Wednesday may have been a characteristically chilly Berkeley day, but the competition between participants in the Queer Alliance Resource Center\u2019s \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d lookalike contest was certainly heated.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe the Shane Hollander you dream of,\u201d said QARC Public Relations Director Lilirose Luo at the beginning of the event. Luo was formerly a staffer with The Daily Californian.<\/p>\n
Contestants took that as a challenge.<\/p>\n
On April 22, the Hearst Field Annex lawn was transformed into the stage for a \u201clocal version\u201d of \u201cHeated Rivalry,\u201d as Luo put it. Contestants competed for the titles of best Ilya Rozanov and best Shane Hollander \u2014 the lead characters in the wildly successful show.<\/p>\n
The show follows the 10-year-long relationship between hockey players Hollander and Rozanov, who meet while playing for opposing teams. The two fall into lust, and then into love \u2014 a storyline that one contestant described as reminiscent of \u201ca Hallmark Channel movie done well.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Wednesday\u2019s competition, presided over by four judges, involved some creative liberties from the show\u2019s original plot.<\/p>\n
Contestants had 30 seconds to introduce themselves. Then, they could reenact a scene from the show, act out a new scene or present a talent for the judges and the crowd.<\/p>\n
Both Hollanders competing chose to act out new scenes \u2014 and both brought up respective Rozanovs.<\/p>\n
The first Hollander, who wore a white T-shirt decorated with \u201cWasian\u201d and \u201c24\u201d written in permanent marker, brought up an accompanying Rozanov dressed in a leopard print shirt and a blond curly wig. Rozanov began to tell \u201cthe story of how (he) got (Hollander) pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second Hollander, wearing a palm-tree patterned shirt, was joined by a Rozanov in a blue-striped shirt, who promptly instructed this Hollander to drink from a bottle of water.<\/p>\n
When Hollander protested, one audience member said, \u201cIt\u2019s pretty canon,\u201d as the leopard-print-wearing Rozanov shouted, \u201cI can treat you better!\u201d from the crowd.<\/p>\n
Then, the competition turned to the Rozanovs.<\/p>\n
Leopard-print Rozanov completed the story he previously began of how he got his Hollander pregnant. Blue-striped Rozanov boogied to Madonna\u2019s \u201cLike a Prayer\u201d to cheers from the audience.<\/p>\n
The third Rozanov, decked out in a white button-down shirt, eyeliner and dark red lipstick, took the shirt off entirely for a rendition of \u201cThunderstruck\u201d by AC\/DC that included a running somersault and multiple sets of push-ups.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the white-shirt-wearing Hollander won the competition, along with the white-shirt-wearing Rozanov.<\/p>\n
Contestants were able to choose from QARC\u2019s selection of various sex toys, including a vibrating egg and a rainbow dildo.<\/p>\n
Sophomore Ella Akin, who claimed victory as Hollander in the competition, said she appreciated how the event allowed people to \u201cexperiment with their gender identity (and) sexual orientation \u2026 and in that way figure out who they are and who they want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m cis and I use she\/her pronouns, but it was cool to be Shane Hollander for a day,\u201d Akin said.<\/p>\n
Luo said \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d served as a \u201cvery beautiful\u201d outlet for \u201cvery explicit queer joy and love,\u201d adding that QARC hosted the contest as \u201cone last big event to cap off the (school) year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGay people love to judge, and gay people also love to serve c—, so this is like both in one,\u201d Luo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday may have been a characteristically chilly Berkeley day, but the competition between participants in the Queer Alliance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[121817,764,121819,121815,121813,65291,121814,121816,121812,15401,143,145,144,35800,70338,121818],"class_list":{"0":"post-283752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-ac-dc","9":"tag-berkeley","10":"tag-ella-akin","11":"tag-hallmark-channel","12":"tag-hearst-field-annex","13":"tag-heated-rivalry","14":"tag-ilya-rozanov","15":"tag-like-a-prayer","16":"tag-lilirose-luo","17":"tag-madonna","18":"tag-oakland","19":"tag-oakland-headlines","20":"tag-oakland-news","21":"tag-queer-alliance-resource-center","22":"tag-shane-hollander","23":"tag-thunderstruck"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}