“Somethg Special and Unique and Gay”: Your First Look at Fire Island | Vany Fair

Contents:

• “SOMETHG SPECIAL AND UNIQUE AND GAY”: YOUR FIRST LOOK AT FIRE ISLAND
• FIRE ISLAND REVIEW – BREEZY GAY SP ON PRI AND PREJUDICE FAILS TO IGNE
• STREAM IT OR SKIP IT: ‘FIRE ISLAND’ ON HULU, A ROMANTIC COMEDY ABOUT FIVE GAY GUYS ON AN EXTREMELY GAY VAY
• GAY ROM-COMS WON 2022, EVEN IF THEY DIDN’T MAKE MONEY
• GAY FIRE ISLAND

“SOMETHG SPECIAL AND UNIQUE AND GAY”: YOUR FIRST LOOK AT FIRE ISLAND

Cast & crewUser reviewsTrivia2022R1h 45mA group of queer bt iends gather Fire Island P for their annual week of love and lghter, but a sudn change of events might make this their last summer gay paradise. A group of queer bt iends gather Fire Island P for their annual week of love and lghter, but a sudn change of events might make this their last summer gay paradise. A group of queer bt iends gather Fire Island P for their annual week of love and lghter, but a sudn change of events might make this their last summer gay productn, box office & pany Vios12More like thisReview A b tragic reallySome people don't appreciate what they've got.

We’re all head to the same place: Fire P—a queer hamlet on the larger Fire Island, though the nam n be ed terchangeably—is a gay mec. “We ma somethg really, really special and unique and gay, ” Fire Island star and scribe Joel Kim Booster tells me over the phone, about six months after that ferry ri.

This is what gay men do all the time.

FIRE ISLAND REVIEW – BREEZY GAY SP ON PRI AND PREJUDICE FAILS TO IGNE

”In a world where queer ntent typilly skews toward the treacly (thk Love, Simon), or the tragic (thk The Power of the Dog), makg a story about gay love for a major movie stud is self somethg of a radil act. (Though not too radil: Billy Eichner’s gay rom- Bros, which also featur an all-queer prcipal st, hs theaters this September. ’” Booster shelved the ia for years, only for to reemerge an say he wrote for a now funct blog about his nnectn to Aten as a gay man.

Was there a gay Amber Alert we all somehow missed? ”“Sometim if you’re gay, you don’t thk you n be classist or racist, ” Cho tells me between tak.

STREAM IT OR SKIP IT: ‘FIRE ISLAND’ ON HULU, A ROMANTIC COMEDY ABOUT FIVE GAY GUYS ON AN EXTREMELY GAY VAY

”Or, as Booster puts : “What happens when gay men are put together on an island and there are no straight people to opprs ? ”“There is this ia that ’s only for whe mcle gays, ” Booster says, of the P—or for gay men wh money.

Fire Island is the exceptn to the le of our liv, the same way that a gay romantic edy wh four Asian Amerin stars is an exceptn to the le of Hollywood. ”“I want people—pecially gay men, pecially queer people—to walk away om the movie happy that they’re gay, ” Booster says.

“I thk that there are so many movi about the gay experience that are ght wh people who are unsure if they’re happy beg gay or stgglg wh g out…. Gay, thirtysomethg and, his words, “termally alone, Howie (Bowen Yang) has based all his th far unrealised ials of romance on the heterosexual romantic edi he grew up watchg on screen: oppos attractg, meetg cute and makg mad dash for each other at the airport.

GAY ROM-COMS WON 2022, EVEN IF THEY DIDN’T MAKE MONEY

“Sh like that don’t happen real life, ” unsels his bt iend Noah (Joel Kim Booster), though ’s not as if Howie needs remdg – he jt wants “the rom stuff” Ahn’s sunny gay buddy movie Fire Island negotiat that fundamental nflict s characters while also fallg prey to as a film. Mappg nventnally chey romantic edy beats on to ls Hollywood-dictated homosexual terra, also aims to liver some tough tths about the morn gay datg scene between the sweetened sunset smooch and all’s-well-that-ends-well optimism of sundry past vehicl for Sandra Bullock or Meg Ryan. An annual week-long vatn on New York’s gay mec of Fire Island has bee the bdg fixture of their iendship; together wh three thly drawn iends, they crash the holiday home of lbian pal Er (Margaret Cho), and spend their days drkg, dancg and cisg as if there’s no tomorrow – or at least no loomg middle sex easily to Noah, though not to Howie.

Fire Island is lourful, digtible and gamely acted by an ensemble of roundly good-lookg ic performers: rather like the siarly polished, perky Love, Simon, prov that gay people n have their cheery mastream fantasi too, even if s ncln steers narrowly clear of certa “hetero nonsense”. Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Red, Whe and Royal Blue’ on Amazon Prime Vio, a Charmgly Star-Crossed Gay Rom-Com. Booster origally veloped the ia of a edy set on New York state’s gay haven Fire Island for Quibi, but the short-form streamg work’s untimely mise moved the project to Fox Searchlight to be veloped as a film.

Real-life bti Booster and SNL wrer/star Bowen Yang – both Asian, openly gay and funny as hell – anchor the movie, basg their characters’ iendship loosely on their own. A ago, he formed a makhift fay of fellow gay fellas: Le (Matt Rogers), Keegan (Tomas Matos), Max (Torian Miller) and his clost iend, Howie (Yang).

GAY FIRE ISLAND

Every year they take a weeklong vatn to Fire Island, the Atlantic sanctuary for unrwear parti, assls Speedos and other Incredibly Gay Thgs. : Fire Island has the feel of a Girls Trip-style group edy crossed wh the hedonism of a wild-vatn romp like Sprg Breakers, albe if had ls guns and way more gay.

But reach an endg that, if isn’t necsarily happily ever after, ’s absolutely posively gayly ever after. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe wrer and star of “Fire Island” reflects on makg the rare romantic edy that puts gay Asian Amerin men at s Tyrone Delaney for The New York TimPublished June 3, 2022Updated June 6, 2022Joel Kim Booster had a thought: Why do we even need movie trailers? This was the theory Booster advanced to me one eveng late April, jt hours after the trailer was released for “Fire Island, ” a gay romantic edy he wrote and starred .

’”A morn, same-sex gloss on “Pri and Prejudice” by Jane Aten, “Fire Island” (streamg on Hulu) stars Booster as our narrator Noah, who mak knowg observatns about the tular gay enclave and s social mor. Booster was done dodgg ter ments and replyg to his iends’ texts about the trailer, he met me at Akbar, a storied Los Angel gay bar wh amber lightg, strong cktails and kschy, bead bamboo curtas. (Booster, who moved here om New York a few years ago, picked Akbar bee was one of the few gay bars town “that didn’t feel like WeHo or a Chipotle.