'Fire Island' Stars on Gay Rom-Coms and Not Sugaratg the Story - Variety

Contents:

• ‘FIRE ISLAND’ STARS ON THE SRCY OF GAY ROM-COMS AND NOT SUGARATG THE STORY
• 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

‘FIRE ISLAND’ STARS ON THE SRCY OF GAY ROM-COMS AND NOT SUGARATG THE STORY

The film featur a group of gay Asian men, led by Booster and Yang, who head to the P for a fal summer weekend before their host (played by Margaret Cho) sells her beach hoe. Still, as a gay romantic edy, “Fire Island” mt ntend wh the evable srcy of s genre. “I take the rponsibily of beg one of the few mastream gay movi very serly.

This year, the summer will see jt one other film “Fire Island’s” archetype, Universal Pictur’ “Bros, ” which bills self as the first gay romantic edy to be released by a major motn picture stud. The romantic edy follows a tight-kn group of queer iends over the urse of a weeklong sojourn on Fire Island, a legendary gay holiday statn. “Especially a place like Fire Island, where sudnly there are no straight people around to opprs and we have to fd ways to opprs one another, we recreate the artificial class systems and other hierarchi that exist the rt of the world but are jt magnified and felt so much more viscerally a place where ’s only gay people.

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

“The movie talks about how Fire Island has been this place where gay men have historilly gone to feel safe, and asks what you do when you feel unsafe there, among your ‘own kd, ’” she said. Part of s power is that skillfully balanc the more ser them wh a distctly gay sense of humor: Be on the lookout for a hysteril scene volvg the game Heads Up!

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

Andrew Ahn: I thk that there’s somethg about the way Jane Aten scrib judgment and asssment that feels really gay. Especially a place like Fire Island, where sudnly there are no straight people around to opprs and we have to fd ways to opprs one other, we recreate the artificial class systems and other hierarchi that exist the rt of the world but are jt magnified and felt so much more viscerally a place where ’s only gay people.

Margaret Cho: I thk that even the tle, “Pri and Prejudice, ” uld be “Gay Pri and Gay Prejudice.

Our class stctur, our ias about race, genr, homophobia – all of those are very rigid, almost as rigid as Regency England. I ma a very small, gay Korean Amerin movie lled “Spa Night” back 2016, and I jt assumed that the pennt film world would be where I’d stay for my entire reer bee of the typ of stori I want to tell. But also, ’s not lost on me that our three lead executiv at Searchlight are two Asian Amerin women and a gay Latx man.