We know nothing of his love life, and we never see him so much as flirting with another guy. (Save for one hilarious scene where, high on ketamine at the club, he looks in the mirror and exclaims: “I’m gorgeous!”) His character, Max, is underutilized as a bookish, sensitive type that prefers to go with the flow while his friends engage in all types of hi-jinks. Miller, a plus-size Black comic, is largely sidelined in favor of his thinner co-stars.
But the movie does little to move past established standards for what a gay body worthy of love and attention looks like. This kind of incisive commentary feels refreshing, especially for anyone who’s felt out of place in their own community. A ripped, shirtless man greets them by asking, rather coldly, “How can we help you?” Those people are all at this party,” Noah narrates. “A lot of people think you have to be successful, white, and rich with 7 percent body fat to vacation on Fire Island.
We see the contrast between our rag-tag protagonists and the island’s typical visitor at a house party later that day.
When Rogers’ character Luke says hi to a group of men, one shouts back, “No thanks!” I sometimes found myself wincing, imagining what I’d feel-or how I imagine I’d be treated-in such a crowded and horny environment as a fat gay man of color myself. Over the course of an hour and 45 minutes, Booster delivers a painfully accurate account of gay taxonomy. “No fats, no femmes, no Asians,” warns Keegan, played by Matos, sarcastically repeating the racist disclaimer found on dating apps as they approach the island via ferry. There are broadsides against toxic gay culture and the racism, classism, and body-shaming that comes with it.
The BFF quintet is rounded out by Matt Rogers, Tomás Matos, and Torian Miller. That two Asian gay men star in a rom-com also directed by an Asian man is a feat in and of itself-though, of course, the movie stands as a solid piece of entertainment on its own merits. He projects this feeling by pressuring his best friend Howie, played by SNL’s Bowen Yang, into having as much sex as possible (or, at least, some sex). Joel Kim Booster, who also wrote the screenplay, plays Noah, a young man with glistening biceps. Yet no piece of art is without its blind spots-and Fire Island, a pleasant-enough film, seems unaware of how it promotes ideas about which gay bodies are acceptable even as it condemns those same harmful stereotypes in its own script.