.ihatejoelkim’s debut film, 'Fire Island,' is a deliciously bawdy modernization of Austen for the gay party scene. e_alexjung reports
Photo: Daniel Jack Lyons. Styling by Krissie Torgerson. Grooming by Tracy Raffelson. Swim shorts by DYIN. Joel Kim Booster is looking at his penis. It’s 2018, and he is tripping balls from the LSD Oreos he took with his housemates on their last full day on Fire Island. Earlier, they had gone to the beach, where the sand oozed between their toes and time lost its militant edge.
Sex and sexuality have always been rich texts for Booster’s work as a writer, actor, and stand-up comedian. His jokewriting style is traditional — setup, punch line, chaser — but the material itself bucks the unspoken taboo that gay male comics should not remind audiences what gay men do . Booster is a comedian who fucks, which he tells audiences with an exhilarating zest and frankness.
It’s a classic Booster story, ribald and unexpectedly touching. We’re sitting on a puffy cream couch in his newly bought $2.1 million, three-level house in the Hollywood Hills on a Friday night, waiting for the boys — other gay men in the industry — to arrive to pregame before going out. Booster secured a mortgage with his streaming money. Hulu’s Fire Island; a one-hour Netflix special, Psychosexual; the Apple TV Maya Rudolph show Loot, which Booster co-stars in — all come out in June.
Photo: Daniel Jack Lyons. Styling by Krissie Torgerson. Grooming by Tracy Raffelson. Early on in his stand-up, Booster described his identity thusly: “I knew I was gay before I knew I was Asian.” Born on Korea’s Jeju Island, he was adopted by a couple in Plainfield, Illinois, at 3 months old. They had two older biological children, both of whom were homeschooled, in part to keep them from learning about sex and evolution.
In Fire Island, there are some oblique references to the importance of chosen family, but overall the film re-creates the feeling of entering a bubble. The friends arrive detached from “real life.” During the script-development process, Searchlight Pictures wanted to know more about Noah’s backstory. “I get that note,” says Andrew Ahn, who directed the film, “and I don’t think Joel wanted to go there. Joel is very willing to show who he is.
The downside is that he cares too much about what other people think. Since the start of his career, Booster has been a chronic reader of the comments — on Twitter, Reddit, even 4chan offshoots — as though to confirm his worst ideas about himself. Ever since the Fire Island trailer dropped in April, he hasn’t been able to pull himself away from his phone. He fixates on criticism, particularly from other people of color.
The longer Booster has been doing this and the more famous he has become, the more versions of this he has encountered. As he scales up, he finds it increasingly difficult to anticipate criticism. Men will hit him up on Grindr, and if he doesn’t respond, they’ll keep badgering him — Hey. Hey. Hey. They’ll huff that they used to be fans but not anymore. Some will say it is so inspirational to see someone hot and Asian be hot and Asian.
He did, in fact, keep his travel plans — sort of. He flew to New York, where he stayed for 12 hours, then flew back to L.A. for the table read, only to hop back on a plane to go to Fire Island. “Everyone thought it was so funny and quirky I was doing this,” he says. “Meanwhile, I was truly losing my mind and almost losing one of the biggest opportunities of my entire career. I was finally like, Okay. This isn’t normal, and it could really hurt me in the long run.
In the movie, Noah and Howie’s relationship comes to a head when Noah tries to discourage Howie from hooking up with the resident rice queen of the island, who has “like five anime tattoos.” Howie is frustrated; he was just trying to have some brain-empty sex like Noah wanted him to. But not with him, says Noah. Anyone but him. “Stop talking about this like we’re the same,” says Howie. “But we are,” replies Noah. “No, stop,” Howie spits out.
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