"Fire Island": Swishy, Asian, and fat guys face the world of "No fats, no femmes, no Asians" on Fire Island

 

I lived in Manhattan for four years, but visited the gay resort of Fire Island only twice, in the off season.  But I heard stories of the summertime: nonstop bacchanalia, the whole island turning into a bathhouse, the swimming, dancing, and socializing just breathers amid the tricking.  Guys who lived closeted lives back in the city, who rarely hooked up and never dated for fear of Mom or the boss finding out, became intoxicated by the sexual freedom.   So I am expecting the 2022 movie Fire Island to be a sex romp.  

Scene 1 (Thursday): Asian muscle guy wakes up, thinking of that quote from Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."  Well, Austin was wrong: not every man wants a wife.  Cut back to see a black muscle hunk in his bed!  Surprise -- he's gay!  Not really -- I read the synopsis.  Asian muscle guy (Noah, played by Joel Kim Booster) is shocked that last night's trick is still around.  "He had the boyfriend look -- that's not me."  

Noah rushes to get to the dock on time.  He sees his "faggots" beckoning furiously from the ferry.  "Don't cancel me," he cautions. "I'm reclaiming it."   

They are all 30-ish queens who flutter and carry handbags and call each other "girlfriend."  He explains: they all met ten years ago, when they were working at a brunch spot in Williamsburg: "Bottomless mimosas."  

1.-2. Luke and Keegan (back row left), a couple, I think, dropped out of film school.

3. Max (back row right), a little chunky, reading a biography of Marilyn Albright, is super-smart but a bit of a downer.

4. Howie, his best friend (front row right), has a cushy job in San Francisco, but returns for the Fire Island trip every year.  They bonded over the anti-Asian prejudice they experienced in the gay community. 

Hey, there are five friends, and there are five Bennett sisters in Pride and Prejudice.  Could there be a connection?

Noah takes his shirt off, but doesn't draw any attention from the other guys on the ferry.   Although he's a muscle-hunk, he still has trouble hooking up in a culture that values whiteness, thinness, and masculinity: "No fats, no fems, no Asians." He's two out of the three!

Scene 3: They arrive at Fire Island, and drag their "hello, kitty" luggage all the way up to the beach house.  Most of the men they pass are cruising everyone -- except them.  Howie tries a "hello," and is told "No, thanks."  This seems a little harsh.  Surely someone on Fire Island is into feminine men! 

They are greeted with "Bitch!  I thought I smelled some bottoms!" by their lesbian fag hag friend, Erin.  (It's ok, I'm reclaiming it).  Noah explains: ten years ago she accidentally ate a piece of glass at an Olive Garden, got a huge settlement, and bought the house where they all spend a week every summer.

Scene 4: Noah and Howie smoking and drinking.  Howie is upset because Fire Island is all about hooking up, and he wants a boyfriend.  Noah scoffs: monogamy was invented by heterosexual men to maintain control over their wives' bodies.  Gay people are free from all that nonsense; so just pick a dick or two, and have at it!  Ten to one they get together. 

Howie also states that he's never had sex.  A cute, young guy living in San Francisco wants sex but can't find a partner?  Impossible!  Just walk down the street; you'll be cruised a dozen times.  I'm over 60, living in a small town on the Plains, and if I want "Mr. Right Now," I just have to go on Grindr for about 20 minutes.  

Howie agrees to let Noah set him up with a trick.  Except he has to be a nice guy.  

Scene 5: Plot complication: Mama Erin reveals to the "girls" that she's broke, so she has to sell the house.  They're too poor to come unless they get free lodging, so this will be their last week on Fire Island, ever.  

I'll stop the scene-by-scene there.  You just need to know that:

1. This movie is heftier than I expected, centering on the problems that feminine and Asian men face in a gay culture that denigrates or fetishizes them.  

2. There are lots of parallels with Pride and Prejudice.  It's easy to identify Noah as Elizabeth Bennett, Howie as Jane, Will (Conrad Riccamora, left) as Mr. Darcy, and Charlie (James Scully) as Mr. Bingley.  

3. And there's all of the foam parties, underwear parties, fetish parties, dark room hookups, beach hookups, veranda hookups, and behind-the-bushes hookups that you remember (or heard about).  I didn't think that such things still happened in the era of Grindr, and in fact Noah loses his cell phone right away, giving his erotic machinations a distinctly nostalgic feel. 

My Grade: A.

PaJaMa: The Gay Painter-Lovers of 1940s Fire Island

Back before we started acting like heterosexuals, organizing our love lives in monogamous same-sex, same-age pairs, gay men established all sorts of curious and creative "adhesive friendships": trios, groups, lovers far older or younger, women who were their platonic pals or benefactors.

In the 1930s and 1940s, a domestic-erotic collective of artists lived in the gay capitals of Provincetown, Fire Island, and Hartland, Vermont:

Paul Cadmus (1904-1999)
His young lover George Tooker (1920-2011)
His ex-lover Jared French (1905-1988)
Jared's boyfriend Jose Martinez.
And Jared's wife Margaret Hoening (1889-1973).

Their group was called PaJaMa: Paul, Jared, and either Margaret or Martinez, depending on who you ask (George was left out, since no one wanted PaJaMaGe).

They all used the medium of egg tempura, which gave their work a shimmering, otherworldly effect, enhanced by their use of surrealist images and symbols.  And beefcake, of course.

The Double (Jared French) shows a man and a woman gazing at the pale, muscular figure as he walks out of the surf like a newborn god.

Murder (Jared French, 1942) shows a murderer with bloody hands and a mask-like face standing proudly over his victim, while men argue for and against his case.

What I Believe (Paul Cadmus, 1947-48) shows a new world of people building, creating, reading, and lying in each other's arms, gay men, lesbians, and heterosexuals working together, while the old, dying world (not shown) devolves into an orgy of intolerance and hate.

Sleepers (George Tooker, 1951) shows three men sleep on the desolate beach of the subconscious.  The third lies on his purple cloak, looking up, bemused by the images he sees in his dream.

George Tooker painted many Windows, with men staring out, sometimes with male lovers, sometimes with wives, sometimes alone.  In Windows XI, painted in 1999, near the end of his life, Tooker's youthful self looks back at the artist, satisfied with the pleasures he's known, awed with the wonder of it all.