Miss Lola Rose: Mom On New York City

by Ivan Vargas

Lola Rose Abrams is the mother any gay man would kill to have. She has the elegance and the poise of a queen, the voice of a jazz singer, but at the same time she can and will go into language that would make the character of Samantha Jones blush. Just because. That, however, is what has made people gravitate to her for several years now: her unabashed frankness and how she lays it all down the line whether you like it or not. She verbalizes what we think, and by laughter she makes us react.

(video and more after the break)



I "met" Miss Lola about three years ago when her daughter Jill Abrams, author of "The Myth, the Muse, and the Meshuga" who is also a documentarian, came out with a short film where she interviewed her about what she felt about having two gay children (Jill and Tod Abrams, producer of "The Mostly Unfabulous Life of Ethan Green" where Lola has a small part near the beginning as a nosy neighbor). It was one of the most moving and fascinating videos I've ever seen because she served as a Voice for mothers all around who could be going through the same experience at that same moment in time, who had felt they had no Voice to express the initial suspicion turning into surprise, anger, frustration, worry, fear, and ultimately acceptance and love, because after all, a mother's love is everything. "Mom On Her Two Gay Kids" went viral with views that shot through the roof. Then, right before Gay Pride 2008, it got removed by the censors of YouTube who banned it on "inappropriate content".

People ferociously complained and demanded its reinstatement---how dare YouTube remove a video that focused on a mother reacting to having gay children? It was comparable to the recent removal of a photo of two men kissing on Facebook---mind you, two fully dressed men, not nude or near-nude, where the owner of the picture was threatened to be permanently "terminated" as thousands of straight profiles featured pictures of a man and a woman kissing. Freedom of speech must not be curtailed. The video-blog featuring Miss Lola was reinstated, but made people wonder if YouTube might have a slight homophobic slant.

Since then, Mom On Her Two Gay Kids has gone global, popping up even on obscure pages, blogs, and online zines.

Recently Miss Lola Rose returned to the Big Apple with Jill on her side who filmed her as she walked the lanes of Central Park and here she gives us the viewer a pretty colorful view of what it's like to be in New York City anytime of the year, complete with her trademark expletives. No toddlers were harmed of emotionally scarred during the filming of this video.