Noah’s Arc star Darryl Stephens on Heated Rivalry’s success: “That show couldn’t have happened with 2 men of color”

Folks are starved for male intimacy in a way that feels honest and genuine. And I think the show would’ve been a hit anyway, but how those two actors [Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams] navigated that promotional tour was so refreshing to see. It felt revolutionary.

We didn’t know who was identifying as gay or straight in the beginning. I think we have a better sense now. But the idea that the two actors were all over each other, hugging and kissing whenever they could, made us go, ‘Oh, there’s a new way to—’ We were just talking about the manosphere. I think that many men are starved for representation that allows them to be emotionally vulnerable and physically affectionate with each other.

Also, on the show, Hudson is half-Asian but white-presenting enough. That show could not have happened with two Asian- or Black-presenting men, or two men of color—

And only because I’ve been on the gay side of this industry for a long time and I’ve seen beautiful Black men come into gay stories and how Black folks respond to those stories with skepticism and fear.

When ‘Noah’s Arc‘ came out in 2005, half the Black gay men who watched the show felt like we were too feminine—and white people weren’t watching the show at all. I think the success of ‘Noah’s Arc’ came from Black straight women who were starved to see men being physically intimate and nice to each other. When do we get to see that?

But the majority of this country is still white somehow and I don’t think that ‘Heated Rivalry’ could’ve hit as hard as it did in the U.S. without two white-presenting, masc-presenting main characters.Darryl Stephens speaking to Tim Murphy’s The Caftan Chronicles about the breakthrough success of ‘Heated Rivalry’.