A young man wearing a casual t-shirt with the sleeves cut off walks into an extravagant house, looking around as another young man walks down a large staircase wearing what looks like expensive workout clothing, asking, “excuse me, can I help you?” The first man, Noah, reacts with annoyance and defensiveness, calling for his friend as yet another polished looking man in workout clothes appears at the top of the stairs, greeting Noah with a polite but contemptuous attitude as he informs him that his friend drank too much the night before. He makes a snide remark about Howie, Noah’s friend, being unaccustomed to top shelf-shelf liquor. As Noah roams through the lavish and modernly barren house, he runs into another man, Will, who attempts to offer Noah some water and apologize for the disposition of some of his friends. Noah brushes off Will’s apology and offers to help, instead criticizing Will and poking fun at his use of disposable water bottles. The camera follows Noah into the next room as he meets Howie, who has woken up in a large bathtub. As Howie recounts the night before from the bathtub while Noah sits perched on the rim, the two Asian men are backlit by the large window and stand out against the sterile white tile. Noah urges Howie to not get too attached to a man who Howie had been flirting with the day before and who had stayed up with him while he was sick, dismissing Howie’s perception of the night’s intimacy and warning against getting too caught up in feelings for someone he had just met.
This scene follows the main character of the 2022 film Fire Island, a reimagining of Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice that centers around the interpersonal relationships of a group of gay men spending their summer on Fire Island. Here, Noah’s entrance into the world of some of the wealthy, white inhabitants of Fire Island highlights some of the expectations, stratification, and class disparity among the men on the island. The occupants of the house treat Noah with contempt, looking down on him both literally (from the luxurious staircase) and figuratively, as they feign not recognizing him and make disparaging remarks about him and his friend being unable to afford expensive liquor. Noah responds with a standoffish and defensive demeanor as a mechanism of self defense. However, when Will (who viewers eventually come to understand as the Darcy equivalent to Noah’s Elizabeth) greets Noah with genuine apologeticness and willingness to help, Noah treats him as if he has shown the same condescension and mockery as his peers. His reaction to Will’s kindness, which Noah does not even interpret as kindness, demonstrates how he has developed a general distrust of the wealthier and more socially advantaged gay men on the island who could potentially look down on him. His response to Howie’s discussion of the preceding events further illustrate his attitude towards the other men on the island. As he urges Howie not to bank on a romantic connection, Noah reveals how he has attempted to make himself invulnerable as a result of the power imbalances between men on the island. Even the framing of Howie and Noah in the bathroom marks them as out of place, which Noah has responded to by putting up a defensive front. He treats romance with contempt, viewing the other men on the island as only looking for sexual connections and not having a genuine respect or romantic desire for him and his friends. The power imbalances layer on top of the expectation of potential attraction create an environment in which Noah feels as if he must go into his interactions with the expectation of being used or not truly seen. Though this attitude protects him from the WASPy characters who greet him on the staircase, it also disallows him from seeing the genuine attempts at connection made by Will and by Howie’s love interest. Will himself is also an Asian man, and clearly demonstrates that he understands that pain and ostracization that his friends can cause when he attempts to apologize to Noah. However, because of his class association with the white characters who have slighted Noah, he does not trust Will enough to recognize the ways in which they have had similar experiences.
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One aspect of Fire Island that often gets overlooked is the film’s portrayal of racial dynamics, particularly around the fetishization of Asian men. Throughout the film, Howie, Noah, and Will are consistently approached by white men whose interest is clearly rooted in racial fetishism rather than genuine connection. This recurring pattern reveals two interconnected problems: first, the way Asian identities are flattened into a single, interchangeable category, erasing the diversity and individuality within Asian communities; and second, the troubling dichotomy where Asian men are either hypersexualized—reduced to an exotic fantasy—or entirely desexualized and rendered invisible.
It’s no coincidence that last year’s top searches on Gay PornHub included “anime” and “pinoy” at number two and number three, respectively. In fact, out of the top 24 searches, six were explicitly Asian. This shows a significant pattern of racialized desire within queer spaces, one that has been tied to the perceived passivity and “docility” of Asian men. What’s often portrayed as a turnoff for straight women—the notion of the “passive” man—becomes fetishized in gay male spaces, where this passivity is seen as desirable, particularly to tops who view it as a way to exert dominance or control. This racialized desire, often divorced from the humanity of the individual, limits how Asian men are seen and treated within the queer community.
Fire Island captures a rare and significant moment when this pattern is disrupted. Charlie, a white man in the film, does not fit into the usual mold of the racial fetishizer or the dismissive passerby. Unlike the other white men who either seek out or avoid Asian men based on racialized expectations, Charlie engages Howie in a way that feels normative—grounded in mutual respect and without reducing him to a stereotype.
The eventual pairing of Will and Noah also speaks volumes about the racial dynamics at play in Fire Island. Throughout the film, their experiences are shaped by being fetishized by white men, yet their relationship with each other marks a significant shift. In the context of their shared racial identity, Will and Noah’s connection allows them to navigate the complexities of fetishization while finding genuine intimacy and affection. Their relationship, built on mutual understanding and shared experiences, highlights a rare moment of empowerment within a space that often objectifies them. By ending up together, Will and Noah challenge the notion that Asian men are only desirable within a fetishistic framework.