Director Josh Boone has landed headlines just ahead of the opening of his latest film, The New Mutants. Specifically, Boone has lambasted Disney, Lucasfilm and director JJ Abrams for what he deems a pandering gay kiss in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
The Rise of Skywalker opened last winter to harsh reviews, though the film did win praise for the inclusion of a brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kiss between two secondary female characters. For Boone, whose new film features two key queer characters, including that kind of incidental representation“the most embarrassing” type of cynical marketing.
Boone tells TooFab, “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. I’m a big Joss Whedon fan, I’m a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. They did this in the ’90s already, but they did it on television.”
Of the gay relationship in The New Mutants, he adds: “We didn’t put this in to be confrontational or really even in a calculated way, it just happened naturally. 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. 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.”
Boone’s comments come on the heels of reports of a difficult production process for The New Mutants, with stories of intense conflict between Boone and Fox executives–and later, with Disney brass–over the film’s content. Disney has also come under fire in recent years for including incidental or implied representation of LGBTQ characters in its films. Besides the Rise of Skywalker instance, the company also was lambasted for claiming the live-action Beauty and the Beast remake featured the character of Lefou as gay…based on one scene where he’s shown dancing with another man.
wooly101
It was a quick scene that’s all. While it seem like a token gesture it didn’t harm or aid the film in any way. Let’s just make good movies and keep identity politics out of it.
Chrisk
What about all the mandatory hetero kisses in every SW movie we’ve all had to endure through out the films. Isn’t that also identify politics?
JJ Abrams did that with Star Trek as well. There was a mounting pressure to include LGBT characters and he put it in but another blink and you’ll miss it scene. It’s insane that it took this long since ST is all about different cultures and races working together. Even Gene Roddenberry was on board with a gay charactor.
Cam
And it’s it interesting that when it comes to showing any LGBTQ characters, or white people dating outside their race it’s “Identity politics”, but when we see a movie like “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” where they made the LGBTQ character straight, that somehow is fine.
It’s the bigoted Republicans that scream about any of us appearing in any movies.
Jake123
Completely agree with him!!
skeldare
While it’s nice that The New Mutants has any representation, it’s of course the more straight male acceptable lesbian one. Just like in Deadpool 2.
peterjhonaj
Nice.
felixthegato
Let’s not forget how they chickened out from having the “Love, Victor” show on their tv platform and Hulu picked it up. Disney has not supported the LGBT where it matters, in their content.
Cam
No surprise that a director who put a lesbian couple in his show is having conflicts with Disney and Fox.