Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Steven Canals bring to life a glamorous and important show centered around the New York ballroom scene of the '80s. "Pose" introduces a new world towards the mainstream eye of television, as "RuPaul's Drag Race" hints at the ballroom scene with phrases such as "shade," "reading," "balls," and "category is...," "Pose" grants you the full experience of the ballroom scene, and the hustle it takes to manage it. Ryan Murphy has created a groundbreaking LGBTQIA+ show that allows cis, white America to be exposed to an LGBT+ history lesson and the obstacles multiple queer and trans people of color had to go through within the 1980s.
The show features the largest number of trans regulars ever in a cast on a television show, as well as the writers/producers such as Janet Mock, Our Lady J, and Silas Howard. The lead in the series is centered around Blanca (MJ Rodriguez) a transgendered woman recently diagnosed with HIV with an infectious strive to leave a legendary legacy. Blanca's determination to leave a legacy is led by her goal to create her own "house" at the beginning of the show after leaving the House of Abundance, led by house mother Elektra Abundance (Dominique Jackson).
Houses in ballroom culture contribute to chosen families usually led by a "house mother" who is the person who adopted the members into their family and takes the matriarchal role of the "mother". Members of houses were mostly queer and trans people of color, whom all committed to the balls, in which each member of a house competes in a set of categories (Face, Butch Queen, Executive Realness, Opulence, Vogueing, and many more) which takes place on a runway or club space of some sort and the person that delivers the best performance matching the category gets a trophy.
"Pose" also has an extremely authentic narrative, as it tackles race issues within the LGBT+ community, sexually complex stories, and the HIV epidemic of the '80s and the severity of it. The LGBT+ community may be a safe space in a narrow eye, but there are much more severity and internal homophobia rooted into the community which is represented extremely well on "Pose". A scene involving two transgendered women of color walking into a gay bar (filled with mostly white gay men) are demanded to leave after the bartender claims that they don't like "women" in the bar, and exhibits transphobia and racism even though they are part of the same (safe space) community.
These acts are also forms of internal homophobia and toxic masculinity usually guided by generic shallow gay (mostly white) men with some sort of shame towards feminity and unconventional beauty standards. Sadly, even in the LGBT+ community, it can be inclusive, judgemental and segregated. These issues can also be connected to the sexually complex stories in "Pose" specifically between a transgendered woman of color and a white cis (married) man.
The irony of having the only two white leads be two white men (Evan Peters and James Van Der Beek) of power working at the "Trump Tower" just embraces the representation of white privilege that was evident in the late 1980s. As one of the characters has a bigoted mindset, sexually harassing his co-workers based on his entitlement of being a white man in power, while the other character has a soft spot for a specific trans character and what once started as a fetish for transgendered women turns into a flourish of raw emotions and an intense connection obstructed by being married with kids and working a prestige job. This act of white businessmen who are married (with/without kids) turning to street looking for trans sex workers was a recurring thing in the 1980s but it has never been represented on television as authentically as it is in "Pose," making it foreign to the public eye and showing a new side in history to multiple viewers.
The show deals with the HIV epidemic of the late '80s and how devastating of a time it was. With the lead character being diagnosed with HIV, she allows herself to not be too impacted by her diagnosis and rather uses it to fuel her ambitious drive. This specific topic in the show is extremely important for the public, its a reminder to always stay safe and to understand what people of the LGBT+ had to go through just to have an active and safe sex life. There is a wide stigma around HIV-AIDS, claiming it to be a slow death sentence, and this may have been the case in the late '80s, but in recent years there have been multiple treatments and medications allowing people with HIV to thrive and live a healthy and successful lifestyle no matter the diagnosis. "Pose" shows how severe the epidemic was decades ago, and how the characters deal with their relationships and loss because of it.
"Pose" is one of the most gorgeous and educational shows on television today. It ranges from the glamour and beauty of gorgeous transgendered and queer people of color in the ballroom scene to the authentic and raw struggles they have to go in everyday life to keep themselves alive.
