“Mississippi Queen” Takes Us Home

In Mississippi Queen, Paige Williams travels across the country and through the years exploring the distance between her upbringing – growing up a good Baptist girl in the deep South – and her current lifestyle as an out lesbian married to another woman. It is a documentary that charts her mission to find much needed answers regarding her parents, the community in which she was raised, and the relationship between religion and homosexuality. Here, Cherry Grrl discusses with Williams the process behind making her very unique film and why it is something that all members of the LGBT community, in all areas of the country, can relate to.

Cherry Grrl (CG): What made you decide to make this documentary?
Paige Williams (PW): I needed to go home and ask some hard questions of my ex-gay minister parents, Judy and Jerry. For years, having moved away from Mississippi to Montana, they have been involved in Love in Action -  an ex gay residential treatment facility – and I wanted to know why they had begun their own ministry and what they did. I was also curious about the people who were ex-gay.

CG: How long had you been developing the idea prior to when filming began and what was the time period over which the entire process took place?
PW: I decided to do the film in March of 2007 and by May we were in Mississippi and surrounding states shooting. We continued to shoot for a year and completed the edit in Fall of 2008. I had written a screenplay loosely based on the ex-gay ministry and a prodigal daughter returning home to the South in 2005, so I suppose the idea, in some sense, had begun a couple of years before.

CG: Did you have a lot of experience in filmmaking prior to Mississippi Queen and if so how was this experience of dealing with such personal material different for you in terms of your approach?
PW: I went to The University of Montana and received a MFA in digital filmmaking and a MA in directing in 2005. My primary focus was making fiction films and directing plays.  Having graduated, I began a production company, Porch Productions http://www.porchproductions.net. Going home to shoot a film about myself and my family was a different direction than I had ever gone and I certainly learned a lot through the process. I had to protect the characters more than in fiction.  And I was sure to not make anything up in the edit.  I was also aware that if I leaned too left, the subjects would shut down and the point of the film would not get across to those who need to see it.  Since Mississippi Queen, I have begun work on three different documentaries – they are contagious. I am finding that in many cases, filming real people and their stories can be more entertaining and intriguing than fiction, but harder when it’s your own story.

CG: What was it like for you to live in Mississippi as a gay teen?
PW: I loved growing up in Mississippi. There is a richness of culture that I really didn’t grasp the depths of until I moved away.  However, coming out of the closet (or being outed as the case was) in a devout Southern Baptist family and friend circle was devastating. I felt that my world and everything I had known had been turned upside down. It was definitely an allegory of the cave moment. And it took years to rebuild those relationships and heal from the terrible things that happened.  It also redefined and reshaped my ideas on Protestants, God, and Christianity.

CG: Do you think that life is any easier now for a gay teen in the South than it was when you were growing up there and if so in what ways?
PW: Maybe. I think it depends on where in the South you are talking about. It’s probably easier in the larger cities but in rural towns where church is the daily or weekly social function, I doubt it.  I think many families struggle with it all over. But particularly in the South, where Jesus is as common as sweet tea, it’s probably still damn hard and will be for many, many years.

CG: Was it difficult for you to get your parents involved in the film?
PW: The idea sounded good to them I believe. But once we were there with cameras, lights, action, it got hard.  My extremely hospitable parents turned cold, nervous, and unsure. And we had to relive the trust issues. In many ways, it was like coming out again.

CG: What was your relationship with them like prior to filming and in what ways has it changed since?
PW: When they first found out at 17 that I was gay, they flipped. Mom was out chasing me and my girlfriend with a gun. (I mean really, you can’t make this stuff up.) Once I moved to Montana at 22, they found Love In Action and began to realize that they would never change me, they could only change themselves. From that realization, my mom has told me that she is grateful that I am gay because it led her closer to Jesus. Whatever I can do to help, right? She has come a long way. My father realized that he was being judgmental and that wasn’t his place. Through their discoveries and our ability to forgive one another, we have healed and formed a more honest and loving relationship than we had before.

When we went to shoot the film, I found out some pretty harsh things I had never heard – like that my mom had at one time wished that one of us were dead rather than dealing with the fact that she had a gay daughter. That hurt and it took me some time to recover from some of the things I was told in production.  When we first went to shoot I was pregnant and by the time I went back to shoot more my son was here and it seemed our joint love for him had healed those old wounds once again.

CG: What were your main goals with the film?
PW: My greatest desire for the film is to start a dialogue on both sides of the fence lessening our relationship barriers enabling us to deal with those in our lives we love but don’t agree with.

CG: What was the most difficult or challenging part about the project for you?
PW: Facing my parents alone and asking the tough questions. Pregnant. Then having to process that information over and over in the editing room. Eventually, I became numb to the words because I was hearing it all of the time.

CG: What would you say is the most valuable thing that you came away with from making the film?
PW: That one voice can make a difference.

CG: What do you hope your film tells people about homosexuality and the atmosphere for the LGBT community in the deep South?
PW: That my family in some ways is your family and the issue isn’t about if homosexuality is right or wrong – the issue is how to love one another, regardless.

CG: What would your advice be to a young lesbian facing the challenges that you once faced with your family in terms of how to overcome it?
PW: Give your parents as much empathy as you want them to give you. And know that sometimes we have to be the adults, sitting our parents down and saying, “I love you. How are we going to handle this without destroying our relationship?”

CG: Where can people view your documentary?
PW: It is currently on the festival circuit. Request it from your local film festival.  Hopefully it will be picked up. If it doesn’t, we plan on self distributing.

CG: Do you have any other projects in development that would be of interest to the lesbian community?
PW: I’ve decided to complete that screenplay I mentioned earlier.  It will be a film about a southerner returning home, meeting a potential interest, finding out she is ex-gay and the twists and turns that ensue.  It will probably be easier to make than Mississippi Queen. Sometimes fiction is easier than truth.

CG: What is the most important thing that you hope people learn from your film?
PW: To love people regardless of differences.

To learn more about Mississippi Queen visit www.msqueenmovie.com and/or www.myspace.com/msqueendocumentary.