How Queer Was 2025?
The Sam Sanders Show
KCRW & Sam Sanders
4.9 • 709 Ratings
🗓️ 9 December 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
HBO’s new gay romance series Heated Rivalry has the internet… feeling things. It tells the steamy story of two feuding hockey players who secretly desire (and devour) each other. The series rounds out a long list of queer pop culture moments from 2025. Alex Abad Santos, correspondent at Vox, joins Sam to look back on it all.
From I Love LA to the re-release of Brokeback Mountain, they break down the Year in Queer entertainment, and ask what representation in media can still accomplish today. They also look at the shifting landscape of Hollywood studios. What could it all mean for future queer representation?
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The Sam Sanders Show is a production of KCRW and Sam Sanders Productions.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, listeners, it is the season of giving. |
| 0:03.0 | Get that warm, fuzzy feeling. |
| 0:05.1 | Make a donation, pick out some cozy KCRW merch, or send meals to local food banks. |
| 0:11.1 | Donate now at kCRW.com slash give. |
| 0:23.4 | Are you watching the gay hockey show? |
| 0:26.5 | Who isn't watching the gay hockey show? |
| 0:29.3 | Everyone is watching the gay hockey show. |
| 0:33.6 | If you're saying you're not watching the gay hockey show, I think you're lying. |
| 0:41.0 | Hey, Sam Sanders here coming to you from KCRW. That other voice you hear is Alex Abad Santos. He's one of my favorite culture writers. He's a senior correspondent at Vox. And I brought |
| 0:47.2 | Alex on to try and make sense of the year in queer. But we had to begin by talking about that |
| 0:54.1 | dang hockey show. He did rivalry on |
| 0:57.0 | HBO. I actually had to make a confession to Alex about that very show. I watched it with my |
| 1:04.5 | romantic partner and I was almost embarrassed to watch it with him. Alex, can we just, it's porn. |
| 1:13.1 | It's like the softest of like softcore porn. |
| 1:16.5 | Like it's like very... |
| 1:17.1 | But you would say it classifies as a little bit porn. |
| 1:20.5 | Yeah, I mean, it's smart. |
| 1:22.0 | It's smart. |
| 1:22.8 | It's smart. It's wonderful. |
| 1:23.9 | I wish hockey were real. |
| 1:25.5 | I don't know. |
| 1:26.2 | It's one of those things. |
... |
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