June is LGBT Pride Month, and corporations often use the month to highlight their gay customers and users. Media companies and streaming services are no different. As Pride Month approaches, many of them will be releasing LGBT-themed content.
Hulu’s new romantic comedy Fire Island is set to premiere at NewFest Pride in New York City on June 2, 2022, and it will be available to all of Hulu’s subscribers on June 3, 2022. The film follows a group of friends who used to work for a restaurant at the famous gay destination Fire Island. However, this year they are going as tourists to have fun and get into trouble. Of course, a gay romantic comedy would not be complete without a pair of seemingly ill-suited and caustic men from two different sides of the track falling for each other.
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While the film seems to follow some of the stereotypical gay and rom-com tropes, it has some intriguing and exciting aspects, namely the historical setting and some interesting themes in the trailer. Let’s break some of this down.
History of Fire Island
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Fire Island is a long, thin island just to the south of Long Island, New York. It is only about 10 square miles and is only accessible by seaplane or ferry. It is mainly a summer resort town as the permanent population is very small, but the number of people on the island exponentially grows during the summer months.
The island first gained notoriety as an LGBT destination during the 1970s. Much of New York’s gay population would escape the city to the more remote and private island to indulge in salacious and illicit activities. Of course, the tragic and deadly AIDS epidemic that saw its height in the ’80s and ’90s changed and devastated the history of the island and the LGBT population drastically. However, it still remained a safe haven and respite from the bustling city. Today, Fire Island boasts two sites on the National Register of Historic Places in part because of their role in LGBT history and “America’s First Gay and Lesbian Town,” Cherry Grove.
The new film seems to celebrate the proud LGBT history of the island while giving it a slight update. As the resort town was a popular vacation spot, it was often only the more wealthy white LGBT who could afford to play there. As times have changed, so has the gay demographic who have the ability to make Fire Island a destination of fun and respite. The new rom-com not only depicts this, but it outright highlights it.
Fire Island Trailer: Themes & Casting
One of the major themes in the trailer is the issue of class and status. A central issue still plaguing the LGBT community, especially among gay men, is the notion of status. It is often seen that gay men who are not muscular, pristinely dressed, and affluent are of lower value. Many of these men may be looked down on and derided. According to the trailer, Fire Island speaks to this issue directly. In one scene of the trailer, the group of friends is seen approaching a very expensive home on the beach when one says, “We can’t go over there. We are literal trash.”
One of the main characters, Noah (Joel Kim Booster), is a modest, thin man who develops a love interest for the svelte, rich, gorgeous Will (Conrad Ricamora). However, Noah keeps his distance as he thinks Will has a superiority complex. At one point in the trailer, Noah overhears Will say, “Have you seen the way they’re drinking? They’re clearly using us for free liquor.” The tension between the two obviously builds until Noah finally confronts Will and says, “I have never met somebody who has made it so clear that they think they are so superior to everyone else!” Of course, that type of classist tension is a common trope in many romantic comedies, and Fire Island is certainly not the first gay film to use it.
And a gay comedy would not be legitimate if it did not include some camp and obscure pop-culture references. As mentioned before, Fire Island is a popular resort destination for the LGBT community, so the entire setting exudes gay campiness. The trailer also has some examples of it too.
Margaret Cho plays a motherly figure to this group of misfit gays in their makeshift family. Cho is an infamous comedian in the LGBT community, and her character is clearly there for campy comedic relief. From her very first line in the trailer, “Finally my girls have arrived!” to her dramatic squeal of delight when she hears one of the boy’s suitors is a doctor, Cho makes it obvious that she understood the assignment and was cast appropriately.
The trailer also shows us some of the undoubtedly many pop-culture references that fill the film. During one scene of the trailer, the character Howie (Bowen Yang) drops a line from the movie Clueless, a particularly revered film by the gay community. Howie mocks someone else’s cruelty by saying, “That was way harsh, Tye!” The line seems to be very subtle, and someone who is not a fan of Clueless probably would miss it.
Another scene at the very end of the trailer depicts two gay friends acting out a famous scene from My Cousin Vinny to get Will to guess the name Marisa Tomei during a game. As Will looks completely stumped, the rest of the men amusingly react with blind disgust at his ignorance.
