On Binge: FX's POSE

by Gelo Salanga

Tens, Tens, Tens Across the Board!

As prolific as television's current gold man Ryan Murphy, POSE, his newest outing after the successful American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace and Feud: Bette and Joan, is likewise could be the gold TV series everyone should be talking about; but why are people sleeping on Murphy's sincerest and most insightful show yet?

POSE, is set against the backdrop of 1980's New York ball culture as it follows the lives of different personalities entwined in the growing convolutions of Trump business-era Wall Street lifestyles, transgender and queer acceptability, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the subversive driven night scene of the ball culture that celebrates creative fantasies, freedom of movement, identity expressions, escapism, and family.  Blanca (played  by the amazing Mj Rodriguez), a transgendered woman, upon finding herself out to be HIV positive left the House of Abundance and its mother, Elektra Abundance (Dominique Jackson), to form her lifelong dream of having her own chosen family to be known as the House of Evangelista in the ball culture. She took in Angel (Indya Moore), Damon (Ryan Jamaal Swain), Ricky (Dyllon Burnside), and Lil Papi (Angel Bismark Curiel) whose lives deal with various experiences on dreams, pain, success, disappointments, and self-discovery. Peter Evans and Kate Mara parallels the story arc as the young suburban white couple Stan and Patty Bowes working in the upper middle class and elite business world of the 1980's New York while the fabulous Billy Porter lends his magic as Pray Tell- the grand emcee of the ball events.

Though visible direct references to Jennie Livingston's 1991 documentary Paris is Burning and the massive pop culture phenom RuPaul's Drag Race, POSE stands as a triumphant display of courage and careful sensibility. To feature a whole subculture world that up until now has only been minimally depicted in mainstream media, POSE does not only introduces the audience to the underpinnings of the culture that birthed to witty catchphrases and voguing but more importantly has given great visibility to transgendered and queer actors (8 mainstays in total and could feature up to 50 for the series) whose plight for acceptance has still since need great advancements; also to educate and shed light on the touchy subject of HIV/AIDS has made POSE as not only an entertaining drama but one that can actually impact the way most of us live, interact, and respect one another.

Do not take this as another LGBTQ+ centered show, whilst one can easily fall to the uber glamorous and glossy treatment of the show in its production, fashions, and catchy writing, the themes presented are universal- stories of love, of belongingness, of survival, of acceptance, of family, and of self-worth. Beautifully written, immensely brilliantly performed, and astonishingly culturally sensitive, POSE is the show on TV that will make your heart melt. Multi-gendered, multi-racial, multi-cultural, and multi-layered- people need to stop sleeping on this show and start to POSE!