The New Mutants director Josh Boone has slammed Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker for its weak attempt at LGBT+ representation.
The Star Wars sequel, released in 2019, featured two unnamed female characters kissing in the background of a celebratory scene. It was widely seen as a sign of progress for a franchise that had never featured an LGBT+ storyline.
But many fans were left disappointed by the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, with some questioning why the franchise had failed to offer meaningful representation.
Josh Boone, director of X-Men spin-off The New Mutants, lambasted the moment in an interview with TooFab, calling it “the most embarrassing” example of queer representation.
“It was just somebody in the background and [the filmmakers] were like, ‘We’ll put out articles as if this is something you should pay attention to’.” he said,
Ahead of the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, director JJ Abrams teased that the film would feature LGBT+ representation.
Abrams told Variety that he wanted to find a cast that “looked more the way the world looks than not”, adding: “And in the case of the LGBTQ community, it was important to me that people who go to see this movie feel that they’re being represented in the film.”
When pressed on what that might mean, he said: “I will say I’m giving away nothing about what happens in the movie. But I did just say what I just said.”
Needless to say, fans were disappointed when many left film theatres without even noticing the same-sex kiss.
The New Mutants will feature a prominent queer romance.
Boone also spoke about the same-sex relationship that plays out in The New Mutants between superheroes Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams) and Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt).
“We didn’t put this in to be confrontational or really even in a calculated way,” he said of the lesbian romance.
“We wrote it because the characters in the comic have like an intimate telepathic connection and it just sort of felt like the right thing to do, and it was more of a gentle thing and a coming of age thing than it was a sexual thing.”
He continued: “When I was a teenager, I would go to the movies and they’d make me feel better. They were like therapy in a lot of ways.
“So I hope this would reach some people and for young women out there who are gay and don’t see representation in a big movie, it’s like, you guys can dress up at Halloween and hold hands and be them and that’s awesome.”