Jordan Firstman: Sun, Sex and Suspicious Followers
Cinema has turned its back on shagging: Penn Badgely is no longer recording any intimate shots in You out of respect for his marriage. Puriteens on Twitter are requesting that TV shows should not have sex scenes in them, to ensure that nobody has to feel uncomfortable ever again. The Hays Code has entered the chat. As Raquel S Benedict puts it, “Everyone is beautiful and no one is horny.”
Jordan Firstman has come to denounce it all. Firstman’s first lead role is a heightened version of himself, an influencer with a penchant for partying, in Sebastián Silva’s latest film Rotting in the Sun. The movie, which just premiered at Sundance Film Festival, has it all: Sex, drugs, and lots and lots of gratuitous male nudity. Finally a film that’s not afraid to depict sex in all its glorious form. Real sex! Now that’s cinema.
Jordan came into the social media spotlight in 2020, the early days of the pandemic. Perfectly timed, and now infamous, impressions of a banana bread’s publicist resonated with everyone stuck inside making banana bread. His razor sharp, tongue in cheek and hyper niche references struck a chord with everyone collectively stuck inside, and an internet celebrity was born. See: Jordan’s impression of a straight guy who does absolutely not need a pickup truck, a town gossip who has no more gossip due to quarantine or his impression of a guy who insists that everyone makes eye contact when they cheers at a twelve person dinner.
“We’re in an age where everyone is watching porn, there's no way of escaping dicks and pussy and assholes. You can't escape it in this modern life, so why are we so averse to it on screen?”
But Jordan isn’t a comedian who started out on social media, rather a comedian who utilised social media. He was already making moves as a producer on Big Mouth, as well as starring in and writing for Search Party - was he even bothered about becoming an Instagram star?
Jordan explains, “I just knew when that moment came, I had to use it. Even though it wasn't exactly what I’d planned for or thought it was what I wanted, I was just feeling the moment. And it was a moment! So I ran with it.” While the world was making Dalgona coffees and learning dances to Doja Cat’s Say So, Jordan was on the up. “That first year was really fun. The ideas were endless and coming to me all the time. It was fun to be adored for a minute: Even if they were just watching the impressions and didn't see the fullness of me.”
As well as impersonating the minutiae moments from the most annoying people you know, Jordan regularly gets his followers to confess their deep dark secrets into his Instagram question box, whilst he posts the replies anonymously and rinses them on his stories. (@jtfirstman if you want to join in.)
What is it about Jordan that makes people want to admit to fucking their cousin? Or doing illegal activities at work? Or having weird sexual fantasies about him? He considers, “I share the secrets for my followers. It’s an act of love! I want to show them I’m there with them, even when I don't want to be so much.” Tightrope walking the double edged sword of parasocial relationships. Jordan is completely open and willing, but simultaneously keeps everyone at arm's length by mocking them in turn.
In Rotting in the Sun Jordan applies his real life meddling in people's private lives to his character. In the film he’s still shitposting videos, still sharing things he definitely shouldn’t be sharing and still communicating to his followers as if they’re a small audience and not a community of 800k+.
It’s an ambitious first starring role. The vibe of the film is extremely Uncut Gems, if Uncut Gems were set on a gay nude beach and everyone was in a k-hole. Constant construction and building noises replace a film score. Pure frenetic sensory overload chaos.
“I share the secrets for my followers. It’s an act of love! I want to show them I’m there with them, even when I don't want to be so much.”
What was the atmosphere like on set? “Super fucking chaotic!” Jordan laughs, noting that the production was challenging at times. “Every time we stepped out the building to film the police would be stopping us, even though we had permits. We were having to bribe them constantly, it was crazy.”
Disordered in creation and on screen, Rotting in the Sun is rawdogging it. The onscreen sex is as real and unsimulated as it comes. Were the drugs real too? Jordan grins: “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this…” Don’t worry Jordan, we won’t tell on you.
On the subject of subversive cinema, we get deeper into the subject of sex onscreen, or rather unsimulated sex on screen: The final frontier of cinema. Why are we so repressed when it comes to watching sex scenes in movies?
Jordan complains about the glaringly obvious double standards of the way we consume media: “We’re just so gauche about it. Look at the way we treated Chloë Sevigny after her appearance in The Brown Bunny. They tried to ruin her career! We’re in an age where everyone is watching porn, there's no way of escaping dicks and pussy and assholes. You can't escape it in this modern life, so why are we so averse to it on screen?”
How have people reacted to the nudity and sex in Rotting in the Sun? “It's funny, when people see the movie, I think they’re expecting it to be more shocking because they've heard all about the dicks and the sex and the nudity.”
Jordan considers, “But it's integrated in such a natural way that people are kind of shocked at themselves for not being shocked. I hope that starts to seep into culture more, where being comfortable with nudity is integrated into cinema and life in a more natural way.
After getting deep about sex, gay culture, working on his craft and being taken seriously as a writer, actor and producer Jordan asks me, “Was I too serious?”, a question that I think is at the heart of what he does. His work is deeply personal, and he offers a lot of himself up to the general public, but he never wants to be too earnest. Tongue firmly in cheek. Butt. Whatever.
Before we hang up, I have to shoehorn a reference into our conversation about the Laura Dern song that Jordan wrote for the Film Independent Spirit Awards, educating the straights on the gay moments in film that they may not have realised were gay. J-Lo dancing to Fiona Apple in Hustlers, Renée Zellweger’s press tour for Judy and pretty much everything Laura Dern turns her hand to. He reflects on it being a career highlight: “That was my proudest achievement until Rotting in the Sun!”
Laura Dern’s reaction is absolutely priceless. She’s taken completely by surprise but overcome with pure joy. “Giving that to her made me emotional! It warms your heart to see someone get given the most specific thing that they never knew they wanted or that they would dream of but like who doesn't want a gay choir to chant your name?” A common reaction to the way Jordan’s humour taps into our most human behaviours, whilst laughing at us a little for it too.
Photographer: Savanna Ruedy | Concept: Ione Gamble | Writer: Eden Young | Grooming: Gabriella Mancha | Styling: Marc Eram | Set and Location Scout: Dripdome
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