Why queer love on screen feels powerful for a generation raised in silence

It is a truth universally acknowledged today that Canadian streaming giant Crave’s recently released first season of Heated Rivalry has the entire world in a chokehold. And if, upon reading this sentence, your first reaction is to ask what HR is, then you, dear reader, have truly been living under a rock. Based on Rachel Reid’s widely feted Game Changer novel series, the show follows two closeted ice hockey players, Shane (Hudson Williams) and Ilya (Connor Storrie), as they navigate a turbulent (and deeply heated *coughs*) cross-continent enemies-to-lovers arc spanning an entire decade. But as the series progresses, for those already initiated into this cult, one of its most euphorically moving sequences comes not from the romantic leads but from supporting characters Scott Hunter (the devastatingly handsome François Arnaud) and his lover Kip (Robbie Graham-Kuntz).

In the fast-paced penultimate fifth episode, Hunter—fresh off a historic championship league win—finally forgoes his macho hockey persona and publicly acknowledges his homosexuality by kissing his estranged lover Kip on the rink, in front of the entire world. The moment is at once a celebration of severed lovers reunited, a coming-of-age canon event for both men, and the catalyst that pushes Shane and Ilya to finally give their clandestine affair a fighting chance. Yet even as we watch Shane and Ilya’s shocked faces react to Hunter and Kip’s kiss in real time, the real power of the scene lies in a larger question: In a world that constantly urges us to become versions of ourselves that belie who we truly are, what does it mean to be seen?

Unmasked

Watching this episode took me back to my own growing-up years as a closeted gay teenager in India, before the decriminalisation of Section 377, when noteworthy queer media rarely contained joy. Somewhere around middle school, when I first discovered the hidden world of the internet and the pleasures of streaming cinema in the privacy of my bedroom, tentative searches led me to queer classics like Brokeback Mountain (2005) and A Single Man (2009). In Ang Lee’s rocky masterpiece and Tom Ford’s sepia-drenched restraint, I watched tortured queer lives defined by heartbreak, secrecy, and a suffocating loneliness. There was joy, of course, in simply seeing two men hold hands or kiss on screen— an urgent validation of my own buried desires—but with each passing year, I found myself asking: Must every queer character be this miserably sad?

There was relief in knowing people like me existed on screen at all, but the sheer abundance of unhappy queers in my cinematic repertoire became increasingly bothersome. As I moved from high school to the country’s largest public university, conversations with peers and professors only reinforced my fear: Queerness in cinema was implicitly coded as serious, sombre, art-house fare—far removed from the frivolity of mainstream heterosexual romance. Even as my literature- and history-pilled brain took pride in this intellectual lineage, my heart continued yearning for a queer story that dared to offer happiness. 

In recent years, that childhood yearning has found some satiation through the proliferation of shows like HR. Queer joy is a complicated phrase, holding within it a plurality of meanings. For some, it is the radical act of granting queer subjects happiness in a world structured to deny it; for others, it is a contrarian state of being—an assertion of self against the grain.  And increasingly, both small and large productions have embraced this.

The joy watchlist

Amazon Prime’s 2023 film Red, White & Royal Blue, based on Casey McQuiston’s novel, was panned in many quarters for its lack of cinematic seriousness, yet celebrated by queer audiences globally. Watching the bisexual, Hispanic son of the US president fall in love with the closeted gay heir to the British throne, I laughed and wept at the film’s sheer audacity. From frank depictions of queer intimacy to its unapologetic fairy tale structure, it was exactly the kind of fantasy my teenage self needed.

This refusal to apologise extends beyond RW&RB. Prime’s 2025 comedy-drama series Overcompensating foregrounds plural queer identities through its unlikely friendship between Benny (Benito Skinner), a football-playing jock, and George (Owen Thiele), a femme-presenting queer man with enviable nails and crop tops. Netflix’s Heartstopper (2022), based on Alice Oseman’s graphic novels, remains a rare queer teenage drama that centres innocence, confusion, and joy without denying darkness. Though it addresses bullying, body image, gender nonconformity, asexuality, STIs, and abuse, the show never relinquishes its commitment to hope. Violence is not spectacle but context—something to be met with care in pursuit of a better tomorrow.

As we await Netflix’s feature- length finale movie titled Heartstopper Forever, instead of a fourth season, my mind drifts back to a now-estranged high school classmate who struggled for years to articulate her asexuality. On nights when I stumble upon her Instagram posts and witness the life she is building, I feel immense pride knowing she has found a space where she no longer has to overexplain herself. Like the uncreased folds of the handloom saris she wears, I hope those painful memories smoothen over as more children like Isaac (Tobie Donovan) in Heartstopper find their place in the world.

In the 25th year of my existence, it gives me great joy—perhaps my version of queer joy—to witness the proliferation of stories like these. There is hope that future generations will grow up knowing that happiness is a valid and unequivocal share of queer life. As important as peeling oranges in secret may be, it is sometimes just as necessary to run across an airport declaring your love, actually. And while seeing more queer characters of my skin colour remains an unerring wish, for now, this hope is enough to fill the single, Brokeback-shaped hole in my 15-year-old heart.

This article first appeared in Cosmopolitan India's January-February 2026 print edition.

Image credits: IMDb 

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