X-Men spin-off The New Mutants includes beautiful tributes to Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s iconic queer witches
While The New Mutants pushes forward representation in the superhero genre by putting Dani and Rahne’s relationship front-and-centre, it also takes time to pay tribute to one of the first staples of the fantasy genre to do so – Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The mutants are seen watching old episodes of Buffy throughout the film – with particular loving attention paid to a clip of Willow and Tara‘s heart-wrenching first on-screen kiss in season five episode “The Body”.
The moment neatly parallels the evolving relationship between Dani and Raine, who are very much a couple by the end of the film.
It’s a fitting tribute for a film that owes much of its DNA to Buffy, revolving around its own Scooby Gang of dysfunctional teens.
Writer-director Josh Boone has acknowledged the parallels, explaining of his motivations to Bleeding Cool: “I really did want to make a teen movie like a John Hughes movie, like a Breakfast Club.
“I wanted to do what Joss Whedon did [20] years ago in Buffy and have a gay romance, a real gay romance. It worked so organically with the material in the comic and the way these girls interacted.
“We were just trying to get all the things in that we love that we didn’t see in movies anymore, that we felt like a superhero movie could do.”
The outlet notes that the show’s tributes to Buffy take things full circle, given Buffy‘s infamous season six ‘Dark Willow’ storyline was in no small part inspired by the Dark Phoenix X-Men comics.