Heat and Ice.
How a smutty gay hockey show is healing us during The Horrors
Like a lot of other folks in my algorithm, half my social media feed right now is federal agents gassing, beating and murdering real live Americans in broad daylight in Minneapolis and beyond.
The other half is wild joy, swooning and speculation about a couple of fictional gay professional hockey players finding true love over 8 years of secret trysts in the HBO show Heated Rivalry.
Yes, I feel a little guilty to be taking refuge in binge-watching at a time like this. But it also occurs to me that it’s my brain trying to protect me–and actually *give me more bandwidth* to sit with the horrors without numbing out.
Like many of you, I’ve felt myself struggling with shutting down emotionally at the relentless assault of terrible news over the last year (er, decade). But this weekend, after rewatching episodes 5 and 6, I found myself later able to weep openly as I witnessed the suffering in Minneapolis, and the heroic, humanitarian response by many people of good faith there. That’s good, right? Binge-watching as an exercise in *feeling everything in fiction* so we can *feel everything in reality*?
I have a whole bunch of thoughts on the paradox of ICE and Heat(ed Rivalry) swirling in my brain. Here’s a bit of a pastoral and former-comp-lit-major mash-up on why this show might have such a hold on the current hive mind. You might wanna go watch (or read! It started as a book series) it yourself before reading on, because it’s full of spoilers and assumptions that you are in the HR fam already.
Oh and: the first time I watched the series I could hardly breathe–I was SO WORRIED about the characters, and felt a ton of tense Mama Bear energy toward them that crowded out most enjoyment. So much of even our fictional media about queer people is traumatic that I was expecting tragedy at every turn. A fraction of the delight in watching Heated Rivalry is seeing two gorgeous, compelling and winsome people fall in love and have amazing consensual sex along the way. But I would wager that a lion’s share of why we are so smitten with this story is how healing it is for any of us who have been different, othered, in danger because of who we are. It is really fucking nice to have a happy ending.
Enemies to friends.
With our country so deeply polarized it feels like it can only end in some version civil war, we all want to believe that love can overcome any enmity. Hockey is known to be a violent sport–and celebrated for it. The fighting is a feature, not a bug. Correct me if I’m wrong about this.
Constrained by several overlapping and structured enmities not of their devising (Ilya Rozanov is a native Russian and plays for Boston, Shane Hollander is Canadian and plays for Montreal, Boston’s chief rival), they are doomed. But from the first moment they meet, amidst both the playful and very real competition, there’s a spark neither can deny. Every moment moves them toward unity, toward physical and emotional merger.
Meantime, in the streets, we keep witnessing a very different enmity, and it’s escalating. Kindergartners used as pawns; people of peace gassed directly in the face while on the ground, or shot at point blank range, with the murderers celebrating afterward with shouts of “Boohoo!” or “Fucking bitch!”
I suspect a lot of white folks like me are still hoping for a Kumbaya ending to this chapter of American history–a come-to-(the real real) Jesus moment for MAGA diehards. I know this hope is naive (even dangerous). But I also can’t give up the idea that there might be enough public conversions like this one that will turn the tide, splinter the movement, put a sword through the heart of the Death Cult, and leave the few remaining heretics who are still choosing violence and hate to go hide under their Internet rocks again.
[DO click the link above by the way: it’s former Evangelical heavyweight pastor Rob Schenck who helped build the religious right movement marching with anti-ICE protestors in Minneapolis, and repenting in the most beautiful and spot-on way! He doesn’t make it all about himself! His contrition, as far as I can tell, is genuine and profoundly sacred! And we all know that our society makes it FAR easier to double-down on our bad behavior than to genuinely repent. This story is a miracle]
The Danger of Not Knowing our Selves or our Shadows.
One of my clergy buddies who is a bit more centrist politically recently said, “I’m really struggling here – I get it, the force that some ICE agents using against unarmed people is terrible. But help me understand how piling on to a whole group of people who are just trying to do their job and support their families is any different from antiwar activists spitting on American vets when they came home from Vietnam?”
Another minister answered him, “the difference is there’s no draft. They chose this assignment.” I added, “And they got a $50k signing bonus to do it. They are adults, and not under duress to do anything that they are doing. They are not doing it under the fog of war, and far away, as a cog in a huge war machine, while doped up–not that that made it OK. They’re committing and even celebrating that violence here, against their own fellow Americans, in broad daylight, even taking snuff videos. Where is their moral conscience?”
I think a lot about what might be happening emotionally and psychologically for new ICE recruits. Are they just in it for the money? For the sense of belonging and mattering to a cause they have become convinced is absolutely just and righteous – and one rife with religious overtones? Or is it something even more nefarious – a chance to vent with impunity and even to applause the sadism and malice lurking in their shadow?
Facts: most of us are capable of violence. I myself have a propensity for rage, a terrible dragon that rises up when I’m defied or hurt. I’ve spent years learning her triggers and how to keep her in view so she doesn’t lash out inappropriately.
But the less we know ourselves – the less true Self and self-acceptance we have–the more damage we can do to ourselves and others. Every ICE agent has traded away some part of Self to belong to the monstrous machine of state-sponsored terrorism. And every act of violence they commit in their role further binds them (think: horcrux).
This is just how being human works. Remember Solzhenitsyn? “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.”
[I could get into a whole long post about Self, but for shorthand I’ll just say here that Self is: who God made you to truly be, which requires a lot of courage and honesty and humility. Not becoming Self doesn’t necessarily do violence to others, but it does do violence to Self]
You and I are no different from ICE agents except by degree. There is especially no such thing as moral purity when all of the systems we function within for daily living are so corrupted by extractive capitalism that offers comfort and convenience for a few and suffering for others and the planet.
But also – like every ICE agent – we each have free will and the power to separate from the story we’ve inherited or have invented, and do better on behalf of ourselves, others, the planet — instead of hurling ourselves into the great blob of morally dubious Belonging at the cost of our souls.
Again, Solzhenitsyn, “The line (in our hearts) shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”
The Joy in Self-ing
In contrast: we have our HR sweeties, Ilya and Shane. They’re 17 when we first meet them – babies. They are young and male and still deeply bound to gender conventions, other people’s expectations, and to culture (the intersecting cultures of family, country, hockey, capitalism/materialism, masculinity).
On top of that, Ilya is a trauma survivor. Trauma from the microaggressions of what it meant to grow up in and still have a sole passport from a country that is not just queerphobic but actually criminalizes being gay. Trauma from discovering his mother dead by suicide when he was 12. She was a victim of his father’s verbal abuse and control; abuse and control his father (and his older brother, who learned from the father) continues to perpetrate on Ilya. As is often the case in family systems, Ilya has become both the most responsible person in the family system *and* the scapegoat.
Shane’s challenges are less physically and emotionally threatening, but no easier for him. He has autism and the intense anxiety that often accompanies it for neurodivergents in a normie world. He’s in a fused relationship with his (beware Tiger Mom trope) mother, putting intense pressure on himself to be publicly perfect in every way: on the ice, in the media, with his parents and teammates. This need to perform unimpeachably naturally creates separation, isolation – and an enormous burden of shame at being gay that keeps him inert, though his tears often leak through with devastating effect.
This inner turmoil comes to a head during the Tuna Melt scene in episode 4, where he and Ilya use each others’ first names for the very first time, years after their sexual relationship has begun. There are other intimate firsts on this tryst: they cuddle, they nap, they eat together – but first names are a bridge too far. Shane leaps off Ilya’s lap and speeds out the door, stammering apology. They won’t speak for months.
The extinction burst of Shane’s shame sends him into a tizzy of trying to be straight by taking up with Rose Landry, a famous actress, which hits the tabloids – a last ditch effort to deny the self God made him to be.
For Shane, the relief of Self-acceptance comes, ironically, through dating Rose. He’s had sex with her and it’s been a miserable failure, but he carries on trying, denying. Rose eventually addresses it directly and kindly. She already knows what he won’t admit even to himself, but is profoundly gentle about it, a midwife deftly turning a breech baby who can’t exit the birth canal in his current posture.
It happens while they’re at a quiet dinner for two. She gently leads him around to the topic without cornering him, giving him time to share what he is ready for. And because of the safety she creates for him, he is able to speak aloud about this part of himself for the very first time in his life.
I love the dialogue here so much that I *typed it all out just for you to experience it firsthand* (don’t come for me copyright issues! I’m sending you more fans HBO!):
Rose: Sorry, I don’t think I’m going about this the right way.
Shane: Going about what?
R: I really like you Shane.
S: I like you too?
R: But I have a feeling that maybe I’m not…doing it for you?
S: Yes you are (uncertainly).
R: I know you like talking to me.
S: Yeah.
R: Do you like kissing me?
S: Sure (unsurely).
R: Wow.
S: No of course I do, sorry.
R: No hey – Don’t apologize. I just have a feeling, and maybe I’m completely off base here, that maybe you’d rather be kissing [my gay castmate]. (seeing Shane’s terror) Hey, it’s really OK.
S: It’s not. I do like you, I like talking with you, I like being with you, I like all of it. I know the sex stuff is a problem–
R: (interrupting) It’s not a problem. A problem is something you can fix. We’re more like a square peg in a round hole. (covers face) Ew. No. Sorry. Forget I said that. It’s just – We’re not meant to fit, and it’s really fine – I just don’t think that we can keep trying.
S: I get it. I just uh, I think, um, I think–
R: Hey, You don’t owe me any explanation.
S: I feel like I do.
R: You really don’t.
(awkward pause)
R: Can I ask if you’ve ever been with another guy?
*Shane nods slightly, frozen*
R: Have you ever told anyone that before?
*Shakes head, still frozen*
R: Was it different with a guy?
[Shane remembering tender kisses with Ilya, smiles slightly]
S: Of course?
R: Was it better?
(incredible face work on actor Hudson Williams’ part)
S: Yeah, it was um, it was better. The thing is…I kind of prefer being the hole rather than the peg.
R: (laughing empathetically) WOW That is the BEST thing any gay boyfriend of mine has ever told me!
S: You’ve had other–?
R: I was in theater school. Like 70% of my boyfriends have left me for other guys.
S: 70%?!
R: Actually 80%.
Shane: Wow. (chuckling, face growing easy, open)
[ed. Note: OH FOR THE SWEET RELIEF of someone kind normalizing a part of yourself you are profoundly ashamed of!!! Life life life abundant]
~
Baby gets born. And: scene.
Couldn’t have said it better, from a Redditor:
Rose never made it about herself. She listened, held space, and showed what real allyship looks like.
Quiet scene. Huge emotional payoff.
This wasn’t a dilemma. It was truth finding its way into the light.
What a corrective experience toward claming Self. Rose and Shane part as dear friends, the tears in Shane’s eyes of joy and relief for once.
This is a turning point for Shane. He and Ilya next meet in Tampa and play on the same team for the first time, in an exhibition game –,more than a metaphor. They are more tender, flirty and playful than they have ever been. Ilya asks him if he’s come with anybody to Florida, thinking jealously of Rose – and Shane says no, his parents aren’t there, that “he didn’t feel like being managed that weekend.”
Getting space from his family and their actual or imagined expectations, he’s able to genuinely apologize for walking out on Ilya the last time, to take responsibility for his fear and reactivity – and to be fully present to Ilya who then breaks emotionally for the first time as well, telling him about his family stress and his dead mother.
For Ilya, it takes a bigger break to truly open up. His father has to die for him to start to define himSelf and choose a life free of the violence of his country and family of origin. The scene in the tunnel just after his father’s funeral when he unburdens himself to Shane in Russian – still unwilling to be fully emotionally naked before him – is one for the ages.
A final profound corrective experience for both Shane *and* Ilya is when Shane’s dad accidentally happens upon them kissing. Shane’s dad is super gentle in contrast with Ilya’s otets of the cold blue eye and military bearing. He’s a wife guy, with bad jokes and an endearing softness. Shane’s mom Yuna is the one to win over. She’s not homophobic, but has had such a tight grip on Everything Shane for 25 years that she has trouble processing all this new information. She walks away from the dinner table and outside, an apparent away-move, rejection.
Shane has the courage to follow. He stammers that he tried really hard [to be straight] and he just couldn’t do it. She hasn’t been able to face him, but then turns to him and fiercely says he has nothing, NOTHING to apologize for, and makes her own apology: that she made it so unsafe to come out to her. She asks his forgiveness, and tells him how proud she is of him, and they fall into embrace, with rare tears. Then Yuna immediately starts to make plans for managing his public coming out, and maintaining his corporate sponsorships (it’s hard to break patterns :).
But the worst is over. Shane has a late-breaking panic attack back at the dinner table, and Ilya, wolfing pasta, stops midbite to say, “Hey. We’re good here. Your family is here. Your boyfriend is here. We’re good here, OK?” And gives him a reassuring smooch right in front of David and Yuna. Their faces melt. They are witnessing true love between two true selves.
It’s clear from everyone’s postures and faces that not only is Shane good here, so is Ilya. The boy who was orphaned at 12 has a family again.
[This post is too long already but for those in the know: Ilya’s movement toward self is a mirror of Scott Hunter who was also orphaned at 12 and claims his beloved Kip in the most public way! Which triggers Ilya and Shane’s next giant step into Self-ing because representation matters! And oh that Scott-Kip kiss on the ice after Scott wins the Stanley Cup and immediately converts his new peak status and goodwill into liberty for him and every other closeted professional athlete! Wow! This is what I mean when I say that self-differentiation is good for us and also good for everybody]
PHEW. As Yuna would say, “ENOUGH.”
And, if nothing else, let this catharsis-post:
Give you permission to watch and re-watch the juicy thing that makes all your feelings available so you can keep your heart soft and connected to the situation on the ground
Given a chance, keeping Selfing. It’s good for you, and it’s good for everybody (even if it’s VERY HARD while it’s happening). Selfing won’t completely keep you out of danger – but it *will* help keep you from becoming one of the dangerous ones.
Love you so much!
Molly
Some other things!
Bess Kalb’s recent Substack on snow-day Parenting from the American Brink is a masterpiece
I urge you one last time to click away and watch Mother Jones’ video of Rob Schenck marching in solidarity in MPLS. It will undermine your despair.
Yesterday at church I preached a sermon about ICE and MPLS that contains absolutely no references to gay hockey smut; scripture+sermon start around the 18:00 mark
Coming soon: a post about my impending retirement from parish ministry! Whut! Way to bury the lede, Mol…
Thanks for writing this, it clarifies alot, like, this whole bandwidth idea just clicked and makes so much sense with how I've been feelling lately.
I guess I have to watch this damn show, huh? You know, it takes a lot of work to maintain cultural awareness . . . Will watch and return for your read.