Heated Love, Flaming Discourse

The Rise in Queer Representation in Mainstream Media

By: Jack Leary

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Credit: Sabrina Lantos 

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Queer media has recently hit a peak. “Heated Rivalry” has boomed in popularity, receiving awards in its first year of release. It was also mentioned at the Emmy Awards despite the fact that it wasn’t even nominated due to its recency. The show dominated conversations during award season, and these feats alone have shown its impact in real time, while also contributing to similar shows reaching new audiences. 

The hit Netflix show “Heartstopper”  found popularity during the COVID-19 quarantine. It focuses on the gay relationship between high schoolers Nick and Charlie, and has been renewed for its fourth and final season. “The L Word,” a show focused around lesbian and bisexual women in West California, is seeing a revival in popularity after ending in 2009. Even films such as “Saving Face,” which follows a gay Chinese-American daughter and her traditional family, and “Moonlight,” following a queer relationship between Chiron and Kevin, have begun to find new audiences. 

This rise in queer media may be due to society’s growing acceptance of queerness, with more people opening up about exploring their identities on larger platforms and bringing together communities that celebrate these identities. 

The Questionable Rise in Homophobia

Yet, with a rise in acceptance comes a rise in denial and discourse. Some spectators focus on how queer love is being “increasingly normalized,” instead of centering on the benefits of love being showcased to the world. They say that queer love is “infiltrating mainstream media,” spreading mass homophobia through commentary around these ideas. This resistance of accepting queerness attracts larger audiences on both sides of the spectrum. 

Furthermore, this rise in homophobia has been constantly associated with political ideology. Although queerness can be inherently political, with queer people fighting for basic human rights every day, films and shows often depict queer love without a political agenda at hand. Not all heterosexual romance-centered series push political agendas. Thus, claiming that queer shows inherently “push an agenda” for something as simple as queer love is homophobic. Queer love is not political in itself — it is a human right that should be able to exist without societal backlash. 

Through a cycle in which the public’s focus is shifted onto non-issues like queer love, worse things are allowed to occur behind closed doors. 

Allyship vs. Fetishization

Opposite from these issues, “Heated Rivalry” and other shows have been met with very positive reception from audiences around the world. However, some audience members confuse appreciation and allyship with fetishization, developing parasocial relationships with actors and focusing on their physical traits or love languages as if it’s not a script, but reality.

Much of this appreciation and allyship comes from a predominantly female fan base. In a Them interview alongside Hudson Williams, Connor Storrie pointed out that the story of “Heated Rivalry” is more so “geared toward a feminine gaze,” where it’s not “just the sex…[but] the moments in between where you see this desire and this pull towards vulnerability and connection.” 

Seeing men showcasing emotional vulnerability is something that female fans desire. However, instead of searching for partners who also emphasize emotional vulnerability, some fans create a spectacle of queer relationships to hyperfixate on. They don’t realize, nor understand, that this parasocial hyperfixation is not allyship, but objectification. This objectification goes back to the stereotypical depictions of queer people, specifically gay men in media, based on societal expectations of how queer people should present. 

Successes Nonetheless

Despite this, the relative impact that these shows have had on queer and non-queer audiences should not be ignored. Many people, specifically athletes, have come out as a result of the show. Jesse Kortuem, a professional hockey player, came out because of shows like Heated Rivalry amplifying the existence of queer love and authenticity. Andrew Ogilvy, a retired professional basketball player who played for the NBL, also came out after the release of “Heated Rivalry” and its immediate success. 

Furthermore, this shift in relationship and audience by showrunners is formulaic for certain reasons, with them trying to boost viewership and retain a larger fanbase. However, this approach does not apply to how queer relationships, especially M/M relationships, should exist in both media and reality. There is no “right” combination for a partnership, and there should not be a “set” format of how platonic and romantic relationships should be depicted. Relationships as a whole are not picturesque, so society trying to enforce a puzzle-piece lifestyle on something ever changing is incompatible. 

There is, without a doubt, a calling for more queer media to be released. The open depiction of queerness has encouraged people hiding their true selves to feel free to live as authentically as they desire. Whether it’s in the niches of academia or sports, these series have shown that queer people exist in all worlds of media, profession and lifestyle. 

Queer people simply want to be heard, to have their stories presented at greater heights and on stages similar to that of heterosexual relationships. As previously mentioned, there is no right way to approach relationships, and there is no right way to approach complex topics like queer relationships in the media. 

Queer love isn’t an “infiltration,” but a much needed introduction and expansion of love into mainstream media that disobeys tradition. Normalizing love should be praised, and queer love in the media is exemplary of the beauty that love possesses. It shows that despite hatred, love of any kind will always prevail. 

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Jack Leary is a second-year Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience student at the University of Florida. This is his second semester as an Online Writer for ROWDY and he is interested in politics, music and pop culture. If you want more show recommendations, hit him up on instagram @jack.l.15