Why the Heated Rivalry TV series understands gay men better than the book
- Written by: Harry Stewart, PhD Candidate in Queer Male Romance, Flinders University
Heated Rivalry, written and directed by Jacob Tierney, has become a massive hit, going viral among gay romance fans and gathering millions of likes on the show’s official TikTok page.
Tierney’s adaptation of Rachel Reid’s 2019 novel turns Reid’s words into a beautiful exploration of queer male love and sex.
Reid’s romance novel was written for a mainly female readership, and it doesn’t quite capture all of the nuances of a gay male relationship. Under a gay male director, the TV series brings a whole new understanding to the intricacies of gay love.
Not just a pretty face
Heated Rivalry follows the romantic relationship between two rising professional hockey players: the Canadian captain of the Montreal Metros, Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), and the Russian captain of the Boston Raiders, Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie).
Reids’ original novel boxes the characters into their corners. Shane is the “pretty” boy who is “like a doll”, naturally “smooth” and “like a swimmer”. Ilya is “masculine” and “big” and has a “muscular chest”, “muscular arms” and “thick, muscular thighs”.
Based on these physical descriptions it comes as no surprise that Shane is the “bottom” in this pairing, depicted as softer in appearance and more emotional. Ilya is the “top” – a more masculine, imposing figure.
Tierney doesn’t change these roles, but instead doesn’t draw attention to how Ilya’s traits are more “manly” and Shane’s more “feminine”. Rather, Tierney focuses on how Shane and Ilya’s personal lives make them who they are – in and out of the bedroom.
Ilya’s dominance and masculinity in the books isn’t a focal point in the show. Instead, we see more of him as a vulnerable bisexual man who fights against his emotions and his family, but just wants to be held in the arms of a person that he loves.
Shane isn’t just a pretty face for the audience either, with his Asian-Canadian heritage expanded upon. We get the pressures of his identity as a representative figure in the media, and softer moments that he shares with his mother after coming out.
Tierney’s perspective makes the pair fully realised people who are each battling their own demons. He emphasises that queer men’s lives aren’t just full of spicy, sexy moments. Often, our sexuality can be a point of difference in how we are perceived in our careers, family lives, relationships and on the wider world stage.
Consent is sexy
One of the biggest changes is how Tierney handles consent. Shane and Ilya have a lot of sex both in the book and in the show. In a famous scene from the book, Shane receives a call from his teammate. Ilya takes it as a chance to perform oral sex on Shane. Reid writes Shane “was soft, so maybe he really didn’t want Ilya to be doing this”, and Shane describes it as “fucking creepy”.
The show adjusts this dubious consent and silent protest. Instead – after slight push back – Shane physically moves into a position that enables Ilya better access to his groin and gives facial clues that imply consent is clear.
Tierney has said adding explicit consent to this scene “makes it hotter”. The line between what is acceptable is far clearer in Tierney’s show than Reid’s book because of these changes.
By foregrounding consent, Heated Rivalry makes the sex scenes ‘even hotter’.
HBO
Consent is prevalent and very much an expectation in the gay community. Tierney’s lens adds these conversations about consent to the show, and makes it clear that Shane and Ilya are so in-tune with each other that there are boundaries, and that’s still sexy.
Tierney lets Ilya and Shane feel less like tough athletes, and more like two people learning to be vulnerable with each other. Ilya’s character is softened, and portrayed as a kinder masculinity.
In the book, when they both say “I love you”, Ilya is stoic and “scared”. In the show he cries, happily.
In the sex scenes, Tierney peels back layers of tough, male energy and instead focuses on showing a tenderness and emotional depth more aligned with real life gay male relationships. Tierney understands the need for emotion in this scene, and his addition shows an awareness of his gay male viewership’s need for vulnerable, fulfilling queer men on screen.
Finding an audience
In adapting the sex to the screen, Tierney spoke about how he wanted to “script the fuck out of these sex scenes” because he knew fans of the book “love this stuff”. He also wanted to emphasise “horny good sex for gay people on TV”, sex that “is not going to end in misery or AIDS or punishment”.
Tierney’s adaptation honours both the women who will come to the show from the novel, and the show’s new male audience. He understood the show had to be spicy and honour the books, but also be authentically gay.
In this, Tierney follows in the footsteps of other amazing queer male directors and writers, such as Greg Berlanti’s Love, Simon (2018) and Peter Paige’s The Thing About Harry (2020).
Tierney’s Shane and Ilya cry, have good sex, share their hurts and worries, and work through their vulnerabilities together. All while still being active, attractive and complicated queer men.
Authors: Harry Stewart, PhD Candidate in Queer Male Romance, Flinders University
