Actress Jacki Weaver trades the diocese for drag queens in the queer comedy drama Stage Mother, which just arrived on streaming service Stan.
The Aussie Academy Award winner plays Maybelline, a Southern Baptist church choir director whose son, a gay San Francisco club owner, suddenly dies.
After his death, she soon discovers her son’s struggling gay bar will soon go bankrupt and she’s inherited it.
But she doesn’t close it down. Instead, she shocks everyone by moving from Texas to San Francisco to take over the venue.
Maybelline finds herself becoming drag mother to all the venue’s performers, who become her new family. She even gets up onstage herself to perform alongside the other queens.
“I’m a Southern Baptist choir mistress,” she responds when asked what she knows about drag.
“Different songs, same divas… some of the same wigs, too.”
Actors Adrien Grenier, Lucy Liu, Mya Taylor and drag star Jackie Beat also join Weaver in the cast.
Speaking about Stage Mother last year, Jacki Weaver said the LGBTIQ community “has always been very close to my heart.”
“When I was a young woman in the ‘60s, so many people’s parents disowned them when they came out,” she recalled.
“It caused so much unnecessary heartbreak that could have been avoided if only the parents had been a bit more educated, knowledgeable, and tolerant.
“There’s still too much prejudice, especially in backward places, but I think we have come a very long way.
“The story about this woman who’s had a sheltered life and whose husband is a bigot that disowned their boy who’s not only gay but a drag queen, really moved me.
“I hope Stage Mother broadens minds, I hope it gives joy to people who might be in a similar position. I hope people who are a bit prejudiced might come around a bit.”
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