Fire Island

To close out Pride Week we’re going to look at where queer cinema is today and where it may go in the next couple of years. Our pick for today is Fire Island. Now, why this film out of the modern queer canon?

Tyler Clark
June 02, 2023

Good morning Consumers. This is Please Consume, the Film newsletter that loves you more than Ben Affleck loves being from Boston.

Fire Island (2022)

To close out Pride Week we’re going to look at where queer cinema is today and where it may go in the next couple of years.

Our pick for today is Fire Island. Now, why this film out of the modern queer canon?

Well unfortunately it’s still pretty rare for queer comedies to be made right now, so we want to highlight them when we can.

Our options were Single all the Way, Happiest Season, or Bros. Considering the first two are Christmas movies and Bros has a complicated history we thought we’d go for something that everyone could rally around. So let’s jump into it!

What Fire Island Tells Us About Right Now

One of the beautiful things about Fire Island is that, unlike these films from the 1990s, the characters aren’t fighting for cultural acceptance due to their queerness; that’s no longer an issue for them.

At no point during this film do the characters have a deeply triggering doctor's visit, or are traumatized by a group of bikers, or any other number of cliches that queer films are constantly plagued by.

And we get it, those are very real experiences that resonate with far too many people. But that doesn’t have to be all our stories, and it doesn’t have to be the fate that all of these wonderful people are headed towards.

Now they are able to have all the same bullshit problems straight people do. And that’s progress!

What it Means to Be a Part of the Family

This is a film that pushes past small pockets of communities in favor of full fledged subcultures. Fun, cool, and sexy subcultures to be exact.

It’s a film that takes place on the titular Fire Island, but more specifically a small area on Fire Island called Cherry Grove, a town meant for LGBTQIAP+ individuals to come and be free.

As writer, producer, and star of the film Joel Kim Booster said in an interview with Stephen Colbert “It was really transformative for me to go; I don’t think people realize the weight that queer people carry around with them navigating straight society day in and day out (We love you though)”

It’s a place of freedom and that’s very well explored in this film. But, much like how human nature always is, it doesn’t mean it’s simply all well and good. There is still drama to be had, hearts to be hurt, and friendships to be broken and mended.

Stealthy Adaptation

We won’t spend much time on this rabbit trail, but it’s worth mentioning this is an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Kim Booster talks a lot in interviews about how he read the novel for the first time as an adult on Fire Island and was fascinated by the parallels drawn between the class struggle in the novel and the classist structure he was seeing in the LGBTQIAP+ culture. He knew that he wanted to comment on it.

While we don’t have the space to discuss it here, there is an excellent article from Slate that we’ll link below if you want to learn more about how the book influenced the film. :https://slate.com/culture/2022/06/fire-island-movie-pride-prejudice-jane-austen-adaptation.html

Today’s Scene

Stream It

If you want to watch Fire Island at home, you can find it here.

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