Sarah Paulson buys out cinema screening of trans film Monica so people could see it for free
Sarah Paulson has subtly proved she’s a huge trans ally. (Getty/Leon Bennett)
Queer American Horror Story actress Sarah Paulson is bringing on-screen trans representation to the people of America – by buying them tickets to see lauded LGBTQ+ film Monica.
Paulson is many things. She’s one of our generation’s best-loved scream queens. She is an endless supply of meme content. She is Pedro Pascal’s saving grace and she is the definition of couple goals every time she posts about her long-term partner, fellow actress Holland Taylor.
And she’s also an unflinching trans ally.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Paulson decided to purchase all tickets to a showing of Monica at the Violet Crown Cinema in the Texan city to enable people to watch the film free of charge.
Monica features Trace Lysette in the titular role as a transgender woman living in the America midwest, who returns to her childhood home to care for her dying mother – the woman who kicked her out when she came out as trans.
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year, before gracing the BFI Flare Festival London. It has a score of 87 out of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes.
According to the film’s co-writer and director Andrea Pallaoro, it’s based on a true story, and hopes to explore the complexities of abandonment and trauma within the LGBTQ+ community.
“I was aware from the very beginning there was the opportunity to tell a trans story in a way that we are not used to. We are not focusing on the transition or exile but what it means to reconcile and forgive,” Pallaoro exclusively told PinkNews earlier this year.
According to David Gil, the marketing director at Violet Crown Cinema, Paulson offered to pay for all the tickets after she learnt that the film was being exclusively shown in Dallas.
Gil told The Dallas Morning News that while Paulson didn’t join the cinema audience, she had contacted Monica’s distribution company IFC Films to sponsor the screening.
Sarah Paulson is yet to reveal why she made the decision to pay for the tickets but enabling the people of Texas, which has recently pushed through a string of anti-trans legislation, to see a trans-led film, that’s mother behaviour.
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