TV Tuesday: Is This My Bag?

[yourlibrarian]

Heated Rivalry is one of the most talked about recent shows of the past year. Are there lessons to be learned in how a story can draw in different demographics who wouldn’t normally have been interested in certain genres? Or as the article notes: “It turns policy into something you can explain to a child, not because you’re trying to teach them politics, but because you are invested in sharing the joy of the characters.”

Comments

[jo]

FYI: The link doesn't work.

[yourlibrarian]

Thanks! How I despise curly quotes. I could have sworn I'd turned them off in our draft doc settings but there was the box checked again. Not sure if it resets if a set is pasted back in.

[china_shop]

That strikes me as a surprising quote, given how explicit the show is, LOL. It made me skim the article for context.

[yourlibrarian]

I know that for me, stories about sports can be appealing, even though the only time I ever watch sports is during the men's and women's FIFA World Cups (and that has a lot to do with family and culture).

But as a more general example, I think that shows like Welcome to Wrexham as well as the F1 series on Netflix have drawn entirely new audiences into the sports that previously were either unaware or had no interest, because they're primarily about people. There seems to be some of that going on now with hockey.

[china_shop]

That makes a lot of sense! I was reacting specifically to "something you can explain to a child", because that seems so inappropriate for the canon. :-)

The way the author writes about it, it makes me wonder if this is their first slash (or m/m, depending on your definitions) fandom.

[tinny]

Ah I was wondering if it was about hockey, but the article is firmly about LGBTQ+ acceptance in society. And that is absolutely something I applaud. (I couldn't care less about hockey.)

I was surprised how wonderful the Heated Rivalry editions of two hockey podcasts were, and how there was no shaming, no awkwardness, nothing negative at all. Just acceptance of the queer love story. That was powerful indeed.

[yourlibrarian]

Interestingly the response outside of hockey (including by hockey fans) seems to be far more accepting and curious than that within. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a70500854/us-mens-hockey-team-controversy/