The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

If you're like me, you snicker at ads for movies on the Lifetime channel because they're dripping with melodrama and cheese and because you've been subjected to many dinners with your mother in which she meticulously recounts the plots of the Lifetime flicks that she has had the pleasure of seeing. (They all seem to involve abusive husbands, missing children, or Valerie Bertinelli -- or all of the above.)

Well, I just saw the trailer for Lifetime's upcoming small-screen adaptation of the book, Prayers for Bobby (which Eric Marcus blogged about earlier this year), and the movie indeed seems to be just oozing with emotionally wrought scenes. But you know what? The trailer made me cry. Like a little bitch. Damn you, Sigourney Weaver! Damn you, Lifetime!

Prayers for Bobby tells the story of a mother's transformation from homophobe to hero after her gay son commits suicide. The filmmakers can layer the movie with all the violin strings they want, but the alternately tragic and inspirational true events depicted here, on their own, carry an undeniable power and weight that will surely have a deep effect on gay people -- especially those who came from religious backgrounds, who faced opposition within their families while growing up, or who have ever contemplated suicide.

Prayers for Bobby, which stars Sigourney Weaver, premieres January 24, 2009, on Lifetime. View the trailer:

Maybe my mom and I will make a night of it?

[If the video cannot be viewed, go here.]