Kim Wayans, who plays the unaccepting
mother of a lesbian teen in Pariah, has said she hopes the
film will hit home for parents with gay children.
In the movie, Alike (played by Adepero
Oduye), an African-American teen, is living with her conservative
parents and sister in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood as she
begins to affirm her identity as a lesbian. Alike is especially
eager to find love. (Watch
the film's trailer at our video library.)
“She's a very domineering presence in
her daughter's life and she wants to control her,” Wayans, 50, said
of her character in an interview with Gay
Star News. “You have a desperate mother desperate to save her
child [from being gay.] She just broke my heart. I didn't see her
as a mother or a villain. She was just as much a victim of her
beliefs. She was so sad, so sad and so lonely and disconnected from
everyone else.”
“It was heartbreaking,” she said.
Wayans added that she hopes the film
will touch parents with gay children: “I hope they'll receive it
with love and acceptance. I hope it will open eyes for people. I
hope it will create dialogue.”
Pariah opens Wednesday in New
York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. A six city expansion – San
Diego, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Cambridge, Dallas and Seattle –
is scheduled for Friday, January 6.