Save Me From the 'Drag Race' Sketch About 'Heated Rivalry'

Like most gay guys and the people that date and befriend them, I naturally had plenty of opinions about the show, like: "Is this a commercial for fireplace contractors?" But they paled in comparison to the fear it fostered inside me, eclipsing any and all potential thoughts about sex that got Jordan Firstman publicly executed, or notes on how smoothie baristas were represented. The terror of the thing exploded out of my chest, chasing down the car that Shane Hollander and Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov drove off into the sunset in and obliterating them at the speed of sound.

The shockwave blew my eardrums out and caused me to crumple to ground. The creature slinked back to where I lay and whispered at me, paralyzed and utterly helpless: They're going to write a RuPaul's Drace Race sketch about this. They're going to call the RuPaul's Drag Race sketch about this 'Heated Queens.' No, worse. The RuPaul's Drag Race Sketch about this is going to appear on Canada's Drag Race also. There's going to be a Canada's Drag Race sketch about this also.

The show clearly means a lot to the people who watch it, or else they wouldn't have righteously nailed Firstman at the cross he carried himself up Runyon Canyon. There's gay guys on it, and they love each other, and neither dies or mentions Grindr really. Obama is president for most of the show and the one who likes smoothies comes out on ESPN. Everyone clapped. But no matter how much I threw myself at the experience of having fun watching this television show — mind you, I very much enjoyed covering my boyfriend's eyes and hiding the screenshots of Connor Storrie's ass on my phone — the horror never subsided.

There it lapped each night on the endless coastline at the edge of my dreams. There's going to be a RuPaul's Drag Race sketch about this and there's nothing anybody can do about it. In a different time, maybe back when "Sterek" meant something to the average layman and "Superwholock" crazed Charlotte Russe employees ran the internet like the military, I could have organized a fan-letter campaign. Or I could have penned a petition.org screed begging Obama to intervene. But the world that I grew up in does not exist anymore. Only in memory, only in dreams, eroding each night against the relentless churn of the greater Drag Race television universe.

In no particular order, here's a running list of shows that have been parodied on RuPaul's Drag Race: Star Trek, The E! True Hollywood Story, The Handmaid's Tale, Westworld, Empire, 90210, Gray's Anatomy, Days of Our Lives, SNL, and Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. This is not to mention the various musical parodies of Pitch Perfect, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Fox News, Moulin Rouge, Footloose, The Sound of Music, and The Wizard of Oz.

Remember them? I sure do! Every night they hunt down my dreams like in that movie where Kelly Rowland called Freddy Kreuger a bad word they're probably not going to say on Heated Rivalry.

Even writing this down has me feeling like I might manifest the horror even sooner, like at this year's Emmys hosted by Nate Bargatze again or worse, by whoever replaces Bowen Yang's slot on SNL. They're reading my posts and they're figuring out ways to punish me, like the Truman Show but for people who don't read their friend's breakup essays on Substack but still subscribe anyway, because it's the right thing to do.

At the very least Jacob Tierney is reading this, probably, because he is a good show runner who stays informed on these things. Hi, Jacob! Big fan of you and your very good show, and of you being a big fan of the way hockey player ass looks next to a moodily lit window. I know you're not Obama and PAPER is not change.org, but both your show and Canada's Drag Race are produced by Crave. Could you find some way to intervene?

I know it would mean a lot to the national pride of your country to see brand synergy crystalize around bad drag queen acting, but I'm a human who matters also. I deserve some peace; we all deserve some peace. Me, Hudson's beard with the French fry addiction, the fireplace contractors in Ottawa, Ilya's beautiful hockey obsessed hag with a closet full of sequins, bitchy gay guys on Twitter with uncertain job prospects and a phone addiction. We're all real people and we all deserve peace.

You deserve peace also, Jacob Tierney, after the success you've had and exhaustive press tour you've found yourself in. Do the right thing, and stop the madness before it's too late, and Bell Media has you write in a cameo for a Canada's Drag Race co-host and their line reading of "The shade, honey! It's making my hockey stick stiff!"

Photos via Getty / Graphic Design by Jewel Baek