The Heated Rivalry Controversy And How Parasocial Fandoms Reinforce The Patriarchy
We talk about the need for men to be emotionally vulnerable, and shoot the idea in the head when they actually are so
It won’t be wrong to say that the cast of Heated Rivalry - particularly the leads, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie - shot to A-list fame almost overnight. They are all over editorial photoshoots, late-night shows can’t seem to get enough of them, and the duo has already presented at the Golden Globes. You would be living under a rock if you have not heard of them yet.
Although the show has a lot to credit for this widespread adoration, the crux of the craze comes from the seemingly unfiltered, borderline unhinged interviews that Storrie and Williams give. Unlike the media-trained sweetness that you would normally expect from breakout stars, this duo read through Twitter thirst tweets with a straight face and mock complain that they aren't thirsty enough, joked about people seeing them naked at the Golden Globes stage, and had Jimmy Fallon on all fours on the floor of his late-night set in national television. You could see why the fandom loves them so much.
But the thing about fandom culture is that you don’t want your audience to like you too much, and the Heated Rivalry stars are learning it firsthand. All it took was one tweet of Storrie and Francois Arnaud (who plays Scott Hunter in the series) looking at each other in a picture that might or might not be AI-generated in the first place, and photos of them showing up at the airport at the same time. And now Arnaud, the only openly gay actor in the cast, is getting unsolicited hate online.
See, despite how “free” these actors seem in their interview, the cast of the queer hockey romance series is very guarded about their romantic lives and their sexuality. You could argue that it helps with marketing the show, and the ambiguity helps feed the rumour mill with more content to keep fans shipping the two leads (irrespective of whether they are actually together or not). This, in turn, keeps the show from disappearing in the vortex of debilitatingly short-term internet memory.
The rumour mill worked its magic a little too well, and now fans are very comfortable imagining Hudcon as a real couple (Hudcon being the name given to the Williams and Storrie ship), doxxing Hudson Williams’ girlfriend (I know, it sounds like it doesn’t belong in the same sentence, but it’s true), saying that Storrie and Arnaud being in a relationship is bad for the show's season 2 shoots, and asking for Scott Hunter’s character to be recast altogether. As of writing this article, Arnaud has unfollowed all his fellow cast members on social media.
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When Adoration And Entitled Ownership Look The Same
Sure, most people in this fandom don’t fantasize themselves with the actors per se, but parasocial relationships don’t limit themselves to romantic relationships only. It’s also there in the feeling of entitlement that comes from the feeling of knowing someone very well. Which is where the PR strategy of Heated Rivalry unknowingly shoots its own foot.
You see, celebrities like Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie have a persona that feels refreshingly real. They share their thoughts out loud, act dorky around each other, and openly appreciate each other in an environment where it’s rather unusual for men to express their feelings for fear of being labelled as queer. That, in itself, drew many people towards them in the first place. Besides, there is so much content around the two of them now, and because you have invested so much of your time into their content, you would think that you know everything about them. Take that a step further, and you end up assuming that you have a good sense of what is right or wrong for them. After all, you care about them, right? And then, making demands like changing the cast for your favourite seems like a valid reaction.
The biggest paradox of Heated Rivalry is that it's a gay romance aimed at a female audience. Women read/watch gay dramas because it gives them the freedom to enjoy a romance without the emotional heavy lifting that female leads in straight romances are often expected to do. Since societal expectations (read patriarchy) doesn't appreciate men being open about their feelings, gay romances give both the leads an equal responsibility to develop their emotions.
This is all well and good, till the paradox reveals itself with the press run of the TV adaptation. When that emotional vulnerability that the audience reads these books for is displayed in real life by men whose sexuality is ambiguous, said men are immediately assumed to be queer and in a relationship with each other. The cycle continues, the divide between straight and queer widens, and stunted emotions become a way for performing straight maleness.
All we know, Connor Storrie, Francois Arnaud, and Hudson Williams might as well be friends, and if they aren't it's still not our right to know. Nor is it okay to turn gay men away from a show featuring characters from their community just because it's a show made for the female gaze. What instances like these do is that it makes examples out of people like the actors, and unless we make spaces where men can openly act the way they want to without the fear of labels, the cycle of emotionally stunted straight men and gay men acting as scapegoats for straight women's fantasies will only continue.