top40
Jamie Lee Curtis making film about stand-in mother at gay weddings
The star of Halloween and Scream Queens has confirmed she’s bought the rights to the 2014 memoir How We Sleep At Night, which tells the story of how Oklahoma woman Sara Cunningham came to terms with her son’s sexuality.
Cunningham rose to prominence last summer when she announced that she would stand in as a substitute mother for any LGBTQ people whose parents wouldn’t attend their same-sex wedding.
“If you need a mom to attend your same-sex wedding because your biological mom won’t. Call me. I’m there. I’ll be your biggest fan. I’ll even bring the bubbles,” she shared in a viral post on Facebook.
Back in September, Curtis tweeted a photo alongside Cunningham where she told her followers about the great work she does to help members of the community, sparking speculation that a new project may be in the works.
“Spent the day with my doppelgänger, inspirational mama bear, leader, author and social activist, Sara Cunningham, whose program [Free Mom Hugs] offers support to LGBTQ members whose families don’t,” she wrote.
Speaking to the Washington Post, Curtis said she had spent three days with Cunningham and her family last year, and was so inspired by her story that she decided to bring it to the big screen.
“I continue to be thrilled as her movement is catching on. I hope to do justice to her story and the story of so many marginalised people in the LGBTQ community,” she said.
“I saw the impact that her movement has already had, in and around Oklahoma City. It’s exciting to watch something that was born out of such conflict develop into something of such deep compassion and expansive acceptance.”
As well as offering to be a stand-in mother for same-sex weddings, Cunningham also founded a charity called Free Mom Hugs, which is “dedicated to educating families, church and civil leaders” about LGBTQ equality.
She attends gay weddings as a ‘stand-in mom.’ Now they’re making a movie about her.
Screenshot/Twitter
A woman who promised to attend gay people’s weddings if their mothers wouldn’t is getting a film made about her.
Sara Cunningham got national attention last summer when she posted on Facebook that she would attend weddings as a stand-in, since so many LGBTQ people have been rejected by their parents.
Jamie Lee Curtis has purchased the film rights to Cunningham’s 2014 memoir, How We Sleep at Night, about her relationship with her gay son.
“I was moved by her journey,” Curtis told the Washington Post. “And I continue to be thrilled as her movement is catching on.”
“I hope to do justice to her story and the story of so many marginalized people in the LGBTQ community.”
“I saw the impact that her movement has already had, in and around Oklahoma City,” she continued. “It’s exciting to watch something that was born out of such conflict develop into something of such deep compassion and expansive acceptance.”
“I thought it might just be a phase,” she said. “And then when he turned 21, he ‘came out’ to me and said that he’d met someone and needed me to be okay with it.”
She wrote that she became depressed and wasn’t exactly the perfect PFLAG mom for her son when he initially came out.
“I prayed, I fasted, I burned incense and shamed my son into burning his journals,” she wrote.
“We were fighting a spiritual battle inside the walls of a non-affirming church,” her son Parker said. “My mother and I were both struggling with what we thought was a literal ‘life or death’ situation when it came to my soul and how I’d spend eternity.”
Things started to turn around when she went to pride with her son in 2014.
“It was my first encounter with the LGBTQ community, and it was as beautiful as it could be,” Cunningham said. “I realized that I’d been alienated for years by own ignorance and fear.”
The next year, she went back and offered “Free Mom Hugs.”
“Whenever I made eye contact with anybody, I’d offer to give them a hug or a high five,” she said. “I went home covered with glitter.”
Since she made her offer last year, she said that a few people have actually asked her to stand-in for their moms at their weddings. She went to her first wedding as a stand-in last year, and she has three more booked already.
Hits: 2
Comments
Loading…