Joel Kim Booster has been working in Hollywood for quite sometime, lending his pen game to shows such as Billy on the Street, Big Mouth, and The Other Two, but it wasn't until he wrote and co-starred in a film he wanted to make for a queer audience that his career finally hit it out of the ball park.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the actor/comedian revealed that it wasn't easy keeping Fire Island authentic, because he constantly fought with the studio to keep some of the queer references in the film that straight audiences probably wouldn't get.
“One thing that was really important to me with Fire Island was that it felt like a gay movie for gay people,” he said. “I didn’t want to explain a lot of the jokes. I didn’t want to talk down to the audience.”
Many LGBTQ+ films have had to explain queer vernacular to non-queer audiences, but Booster didn’t want to do that with his film, which is a queer spin on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with Asian actors in the lead roles.
“That’s definitely a frustration that I had going into writing Fire Island,” he explained. “People really underestimate how willing people are to go on a ride into a world with you that they’re unfamiliar with. It’s really doing disservice to straight people — and you know, I am not the person to say that normally.”
Booster, 35, says he based the film on Fire Island because it's the place where he “came of age” and entered a “new stage of adulthood."
“I really found myself and accepted my identity and queerness in a new way,” he remembers. “But it is difficult because it’s such an impenetrable place for a lot of people. And it’s not just the issues that I speak about in the movie — the race politics and the body politics. But it’s also just economically unviable for a lot of people. So it does sort of dampen some of the magic for me, knowing that I’ve created a movie celebrating this place that a lot of people can’t even visit.”
Booster has toyed with the idea of writing a sequel, but fears it won't be as successful as the first film.
“Like, is this going to be what people see me for forever? And I’d be very proud if Fire Island is my peak, quite honestly,” Booster admitted. “But I wanna make sure people know that I’m not just the guy who makes gay vacation Jane Austen adaptations.”
I loved FIre Island because as someone who has visited Fire Island quite a few times, I felt like the film spoke to me in a lot of ways. I came of age on Fire Island, and would always travel there every summer with my friends around July Fourth weekend.
As for stories referring to people outside of cis white spaces, I just wish the studios could trust in the talent of the artist, and stop always worrying about if straight people will get gay-themed films, or if white people will go see films with a predominantly black cast.
Take the risk, let the film get made the way it should be, and if straight people want to watch Fire Island and learn something new, then by all means do so.
People are way smarter than society and the entertainment industry likes to give audiences credit for.
As for a sequel I really hope Joel reconsiders, because I loved the characters in the film so much I'd love to see them in another adventure.
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