The success of Heated Rivalry provides a blueprint for Canadian film and television's future, writes Jon Petrychyn.Sabrina Lantos/The Associated Press
Jon Petrychyn is an assistant professor of film studies at the University of Regina.
Heated Rivalry is the first great Canadian cultural product to emerge out of the decline of the Canada-U.S. relationship.
The show has become both a critical and audience darling, and many observers have been shocked something this good could be produced in Canada. However, for many others, it’s clear that Heated Rivalry could have only been made in Canada, and not just because it centres on hockey.
Heated Rivalry is the cultural project of our moment because it rejects the anti-LGBT movement south of the border – and potentially heralds the end of American media dominance in Canada.
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The United States has often been a few steps behind Canada on LGBT rights (Canada decriminalized homosexuality in 1969, the U.S. in 2003; Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, the U.S. in 2015). Since the late 1960s, both countries have produced significant LGBT film and television content, but owing to the size and weight of the American industry, American products have found more popularity in Canada than our homegrown ones.
Heated Rivalry flips the script: it seems now that Canada is both leading the way on LGBT rights and film and television production.
Given the rapidity with which both LGBT rights and the film and television industry are declining in the United States, the success of Heated Rivalry should be unsurprising. The U.S. government’s directive to “end DEI,” as well as policy changes that attack transgender Americans, has led to the cancellation of a significant number of LGBT television productions and has caused a number of major studios, including Paramount, Warner, Disney and Amazon, to quietly roll back diversity hiring initiatives.
The United Talent Agency has reportedly dropped intimacy co-ordinators from their client roster as more American productions are shying away from including sexuality within their productions. U.S. President Donald Trump has continued holding his thumb on the scales of American cultural production to reflect his ideological and cultural interests: Mr. Trump’s name has not only been added to that of the Kennedy Center, approved by a board of supporters, but he has also requested that Paramount produce a new Rush Hour sequel helmed by Brett Ratner, who was accused of sexual assault in 2017. (Ratner denied the allegations and was never charged of any crimes.)
Meanwhile in Canada, Crave has managed to produce Heated Rivalry, a show of unabashed gay sexuality that has captured the hearts and minds of Canadians as well as Americans, thanks to an 11th-hour deal with HBO to stream the series in the United States. Canada’s generous ecosystem of grants and tax credits to support film and television productions helped make Heated Rivalry the prestige television show Canada needs now. These credits have also lured an increasing number of American productions to set up shop in Toronto and Vancouver, positioning Canada not only as “Hollywood North,” but as a new homebase for Hollywood itself.
Canadian culture has often been defined as being “not American” as opposed to having any distinct positive qualities of its own. Decades of successive cultural policies from all levels of Canadian government have attempted to develop a distinct (Anglo-)Canadian culture that would stand strongly against American cultural imperialism, which is now dangerously flirting with outright imperialism. There’s an increasing urgency to now renew and enhance Canadian cultural exports. To protect our national sovereignty, we need to a strong and distinct culture worth protecting.
Canadian Hudson Williams and American Connor Storrie play Heated Rivalry's Shane and Ilya, hockey players whose love is at the centre of the Crave TV show's plot.HO/The Canadian Press
The success of Heated Rivalry provides a blueprint for future Canadian film and television production: if we want to position ourselves as stronger than the United States on culture, then we need to invest in cultural products that reject the United States’ worst impulses. In the face of a growing white nationalist movement in the United States, we need to renew our commitment to official multiculturalism. We need shows that not only embrace LGBT stories, but also stories by Indigenous creators and Canadians of colour to show that we are stronger culturally than the United States. Recent modest federal investments in Telefilm, the National Film Board, and the Canada Media Fund need to be sustained, increased and continued for as long as the United States continues to threaten annexation and weaken our economic might.
Heated Rivalry has presented our country with the clearest path toward protecting our sovereignty: we need to invest in our national media ecosystem and transform Canada into the place where international talent comes to make film and television. That’s why we need more shows like Heated Rivalry.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that same-sex marriage was legalized in the United States in 2012. It was not legalized nationwide until 2015.