shane and ilya are staring at each other across the dance floor, the strobes on them have settled to being primarily red in color. this is because ilya has successfully lured shane away from rose, winning the competition for shane's attention; ilya has also gotten shane to enter into a competition for ilya's attention against the woman ilya's dancing with. and like before with rose, neither of these women really have either shane or ilya's attention. neither of the women can win this competition.
color symbolism: yellow = expectations part 4 (scott + kip)
[Director of Photography Jackson] Parrell hopes you’ll overanalyze his use of color.
hello and welcome to a series analyzing the color symbolism in heated rivalry (tumblr, ao3)! i’m a sucker for color symbolism, and it was one of the first things i started analyzing in heated rivalry (as, earliest message to the friend who’s DMs i flail in about heated rivalry’s color symbolism is from december 1st). for this series, i scrubbed through the whole show and picked out moments where the color i’m discussing is strong and undeniable, to best illustrate my points, avoid potential differences between my screens and other people’s, and because the show likes to use in between colors or multiple colors at once for particularly complicated scenes.
so, let’s get into it! this post is part 4 of 5 analyzing the use of yellow to symbolize expectations. since this show is all about expectations, i’ve split this mini-series into separate posts covering shane, ilya, shane + ilya, scott + kip, and the MLH cup. crossposted to ao3 here.
big expectations
heated rivalry tends to use heavy yellows and golds to indicate big expectations. these are the scenes with the extreme yellow and gold lighting, which for scott and kip include both fundraisers, two moments where kip is alone in scott's apartment, and when kip returns home to his dad, and all have to do with the expectations keeping scott and kip apart.
at this first fundraiser, it's the expectation of a class difference keeping scott and kip apart. kip has gone to his second job as a waiter for his friend's catering business because he's saving up to afford grad school when he runs into scott, who is one of the invited guests. scott, who has multiple tuxedos because he is a multimillionaire professional hockey player. the episode doesn't have time to get as much into the effects of their class differences as the book does, so this scene serves to highlight how big the class difference is with its heavy yellow and gold lighting.
the second fundraiser makes it clear that scott feels a heavy expectation to always put hockey first. hockey is how he honors his parents, hockey is how he found and maintains community, hockey is how he is able to repay the foundation that supported him as an orphan. hockey is all he knows. to scott, putting his relationship with kip first would be a selfish act since it would jeopardize his ability to honor his parents, maintain his community, and support the foundation that supported him. those heavy expectations are reflected in the heavy yellow and gold lighting.
for kip, being with scott comes with the expectation that kip lies to his community and goes back into the closet. that kip shrinks his life down to scott's apartment until scott has retired from hockey. the first screenshot here is from kip watching scott on tv and lying to his dad about where he's staying. the second screenshot is from kip finding the tuxedo scott left for him in scott's closet. and both have that heavy gold and yellow lighting. i include scott's expectation that kip go back into the closet for their relationship one of the expectations keeping them apart because scott lays out his expectations for their relationship the morning after they sleep together for the first time, and kip doesn't. scott wants a relationship with kip where kip waits in scott's apartment/metaphorical closet until scott is ready, and neither of them really consider what kip wants out of their relationship. they try going to the gallery without planning on how to handle it, and so scott's panic attack reaffirms his fear of being in public with kip. also look at the lighting difference between the two shots: whereas shane and ilya generally move out of the darkness into the light, scott and kip generally move out the light into the darkness. scott is used to being stifled by hockey (just look at his skintight underarmor get-up), but kip isn't, and unlike scott, kip has a community who don't want him stifled. so scott and kip must breakup, because neither are willing to find a compromise between their needs.
after breaking up with scott, kip comes home to his dad who is waiting in the heavy yellow lighting of their place's entranceway. i think this is the moment where the full expectations of being in a closeted relationship with scott land on kip, because he can't even tell his dad everything he's just gone through. prior to breaking up, kip could distract himself by focusing on the romantic and sexual aspects of his relationship with scott. kip could hide away in scott's apartment and ignore the full reality of their situation. but without that distraction, now kip has to face lying to and hiding from his community without being able to fully explain why. meaning in addition to the expectations on scott keeping him and kip apart, they continue to keep kip apart from his community after scott and kip break up.
small expectations
in a similar way to how the show uses heavy yellow and gold to indicate big expectations, lighter yellows indicate smaller expectations. these are the pervasive, daily expectations placed on a character. for this section, i am going to focus on how scott and kip's relationship changes the small expectations on them.
first off, these two back to back scenes with kip's dad. these two scenes show how kip's dad wants to support kip in everything he does, and how kip has to deny his dad's support to protect scott's closet status. kip's dad is trying to help kip handle his own expectations getting into and being able to support himself through grad school by encouraging kip and being calm, indicating he would act similarly if he knew kip was dating scott. but kip's dad's assuredness in kip's abilities and character add their own layer of expectations on kip by expecting kip to maintain those abilities and character. expectations kip must disappoint to protect scott's closet status by lying to and hiding from his dad. so the yellow lighting in both scenes represents the daily expectations of a good father who supports his son, and underscores how kip feels the need to disappoint those expectations in order to be with scott.
the gallery scene is the first time scott and kip are out in public together while in a relationship, and so scott is feeling every one of the daily, pervasive expectations of being a hockey player. at the first fundraiser, they had a level of plausible deniability for being seen together in public due to scott being a guest and kip a server; additionally, the fundraiser was a more controlled environment due to guest lists and whatnot. in contrast, the gallery provides neither that level of plausible deniability nor a controlled environment. it's seemingly open to the public and an odd place for a professional hockey player to go: even being recognized there could be a headline for scott on a slow news day. furthermore, both fundraisers allow scott to distract himself from his relationship circumstances by mingling with the other guests and fundraising. here in the gallery, he has no such distractions, and so every one of his thoughts are on how he's violating the daily pervasive expectations of being a hockey by being in a public art gallery with his boyfriend. the walls being that pale yellow colour with a tinge of orange reflect the pervasiveness of the hockey world's expectations by surrounding scott and being in the background of almost every shot of him. the pervasiveness combined with kip speaking relatively plainly about their relationship are too much for scott, and so he runs away back to his apartment where at least if he's going to break the hockey world's expectations, he can do it in private.
it took me awhile to figure out why the breakup scene has this light yellow lighting instead of the heavy yellow and gold lighting of the big expectations scenes. i think i've finally figured it out: scott is trying to minimize the expectations that come with being in the closet to convince kip to stay. "in a few years," he says. "i know how it sounds but it'll go by quickly, and then we can be normal," he says. for scott, hanging on until retirement has been bearable because he's already used to separating a part of himself from his community. he's been doing it for most of his life and it's bearable because it has to be, because he doesn't see any other option. scott knows the bulk of his community is conditional on him being a hockey player, and a hockey player can't be gay. but hanging on until scott retires is not bearable for kip because kip already has a fully supportive community. kip's community isn't going to make him choose between them and a homosexual relationship. in fact, kip's community wants to welcome scott in. and it's that community that has allowed kip to take the risk of entering into a homosexual relationship with scott, because they will also support kip if/when they break up. scott would receive no such support, and so would be alone. that lack of full support, that lack of true community is what all hockey players in the show experience. and it's true of the real life hockey players both rachel reid and jacob tierney drew inspiration from.
heated rivalry: the socks!!! (1.03 hunter)
looking at the symbolism of socks in heated rivalry! episode 1 meta is here on ao3, and episode 2 meta is here on tumblr and ao3. hoping to get a version of the ep 1 meta allowable on tumblr in the next few days, tumblr killed it twice for violating community guidelines -_- also i haven't been able to download the episode yet, so apologies for the pause button in the middle of the screen.
scott's intro
like ilya, scott wears ankle socks: they're both comfortable in their sexuality. like shane, scott wears long-sleeved shirts: he's hiding his sexuality very carefully from the world. but unlike shane, i wouldn't necessarily call this a modest outfit. yeah, his skin is covered, but that shirt is still tight enough you can see the veins in his chest through it when he's talking to kip at the smoothie bar. he knows he's gay, and he's planning to pursue relationships once he's retired from hockey, but he's absolutely not coming out of the closet before that. (or so he thinks.)
kip & his dad
meanwhile kip is comfortably out as gay and casually has his feet showing. but hiding his relationship with scott from everyone also has him wearing a long-sleeved shirt. i haven't read game changer, is there something up with kip's dad that would explain why he's got socks on here?
first hook-up
scott makes his intentions clear to kip by taking off his shirt but leaving his pants, shoes, and socks on; contrast to ilya who takes his shoes and socks off pretty quickly when seducing shane, and shane who tends to wear sweatshirts and long-sleeved shirts. notably, this sex scene involves scott yanking kip around by his shirt: metaphorically yanking kip back into the closet in order to pursue a relationship with him.
asking to stay
scott asks kip to stay and kip agrees when they're both bare except for their underwear: they're both laying all their cards out on the table right now.
then we get this lingering shot of their bare feet intertwining and pushing against the bed while they have sex to underscore how vulnerable they're being with each other after scott asks kip to stay.
from this point on, they can be open with each other, but only inside scott's apartment. once they go outside, they have to put on layers: scott in his captain america/unibomber disguise, or their suits. they literally have to suit up to be seen together outside the apartment. inside the apartment, they can wear short-sleeved shirts and bare feet.
blue banana socks
and then kip sees the blue banana socks and buys a pair for scott to use as a lucky charm! because kip is supporting scott staying in the closet, to kip's own detriment! it's not the smoothies that got scott out of his slump, it was allowing himself to be vulnerable with another man. but he can't do that openly at this point, so he relies on the smoothies and the socks as a proxy for that vulnerability.
socks as closet
scott's texts to kip about using the blue banana socks as a good luck charm and leaving a surprise for kip in his closet link the socks with being in the closet. we can see kip realize this as he leaves the smoothie bar to go into scott's closet to see the surprise. scott's apartment is pretty dark except for the blue-white light from kip's phone screen and scott's closet, further linking the two. the blue banana socks allow scott more freedom at the cost of kip's own freedom.
sochi gold medal game
finally, we end the episode with scott still wearing the blue banana socks but covering them up with another pair of socks. he's let himself be vulnerable and he can't take it back but he can go back to hiding it again. and he has to, to win that gold medal. scott chose hockey over kip and so has to go back to denying himself.