Fire Island, a 32-mile barrier island off Long Island’s southern coast, has been a refuge for LGBTQ people for decades. Joel Kim Booster, a rising comedian, uses the idyllic enclave as the backdrop to his screenwriting debut. It is a colorful examination of race and class in a modern-day, unapologetically gay, take on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”
Andrew Ahn directs “Fire Island”, which follows Noah (Booster), and Howie(Bowen Yang), two best friends who go to Pines every summer with their friends Luke (Matt Rogers), Keegan, and Torian Miller for a week full of parties and hook-ups. After learning that Erin (Margaret Cho) is selling the home they consider second home, their friends have to decide if this will be the last summer together on the island.
Noah, a single New Yorker, decides to help Howie, a hopelessly romantic New Yorker, find the man of her dreams. He even promises that he will not stop until he succeeds. Howie meets Charlie (James Scully), a charming doctor. But it soon becomes apparent that Charlie’s wealthy circle, including Will (Conrad Ricamora), Noah’s best friend and closest confidant — seems to be snobby about Howie’s eccentric group of friends because of their low social status.
“Fire Island” was a long-standing dream. Booster, Yang, and a group friends took their first ferry to Pines many years ago. He had a copy Austen’s Regency-era romance novel in a bag. Booster began to reminisce about Elizabeth Bennet’s courtship. A young woman living on a small estate with her family and four sisters and Fitzwilliam Dacy, an aristocratic landlord, Booster was struck at the similarities between Austen and his experiences as a gay Asian male in the 21st-century.
He noted that one of the most striking parallels he observed was the “way people from different classes talk to each other” and the “coded language that people use for being terrible to one another, with plausible deniability about their actual state,” 34-year-old actor and writer said to NBC News.
“It’s so connected with our modern conceptions of’shade’ of being able just to say that horrible thing, that terrible insult,” Booster stated. He also said that the text “just felt really powerfully relevant today, especially when it was read on the island — surrounding it and living it very viscerally.”
After years of putting off the idea, Booster, who stated that he had been waiting to produce, write and act in his own content ever since he was 22, decided to create his version on a “Pride and Prejudice,” story set on Fire Island for Quibi (now-defunct short-form video streaming site). The rights to the platform were sold by Searchlight Pictures, transforming Booster’s vision into a major motion movie with queer Asian actors on both sides.
Ahn, a gay, Korean American filmmaker, reached out to Booster last spring about working together on “Fire Island”. Ahn stated that Booster’s screenplay was a joy to watch and reflected his personal experiences.
Ahn stated, “I felt really alone and hadn’t seen my friend for a while and went to a club where I could dance and have fun with stupidity and have some fun. I saw the queer Asian American joy in Joel” It was so inspiring, and exactly what I wanted. I wanted to do something to honor my friendships with queer Asian Americans.
Booster drew from his own experiences on the Island to write the script. He also based much of Noah’s friendship with Howie on his relationship with Yang, whom he had made friends immediately after moving from the Midwest in his youth to New York.
“Bowen probably listened to some of the earliest drafts in the script, in part because I love him and he takes great notes. But also because Bowen was asked to go to a lot more intense places in the movie and sorta rehash some things that I think he has moved past in his own life. So I didn’t want that on him at the table-read,” said Booster. He even included some of his real-life conversations about Yang into the script. I wanted him to be comfortable with all that I asked him to perform, so he was involved in both the test reading and as a friend very early in the process.
Although Fire Island is his favorite place to be, Booster stated that he did not want to hide the reality of queer meccas. This led to a candid exploration of what it means being gay and Asian in a location that can be oppressively white and classist.
Ahn stated, however, that Joel’s screenplay and the film we made, found a way for them to still find happiness fulfillment. Ahn believes that it has to do building community and joy in friendships. Ahn also said that this felt like a way of healing, to be authentic, and to have a happy and fulfilled life, even when faced with some very terrible things.
Filmed largely on location, “Fire Island,” honors queer friendships. The principal cast stayed in the same house for the two weeks that they shot the film.
Ahn smiled and said, “My room shared an open air vent with Joel’s room, so I could hear Joel watching ‘Housewives’ with Matt and Bowen, and I thought it a very adorable sight.” It reminded me of the 2005 film ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ in which the camera moves from one window to another and everyone is chatting and debriefing on the day. It’s the intimacy and closeness that only comes from sharing space, especially when you are working on a project with others. That experience will always bond us.
Booster admitted that he doesn’t think he’ll ever have the same fun making a movie as “Fire Island,” and compared the experience of living in the same house to going to summer camp.
“We are so used to shooting in New York and L.A., and kind of clocking in, clocking out, and going home at night,” Booster said. “There’s something about clocking out, then suddenly being like, OK, what are you watching tonight?'” What are they eating?… To see how they have fun, go to tea with them, or sit by the pool and listen to Margaret tell us amazing stories about her years in the business. I’m so happy we were able do that on the Island.
Given the stereotypes of Asian men as weak, sexless, and unattractive in Western media, finding joy despite the racism and classism that can exist in a place such as Fire Island was a long and difficult process that Booster had to go through.
He said, “For so many years, I was so afraid to be in those spaces because it didn’t feel like I wanted to be unwanted or unwelcome.” But at the end, it’s up to you to make a conscious choice, especially when entering spaces like Fire Island, to say “F– that noise!” This is our paradise. Why would you allow them to win by trying to avoid it? That’s the kind of ethos I wanted to convey to the movie.
It is a radical act for a major studio to release a film featuring four queer Asian leads. The film is set on an island where everyone feels comfortable in their own sexuality.
Ahn stated, “My hope is for queer representation and Asian American representation to separately acknowledge the many intersections in our identities. We are complex people with many facets to our identities and that that’s more telling the true story of who and what we are as communities.” “I hope that people see ‘Fire Island’ and feel inspired to tell their stories.
Booster hopes that people don’t just shout, “Well, it’s there!” He said, “There’s the gay, Asian film. I hope that the industry doesn’t stop it either.” I hope that this will create a million copies. If you are gay or Asian and don’t see your self in the movie, you can make your own or support someone who does see you in it until they make their own. This is only the beginning of the conversation.
Hulu’s “Fire Island”, premieres Friday,
