Answered Prayer: “Prayers For Bobby” is a Groundbreaking Gay TV Movie

It’s an admittedly gripping story: a conservative Christian woman refuses to accept her gay teenage son, hounding him to “change” to the point where he commits suicide. But then, overcome by the realization of what she has done, the woman educates herself, renounces her previous anti-gay beliefs, and becomes a crusader for GLBT youth and gay rights.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that the real-life story of Mary Griffith of Walnut Creek, California, has now become Prayers for Bobby, a TV movie starring Sigourney Weaver airing on Lifetime later this month.

And yet, as extraordinary as the story is, it was anything but an easy sell.

“Making movies is hard enough,” says Daniel Sladek, one of the film’s executive producers. “But when you have a movie about teen suicide, a woman questioning her faith, and gay rights, that’s a hot potato.”

The finished film is not your typical TV movie. Unlike most previous gay TV movies, the filmmakers don’t dance around the issues; they tackle religion head-on, making the explicit connection between anti-gay religious beliefs and the oppression of gay people. As the recent controversy over California’s Proposition 8 showed, religious beliefs are still the primary — maybe the only remaining — argument against same-sex equality. In the aftermath of that fight, the movie feels eerily contemporary despite being set in the 1970s.

Ryan Kelley, Henry Czerny, and Sigourney Weaver
in a scene from Prayers for Bobby

“I know a very religious family, and they do think that homosexuality is an abomination,” says star Sigourney Weaver. “I’m hoping that this film will begin to open their eyes — if not the older generation, then perhaps the younger one.”

It all began when Mary refused to accept that her teenage son, Bobby, was gay.

“It was just ignorance,” says Mary Griffith now. “I believed what my church said about gay people. I can forgive myself for that, but I had a hard time forgiving the church.” Griffith still lives in Walnut Creek, but no longer attends the same church.

The real Mary Griffith with her son, Bobby

Griffith’s heartbreaking story eventually attracted the interest of a gay journalist, Leroy Aarons, who worked with the family on a book, Prayers for Bobby, published in 1995. It turned out that Bobby had kept a diary of his thoughts and feelings during the struggle with his mother.

In 1997, Sladek was given the book by his producing partner, Chris Taaffe, who had found it on the shelves of A Different Light bookstore in LA.

“It just floored me, took my breath away,” Sladek said. “I’m 43-years-old. If he [were] alive today, Bobby would be 45. Ninety percent of the book resonated on a personal level: Rocky Horror, Anita Bryant. I saw myself in the book.”

Sladek and Taaffe optioned the project, originally intending it to be a feature film. But the resulting screenplay attracted the attention of Susan Sarandon, who had been approached by NBC to do a TV movie.

“They wanted something controversial, Emmy caliber,” Sladek says. “This is what made us first think of TV. [The medium] has evolved over the years. Cable networks are stepping up, taking on more feature film-like properties. Talent, A-list actors and directors are responding.”