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TELEVISION
Ready or Not, Jane’s Coming Out!
Talking to Ellen Muth about playing a teenager grappling
with being gay in the made-for-TV-movie The Truth
About Jane
by Laura Springel
Lifetime’s The Truth About Janegives a clear
picture of what a gay youth must go through and overcome
as they discover the truth about themselves. Jane (played
by Ellen Muth, who got her first starring role in Dolores
Claiborne)is a 15-year-old young woman discovering
her sexuality. Along her path to lesbianism however,
Jane finds that her relationship with her mother (played
by Stockard Channing, best known for her role in Greaseas
Rizzo) isn’t as solid as when her mother thought
that she liked boys. Jane’s mother is the kind
of character you want to slap throughout the entire
film, “No, wrong. Would you wake up!” She
seems to love her daughter throughout every moment of
her life. She is a liberal-minded woman. Her best friend
is even gay. But Jane soon discovers that it isn’t
going to be that easy. She yells at her mother, “Jimmy
is your best friend—Jimmy is gay and you love him.”
Stockard Channing rebuts with possibly the least sensitive
and loving thing a mother could possibly say: “Jimmy
is not my daughter!”
The intended audience for the film is most probably
kids around Jane’s age (15 years old) and parents
who think they might recognize their children are dealing
with this issue. I had the opportunity to talk to Ellen
Muth about playing Jane, and she told me that when she
first looked at the script, she thought Jane was rather
young to be deciding her sexuality. She then realized
that the character was a rather mature and intelligent
young woman. After all, 15 is the age of discovery.
“A
lot of teens now are dealing with things younger and
younger and are more mature for their age,” says
Muth. The film does an excellent job of portraying the
universal feelings among homosexuals fighting their
way out of the closet: the guilt, shame, and pain of
knowing that you are different and that people may well
hate you simply because of your sexual orientation.
But as Ellen says, “Everyone’s story is different,
everyone has different personal struggles.”
Muth says, “Parents should love their kids no matter
what they say or do. Although we would all like to live
in a world where love wouldn’t change because of
your sexuality...we don’t. Jane’s parents
go through a rush of emotions that are rather typical—What
did I do wrong as a parent to cause this? What if someone
finds out? What kind of opportunities is my child going
to miss out on because of this? etcetera. It unfortunately
takes them the entire film to figure out that Jane’s
being gay isn’t about them...it’s about Jane.”
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