A Mother’s Homophobia in The Truth About Jane

Being a gay teenager wasn’t particularly easy in 2000—ask me how I know! When Lifetime decided to examine the subject (two years after Jean Smart’s husband tumbled out of the closet in Change of Heart), it was appointment viewing for me. At the time, it felt underwhelming. It was a “message” movie and the conflicts were so easily, if imperfectly, resolved. At my house, it took much longer than 87 minutes for the arctic chill between a lesbian high school student and her conservative parents to thaw.

Revisiting The Truth About Jane as an adult perilously close to middle age, how differently would I feel? It turned out I liked it quite a bit more. Distance had dulled all the edges that were too sharp back then. I appreciated the clarity, and simplicity, with which writer-director Lee Rose captured what it was like to come out as a kid in the late ’90s/early aughts. And the homophobia of Stockard Channing’s character was much funnier to me than it had been back then, for reasons we’ll get to later.

After our protagonist, Jane (Ellen Muth), provides a brief survey of her early childhood, we join her in high school. It’s the start of a new year and Ms. Walcott (Kelly Rowan), her English teacher and guidance counselor, introduces herself to the class. “If you ‘re feeling overwhelmed and need somebody to talk to, you can talk to me,” she says. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I am not so old that I can’t relate to what you might be going through.”

In the cafeteria, Jane attracts the attention of Ned (Noah Fleiss), who is mysteriously adored by her straight friends. Her pals squeal at this development and express consternation that Jane doesn’t return his interest. “We need to jumpstart your hormones. You’re way behind,” one of them notes. Jane is equally misunderstood at home. Her mother, Janice (Stockard Channing), is prone to pronouncements like  “Everyone wants a sweet sixteen party!” (“Everyone but me,” Jane replies.) When she asks if there are any cute boys at school, Jane has little to report.

And then one day, in Ms. Walcott’s class, it happens: Jane finds someone attractive. It’s Taylor (Alicia Lagano), a new transfer student, who she quickly befriends—and who eventually flirts with her. “She was different. Smarter, wiser. Maybe it was just because she wasn’t from here. But maybe it was just her.” They’d exchanged about seven words by then, but no matter: Jane’s hormones have finally been activated.

Their friendship deepens, but Taylor has trouble at home with an abusive mother. On the days she’s absent from school, Jane withdraws into a depression. “It’s just growing pains, Mom,” she assures Janice. Janice is one of those typical mothers who confidently says “You know you can tell me anything,” but her daughter harbors obvious suspicions. She keeps mum after kissing Taylor for the first (and second and third) time, other than to ask herself “Did this make me gay?”

Overprotective Janice bristles at feeling rejected in favor of Taylor, and takes to complaining about Jane to husband Robert (James Naughton). “She’s not dating. She’s almost 16, for God’s sake. She should be going out with boys, she should be giving us a heart attack by now.” Robert, whose parenting style is decidedly less smothering, jokingly expresses a universal fatherly sentiment: “I’d prefer if Jane never dated a boy for as long as she lived. You know what boys want.”

Alas, girls are no different, and Jane soon sleeps with Taylor before she’s emotionally ready. This causes the usual angst, and a perfunctory breakup when Jane struggles to come to terms with her sexuality. “First of all, it doesn’t make you gay,” Taylor argues about their encounter. Later, she rejects Jane’s inaugural attempt at reconciliation: “I want to be with people who are sure they want to be with me.” Jane spills her woes to Ms. Walcott, giving her the outline of the story without naming her partner, or their gender.

“In our first sexual experience, we sometimes invest ourselves wisely and sometimes foolishly, and it doesn’t matter which. Because in the end, the investment’s the same,” her teacher gently counsels. For all the ways the world has changed since 2000—namely, every kid in existence seems to self-identify as LGBTQ+ these days, regardless of whether they actually are—Ms. Walcott’s plight, that of a publicly closeted teacher, remains frozen in time.

When rumors begin circulating about Jane and Taylor (courtesy of Jane’s shithead younger brother, Brad), and after they’ve reunited and then split for good, Ms. Walcott again comforts a crying Jane. “What happened?” she asks. “I’m gay and everyone hates me,” Jane cries, followed by “I just want to die. You don’t understand.” But, oh, she does, and she shares her story with an amazed Jane before adding, of her sexuality, “But nobody knows, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone.” (Rowan serves a little Miss Honey wish-fulfillment realness in the role; who wouldn’t have wanted a teacher like that?)

With all the “Don’t Say Gay” distractions currently dominating our idiotic public discourse, it feels particularly regrettable to acknowledge that Ms. Walcott would be in as much jeopardy now as she was then. When Jane slips up and mentions Ms. Walcott’s lesbianism to her parents, Janice—who has taken news of Jane’s orientation less than graciously—goes ballistic, threatening to have her fired. Not only does this cause a massive mother-daughter rift, Janice’s behavior angers other family and friends (including gay pal Jimmy, played by RuPaul).

In a typical exchange with her husband, Janice says “We have to do something, Bobby. The world is not a tolerant place. Her life could be ruined!” He advises her to stay calm and she grows defensive. “What are you saying, that’s it OK for her to be gay?” she asks. He tells her no, that’s not what he’s saying; he had all the same marriage and grandchildren hopes that she did. “I don’t want my child to be gay. But she’s our daughter, and we have to find a way to help her through this,” Robert continues. Janice defiantly responds, “I’m not gonna help her through it. I’m not gonna help her become a lesbian!”

How does a parent help their child become a lesbian? Circa 2000, I suppose you might’ve gifted her Birkenstocks and a Melissa Ferrick album. Some of us (present company included) would’ve rejected such overtures, while others (such as my granola wife) would’ve been over the moon. Anyway, I’ll leave the rest of Janice’s hateful comments for you to discover yourself. Nor will I spoil what finally gets Jane’s parents to dislodge their heads from their asses. But I’ll tell you that one of my favorite moments occurred when Janice is dragged to a PFLAG meeting.

She keeps vowing to “get better,” and works the meetings like it’s AA. (That her egregious hatefulness was almost treated like an addiction to overcome amused me the second time around.) Her first time out, she’s greeted by a pleasant woman who introduces herself thusly: “Hi, welcome to PFLAG! I’m Dorothy, and my son is a power bottom gay.” Then there are the film’s best exchanges, those that Jane and Janice separately have with Jimmy. RuPaul gives a patient performance in what amounts to a 90-minute PSA, and in fact most of the acting’s quite good.

Muth, Naughton, and Rowan all work well together, and Jenny O’Hara, as another of Janice’s exasperated friends, is always a treat. Alicia Lagano sells the worldly, underwritten Taylor, but she and Ellen Muth lack chemistry—and have distractingly long fingernails. Casting a gay icon like Channing as a homophobe is amusing in its own right, but she comfortably anchors The Truth About Jane and lends it some prestige. Around this time she also played Judy Shepard in The Matthew Shepard Story, and a gay man’s wife in Jack. But if you want a weird gay-without-gayness Channing double feature, I recommend pairing The Girl Most Likely to… with The Business of Strangers.

Programming Note: Mother’s Day Marathon

This review is part of our 2022 Mother’s Day Marathon feature. We’ll add more films throughout the week and you can click here for more information.

Streaming and DVD availability

The Truth About Jane is available on DVD as part of a Lifetime triple feature, and was previously released as a standalone disc. You can also stream it at Amazon, where it’s available to rent or purchase, or stream it for free (with ads) on Tubi.

^{Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.}

… But wait, there’s more!

When I first watched The Truth About Jane in 2000, I was a high schooler myself: 17-years-old and newly out to my parents. (I started coming out to others three years prior to that.) They didn’t take it poorly; mostly they were upset I hadn’t told them sooner. Their biggest heartbreak, they claimed, was that they couldn’t protect me from other people’s ignorance. I said there was, in fact, something they could do to protect gay youth: They could bring their politics into alignment with their values.

My parents were outspoken Republicans then, who blithely ignored the social ramifications of their votes by calling themselves “fiscal conservatives.” We clashed constantly during George W. Bush’s first term in office. When we had vicious arguments about issues like gay marriage bans, my respect for them was reduced to nothing. “Gay marriage is one issue,” they would say. “We can’t change our vote over one issue.” The diminishment I felt as a person, and the outrage as their daughter, put tremendous emotional distance between us.

In 2004, they reluctantly voted for John Kerry. By 2008, they were more than happy to lose friendships over their support of me—and of Barack Obama. My dad said our arguments made him reevaluate his positions, which he came to feel were indefensible. (It wasn’t only about gay marriage; we also bitterly clashed over the invasion of Iraq.) By the time one of my younger siblings came out to them, they were model PFLAG parents without the PFLAG affiliation. 

My family’s story had a satisfying resolution. My parents later provided emotional support to several gay teens and adults whose homophobic families rejected them. Still, I’d be lying if I said those formative experiences haven’t left my relationship with them more complicated than the bond they share with my lesbian sister. She recognizes that and has even thanked me for breaking down walls that made life easier for her. (Younger siblings rarely thank you for anything, so that was rather meaningful.)

Altogether, I recognize how fortunate I was. Plenty of other gay kids had it much worse, including my wife, whose story isn’t mine to tell. When we got married, our parents were all in attendance—though hers sought permission from a religious authority first and would’ve no-showed if that was the order they received. We walked down the aisle together while our fathers watched from their seats, a quiet nod to roads we had traveled alone years earlier, as teenagers like Jane.