Pose (2018-Present)

Color me impressed at another Ryan Murphy project that, so far, has exemplified a lot of his positive qualities as a creator while sidestepping most of his less-entertaining ones. Pose has a different feel than most of Ryan Murphy’s work that I’ve consumed, and it’s heartening to see him embracing the value of voices not his own that resonate more deeply with his subject matter.

Set in the 1980s amid the height of the AIDS crisis, Pose explores the lives of the Black and brown queer community involved in New York’s ball culture. When Blanca gets out from under the thumb of Elektra, her domineering “house mother,” she sets out to start her own house, cultivating a talented group of young people to walk the balls and create a found family of her own. The flamboyant drama and rivalry of the balls are juxtaposed with the fight of this community to survive the epidemic and carve out a place for themselves in a world that doesn’t want them.

Before I get too far into things, I want to comment that, in certain respects, Pose does remind me of Glee, in moments that inevitably make me chuckle. Elektra is positioned as every inch a glamorous Black trans Sue Sylvester against Blanca’s earnest Will Schuester, House Evangelista is totally the New Directions, and whenever the judges give the scores at the balls, they follow a very Glee-ish convention of priming you for who’s going to win by always saving their scores for last. All that is totally goofy.

On the whole, though, Pose blends its camp, heart, and drama pretty well, digging into the lives of the assorted house members and (for the most part) allowing them to be full, complex people. After playing around with the Very Special Episode-style trans narratives on Glee, Murphy’s take on trans lives is much more nuanced this time around. Trans women, including trans women of color, are present both onscreen and in the writers’ room. The women on the show deal with romance drama, ball rivalries, employment discrimination, AIDS activism, family rifts, life dreams, and more, all while looking fierce and walking the balls like Amazons. In and amongst their stories are those of the Black and brown queer men who coexist with them, whose own lives are given the same multi-dimensional treatment. Season 1 features a bizarre side plot involving characters played by Evan Peters, Kata Mara, and James Van Der Beek, but by season 2, that narrative has been jettisoned in favor of letting all these characters we rarely get to see on TV remain firmly center stage.

I really enjoy sinking into the whole environment of the show. I knew very little about ball culture going in, so getting a dramatized look into that world is super cool, and the show also explores that period of the AIDS crisis in a way that maintains the grimness and tragedy without sacrificing the life – the HIV+ characters on the show, as well as those who love them, are all weighed down by the sheer volume of funerals they’re going to every year, and they get tested and look into the eyes of patients on the AIDS ward like emaciated specters of the future, but they also take part in dramatic Act Up protests and fight like hell to live their lives as long as they can.

All kinds of strong acting, mostly from actors I wasn’t familiar with before getting into this show. The one actor I did really know was Broadway’s Billy Porter (from Kinky Boots,) who plays Pray Tell, the fabulous master of ceremonies for the central ball. Porter is excellent, bringing quips and drama with equal aplomb, and the show finds multiple excuses for him to sing. I love Mj Rodriguez’s fierce, determined Blanca, who creates her family through sheer force of will and who will do anything for her children. Really, all the Evangelistas bring it – I really like Indya Moore as Angel, Ryan Jamaal Swain and Dyllon Burnside offer up a nice young romance as Damon and Ricky, and I have a soft spot for Angel Bismarck Curiel’s Lil Papi. It’s cool to be introduced to so many actors I’d never seen before and watch them shine.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, sexual content, violence (including transphobic hate crimes,) language (including homophobic and transphobic slurs,) and drinking/smoking/drug use.