By Jamie McGonnigal • Sunday, February 13, 2011 •
Cross-posted at TalkAboutEquality.com
In our struggle for equality, we are so often met with the question “Can people really change?”
We so frequently run up against the wall of having a conversation with someone who seems unmovable. And sometimes, the sad truth of the matter is that some people are indeed unmovable.
In the case of Mary Griffith, it wasn’t until her young gay son took his own life that she saw the repercussions of her ignorance.
Mary’s story, “Prayers for Bobby” by Leroy Arons, tells the story of life with her son, Bobby. And most importantly, it tells the story of how someone can change when presented with irrational fears of what they don’t understand.
The book was made into a film last year by the Lifetime Network and it garnered several recognitions including Emmy nominations for Outstanding Made for Television Movie and Outstanding Leading Actress in a Miniseries or Movie, for Sigourney Weaver.
The film won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Miniseries or TV Movie and Weaver took home a Trevor Life Award from the Trevor Project for her portrayal of Mary Griffith.
On the occasion of the DVD release, Weaver took a few moments to chat with Talk About Equality about the film, on playing Mary Griffith and how things can get better.
T.A.E.: Talk About Equality is devoted to telling our stories and we believe that these stories are what will help us win our equality. In your travels, have you had the opportunity to see or hear about the impact your telling of Mary’s story has had on someone?
Sigourney Weaver: A young person had confided in her mother a few days before that she was gay and her mother had freaked out and taken her phone away and grouneded her. Then they Saw the movie together and the mother started the process of being able to talk about it with her child and it went from impossible to…let’s start this dialogue. And it was such an immediate heartening result from watching the movie together. It [the movie] takes you through people coming out with such disastrous results.
Mary Griffith
I thought my friends surely didn’t have that big a problem but the four people I talked to had such terrible stories to share with me.
One of them, who goes out in drag quite a bit — his grandmother actually helps him get ready, but they’ve never discussed it … it defies logic … so there’s a real need for more stories like this to be told.
T.A.E.: The transition Mary had after the loss of Bobby is one that so many kids fantasize will happen with their own intolerant parents. Speaking as a parent, what would you tell these intolerant parents and how did you personally handle Mary’s transition from intolerance to pride?
S. W.: The main thing to remember is that you love your child and we as parents must love and respect our children and listen to them.
I think the one thing I feel was so tragic about what Mary did was not her belief or her ignorance, but that she refused to listen to Bobby. She just refused to, and that actually is what cost him his life. If she’d been able to listen, if she had been able to keep that door open, then things might have worked out differently.
Sigourney Weaver and Ryan Kelley in
Prayers for Bobby
As a parent we all have a tendency to want our children to lead very safe regular lives. Lives that are protected somehow — It’s really a fallacy. Its not what any of us did and we have to be brave enough as parents to trust our children and encourage them to be who
they are and all that they are.
It takes such incredible courage to be gay in
this society, in this world right now and your child really needs your support — really needs you to be there for him or her. It’s the most important way you can express your love to your child – by listening and supporting.
T.A.E.: You’re an actor who never shies away from a challenge when it comes to the roles you choose — from the big commercial hits like “Avatar” or “Aliens” to smaller releases like “Prayers for Bobby” or “Snow Cake” — and each of these characters I’m sure brought something new to your life.
Did you have a “seeing the world with new eyes” moment with this character and movie?
S. W.: I definitely did. When I read the script I was a little of horrified by Mary — I thought there was this huge chasm between myself and her. My immediate thought was she must live in this kind of place that’s far away from a metropolis, where there might be a big gay community. And then of course when I visited her — she’s about 30 minutes away from downtown San Francisco.
I realized that we can be closed-minded wherever we are — even in a big city. I think I had used that geographical idea to sort of marginalize Mary and once I realized that she was in a city and I met her — mother to mother — I realized how much she loved Bobby, how much she loved all her children.
Bobby Griffith
Her house is filled with things he made — his dolls, his drawings, his little attic room is just as he left it. We just met as mothers. She is so courageous and so honest and so candid about who she was then and what the repercussions had been of her prejudice and ignorance.
And after a day with Mary, I felt — ya know, that I get fearful for my daughter when I think of her doing things and I found the Mary in myself.
We are parents who want to protect our children from things we don’t understand, things that frighten us.
I stopped being the East Coast judger. This can happen to any of us. It creeps up on us because we love our children and we think by loving them, we should keep them from being who they are. If I just say no, they can change their minds.
The more you talk to Mary — she thought he was making a lifestyle choice. It took her forever to understand that this was part of God’s plan for Bobby.
And that’s what the story is, of the terrible mistakes she made, and that he was perfect as he was. She just couldn’t see it. She didn’t have any help or support until she reached out to PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). PFLAG saved her and made it possible for her to share her story with all the rest of us.
T.A.E.: I’m sure you’ve heard about Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project, designed to reach out to LGBT kids who may be contemplating suicide. In that vein, if you could, if things were different, is there anything you would want to say to Bobby Griffith?
S. W.: Wow … I would say … ‘Dear Bobby, give your mother [a chance...]‘ … these are all things he did do because he loved his family so much. He tried so hard to give them the time to embrace him as who he was.
So it’s very hard for me to know what to say to Bobby except, ‘We’re going to do everything we can to make sure kids don’t feel that way.’
It’s so hard to say ‘go live your life’ and eventually your family will come around and you will find out that you can be this magnificent gay man with so much to offer, with a community and with a family you can have — a family of your own and eventually your family will hopefully meet you halfway.
And if not, you’ll have your own family and your own community and it will get better. What could be more painful than what you’re going through now? So just hang in there. And know there are people who love you and care about you and value you and you should be around, because you’re a terrific young person.
For Bobby, everything hinged on the approval of his family. I think there wasn’t The Trevor Project or all these other places where he could have, maybe had, more people reaching out to him.
Where he could finally get the message? It was a message he felt he didn’t have the right to accept. He couldn’t allow himself to love someone and be loved if his family didn’t love him first. That’s the lesson from this story really — it’s really hard for someone to love themselves without ever learning how to from their family.
Many thanks to Sigourney for taking the time out to speak with us about this incredible film.
If you have not seen it, you can order the DVD here. And if you have seen it, go buy a few copies of the DVD to give to friends and family who might be able to use it.
http://video.barnesandnoble.com/DVD/Prayers-for-Bobby/Sigourney-Weaver/e/733961237276/?itm=1&USRI=prayers+for+bobby
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