From the moment viewers hear veteran comedian Margaret Cho yell across a pool deck, “Bitch, I knew I smelled some bottoms!” it’s very clear that Fire Island will not be the stuffy Austen adaptation of yore. The film, set in the popular NYC vacation spot, is an update of the oft-adapted Pride and Prejudice, perhaps Austen’s most famous and popular novel.
The original story follows the exploits of the Bennets, a family of modest means that includes five marriageable yet unmarried daughters and the mother who is desperate to find suitable matches for them all.
It’s filled with pride, prejudice, and parties, though very much of the early 19th century variety. It’s also filled with social commentary on class and gender issues. And the 2022 update from writer and star Joel Kim Booster is heavy on all of that, adding in a bit of race and sexual/gender identity commentary to address the romantic and financial concerns of a modern generation.
Jane Austen Takes a Holiday to Fire Island
For this retelling of the classic, Booster sets his characters in modern day NYC where a group of friends who developed a bond over dealing with the worst humanity has to offer (aka people who go to unlimited brunch in Manhattan) head out for a one-week summer vacation to Fire Island, a popular summer destination for the LGBTQ community.
Booster lets viewers know early on what this is–which is to say an Austen adaptation–with a quick shot of the P&P book cover and a voice-over featuring a now anachronistic quote from the novel. From there, Booster firmly establishes himself as this world’s Elizabeth and his visiting friend Howie (Bowen Yang) as her sister Jane. Like Jane, Howie is looking for love, real love, a deep and electric connection that leads to longterm couplehood. And like Elizabeth, Booster’s Noah sees no need for a steady man in his life, something viewers learn quickly as he dismisses a sex partner out of hand (and out of bed) for having “boyfriend vibes.”
Sensing that Howie is lonely and lovelorn after leaving the group for a job in San Francisco, Noah makes it his mission to get Howie laid during their week in the Grove. Though it’s clear that Howie is interested in a connection that extends longer than one night, Noah worries that this preference will lead to Howie being once again disappointed by a frivolous suitor.
After they arrive on the island, they keep crossing paths with another group of men, but this one much richer and polished than their motley crew of quirky hot messes. In Noah’s group there’s house mom Erin (Cho), Howie, wild flirts Luke (Matt Rogers) and Keegan (Tomas Matos), and the reserved academic Max (Torian Miller), all queer and mostly people of color.
At the head of the other group are Will and Charlie who are kind and welcoming to Noah’s crew, but the rest of their group employs Mean Girls-style bullying tactics to make the modern day Bennet clan feel unwelcome and inferior.
It should be said that this group is entirely white save for Will, the lone person of color and also the Darcy character of this retelling. Will and Charlie are best friends, making Charlie the Bingley character. Which means that, as per the source material, Charlie and Howie are destined to hit it off. And just like in P&P, everyone is here for it, especially surrogate mom Erin (Charlie is a DOCTOR! What a match!) Except for Noah and Will, though perhaps for different reasons.
Would a Darcy by Any Other Name Still Be a Dick?
Yes, the answer is yes. In every iteration of P&P, the Darcy character is somewhat inscrutable, from the novel to the 2005 Keira Knightley film to Colin Firth in Bridget Jones’s Diary. That opaqueness was certainly purposeful on the part of Austen as it’s Darcy’s inability to properly convey his intentions and emotions that leads to Elizabeth’s “prejudice” against him.
But in Fire Island, it’s virtually impossible to get a clear reading on Will/Darcy. On one hand, he seems to be in the character mold of the awkward silent type, a reservedness that should theoretically be an indicator of how innocuous he is. Yet Will and Charlie continue to surround themselves with the nastiest, snobbiest gays that the island has to offer, compatriots who make open and biting comments about the socioeconomic status of Noah and his friends, initially denying them entry to the movie’s first big party.
Even Will gets in on the class warfare, stating to Charlie that Noah and the “Bennets” are only there to use them for free booze. (But isn’t that the definition of a party? Free booze with strangers?) To paraphrase another Jane Austen character, the wise-beyond-her-years Cher Horowitz of Emma adaptation Clueless, “Ugh, Will! You are a snob and a half!”
She Works Hard For the Money
It can be convenient for much of the “straight” world to consider the LGBTQ community as a homogeneous monolith, a group where everyone’s values and backgrounds align and everyone is united in their efforts to achieve equality for all. But art like Fire Island is reminder to those without ties to the community that even though everyone may show up in June for the parades, the community is made up of individuals from diverse backgrounds.
And there are hierarchies within the community with some levels considering themselves as “more equal” than others. And just like in the “straight” world, the people at the top of these fabricated hierarchies have a vested interest in maintaining them in order to keep their spots at the top.
Will’s group exists at the top of the gay food chain, at least in Noah’s eyes. They are mostly white and wealthy with bodies as impeccable as their resumes. In contrast, Noah’s group is a little rough around the edges and are definitely more working class than business class. Though Noah adores his friends, his chosen family, it’s hard not pick up on the smidge of embarrassment he feels when he views his friends through Will’s eyes. But embarrassment gives way to something like indignation which then transforms into fierce loyalty and pride, as it were.
Self-loathing never got anybody anywhere, after all, and Noah refuses to fall victim to it in this context, in any context. Which is why he’s uncertain of Charlie’s intentions toward Howie. He doesn’t want to see his friend get hurt if it turns out Charlie just wants to “slum it” while on vacay. Charlie is white and wealthy and chiseled. Both Noah and Howie are Asian, and though Howie is warm, kind, funny, loyal, but he’s no Adonis. And Noah is keenly aware of these differences and their polar opposite positions within the hierarchy. And he believes that Will is too and opposes the match because he thinks Howie is not good enough for his friend.
On Fire Island, They Came Together
After a wild night sloshing around GHB, Adderall, Special K, and Molly into a sloppy drug soup, the two crews intermingle and some pair off. When a blast from Charlie and Will’s past violates a member of Noah’s group, Noah and Will come together to sort it all out. This event is the catalyst for some soul-bearing and hard truths.
It’s no spoiler for fans of the novel to say that Noah and Will get to a place where they finally do understand each other’s perspectives, with Noah deciding to give that whole commitment and monogamy thing the good old college try.
True Fidelity
For any Austen reader, it’s clear that despite the K-holes, assless speedos, and revenge porn, Fire Island is at its core a very loyal adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with a clear fondness for its source material. But over 200 years removed from the era of Austen, Fire Island is also a masterful dissection of the growing divide in America between the haves and the have-nots.
As wage stagnation and inflation on steroids have worked together to erode anything like a middle class, the space between the steps in the hierarchy is becoming larger, leading to something like a good old fashioned caste system where it will be increasingly more difficult to bridge gaps. Race, zip code, gender identity, sexual orientation, and attractiveness of course influence one’s spot on the totem pole, a fact of life that Booster and Fire Island refuse to shy away from.
For an iconoclast like Austen–at least as much as a woman relegated to drawing rooms and tea parties in the 18th century had the opportunity to be iconoclastic–these are certainly issues at the heart of her work and issues her work would address if she was alive today (and had any time to write after working three part-time jobs just to pay back her student loans).
The entire plot of P&P centers around the fact that, as women, none of the Bennet sisters are allowed to inherit their father’s estate, so the majority of them have to marry well or all of them will be destitute and homeless. No doubt that today Austen would have much to say about the gender-pay gap and wage disparities for people of color, etc.
In other words, Fire Island is a big summer party that early feminist Austen would definitely rave at. Or, to put it in Fire Island terms: Bottoms up, bitches!
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