With Respect for Romance

There are so many reasons why Heated Rivalry is entrancing millions of people. Showing the explicit pursuit of connection and love as a worthy and rewarding endeavor is one of them, especially in contrast to the real world environment of divide and conquer. 

[a rectangular fabric table runner with a painterly pattern of cottages and trees; it's folded in half and draped over the left side of a black travel case] 

As a genre, Romance rules in every way except one. It's the most profitable and popular genre in publishing. Dedicated bookstores, streaming channels, annual conventions, workshops, fan sites, hash tags, and podcasts; sold-out author/book tours, events with casts of adaptations and original screenplays--all of them attract and sustain and grow attention, engagement, and cha-ching. (Theatrical releases of rom-coms have dwindled over the years and the few that get released have launched with a high failure rate, but let's save that discussion for another time along with the need for automatic, organic authentic inclusion of all kinds of people in "mainstream" romance.) 

For all its consistent popularity and profitability, Romance gets very little respect from people outside of it. There's a lot of "Yeah, but it's unrealistic. It doesn't..." Also, too often similar limited, begrudging acknowledgement of its measurable verified success comes from people within Romance. 

The most satisfying Romance fiction is generated from writers' imaginations. Their hopes, dreams, fantasies, desires, interests shape their characters and guide their narratives, inform their dialogue, attitudes, and internal thoughts. 

Fans of Romance fiction appreciate and rely on the understanding that no matter how frustrating, challenging, and sometimes horrific the circumstances, the lovers will somehow work their way into an HEA (Happily Ever After) or at least an HTN (Happily Together Now). 

Screenwriter-director Jacob Tierney and the whole Heated Rivalry Crave team embrace this truth with unapologetic enthusiasm and operate according to that fundamental imperative with respect for author Rachel Reid, the source material, its readers, and viewers with content that celebrates loving and being loved as worthwhile main events. Every element of Heated Rivalry works in service to that goal. 

It's an ode to romantic, familial, and friendship joys (and tribulations) that Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie--and really the entire cast--embody in character and with their freewheeling exuberance during media and in-person events. 

Heated Rivalry, Sinners, and Bridgerton overlap in the authenticity and strength of their ability to convey the nuanced complexity of existing, thriving, overcoming, and triumphing as people whose equal intrinsic human value is constantly doubted, debated, discounted, denied. The commercial success of such content encourages optimists and dismays cynics. 

We humans exist to love each other. 

[soap box sidebar: Public debate that judges one actor's talents as less than another's in a successful ensemble production feels counterproductive when it's obvious that their performances are co-dependent and work in tandem. What they produce together is exponentially more compelling than the sum of their significant individual thespian powers. End rant.]