Pop icon Jennifer Lopez spoke about inspiring queer kids through her new film, Kiss of the Spider Woman.
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The movie, which just premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, has been receiving rave reviews from various publications. In her review of Kiss of the Spider Woman, Mey Rude wrote for Out that the film is a "queer musical triumph."
Following the premiere, Lopez opened up about queer kids dressing up like her character in a clip shared by Variety.
"It's not weird at all," the singer and actress said. "It's one of the things I understood about the role that I think maybe other actors couldn't; understanding what you mean to your fans when you sing music, when you do movies. You mean something to them, and you have a relationship with them, where they save you and you save them. But they're also doing it for you."
Kiss of the Spider Woman is a movie musical starring Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna, and Tonatiuh that "focuses on two prisoners in an Argentinian prison in 1983. Luna plays Valentin, a Marxist revolutionary, and Tonatiuh (he/they) plays Molina, a gender-nonconforming window dresser arrested for public indecency with a man."
"Molina starts to tell Valentin the plot of her favorite movie, Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring her favorite actress, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez)," Rude writes in her review. "Imagining themselves in the other roles of the film, Molina and Valentin learn about each other, love, and the revolutionary power of seeing each other as human beings. What Valentin doesn't know is that Molina has been sent into his cell to seduce him and extract important information about the resistance." Rude's review declares that "Lopez was born to play this role. She looks like an immortal star stepping out of the 1950s and into today," and her "acting soars to new heights and elevates the musical overall."
Lopez's character in the film helps Molina stay alive, and Lopez relates to her real-life fans and shares how her fans have even helped her get her own tribulations in life.
"They don't even understand that sometimes, how they get you through things that are so difficult," she told Variety. "They are always telling you, 'You got me through this, you got me through that.' Understanding Molina's relationship with Ingrid Luna, like 'you helped me survive my life.'"
Lopez has worked on many queer projects over the years, such as producing Freeform's groundbreaking TV series The Fosters and a short film about her transgender relative.
Kiss of the Spider Woman is expected to have a wider release later this year.
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