Human beings love stories; the great stories take us to distant places and help us put ourselves in the shoes of characters very different from us. Film and television define and shape the culture of the time, acting as a mirror to society and often leaving the audience with a message. Characters are the vessels for storytelling, offering profound insights into human nature and society in general. This is why representation is important.
We have already seen an increase in such content with innovative shows such as Fleabag, Atlanta, Sex Education, Grace and Frankie, Modern Family, which explored topics such as femininity, sexual assault, sexuality, growth, with a sensitive, inclusive understanding. and aware. But today we want to remind you of POSE, a great little Netflix masterpiece, a TV series that deals with the most intimate issues of the LGBT world in an innovative way. Pose, an innovative TV series
The POSE TV series follows the lives of trans and gay characters, with a significant role of Broadway star Billy Porter playing Pray Tell, the ballroom host who later discovers he is HIV-positive and Elektra Abundance, played by Dominique Jackson, the indomitable mother of the House of Abundance. The show builds an inside out perspective on queer life, with queer and trans people at the center of their stories. This is groundbreaking, because until now, the portrayal of queer characters has been marred by fetishization or objectification – a kind of outsider or cisgender-heterosexual point of view. POSE effectively seeks to reverse this trend by highlighting every important aspect of the queer experience during the late 1980s.The inclusiveness behind the
POSE TV show is a TV series created by Ryan Murphy with Steven Canals (who wrote and proposed it to 167 executives and was rejected by everyone before meeting Murphy) and Brad Falchuk . It features the largest cast of transgender actors in the history of written television. Murphy made sure that the involvement of transgender people wasn’t limited to just the screen; he employed large numbers of trans people behind the camera as well to allow trans people of color to tell their stories and build credibility and authenticity in the show’s message.
POSE writer / director / producer and transgender rights activist Janet Mock has been named one of the show’s leading architects, making her the first trans woman of color to write, produce and direct an episode on the television network. The dancers and participants in the show’s dance scene are also people who are an active part of contemporary dance culture. This allowed POSE to maintain authenticity and ingenuity in its narrative, recreating the dance scene with the same effervescence and energy that one can expect to hear in a real dance. Poses and the celebration of humanity
From the grandeur and glory of the dances, to the heartbreaking portrayals of the innate fear with which gays and transs lived at a time when the community suffered from various hardships – the prevalence and stigmatization of HIV and AIDS, mismanagement by government, the growing number of deaths within the community as a result of it, violence against and killing trans black women (especially prostitutes), the rise of the Trump era and white America, and the its contrast with the lives of queer people who were constantly struggling to find their place in society – POSE is not based on the evocation of emotions such as pity; portrays the grit, resilience and struggle that every show character embodies, which is the very essence of queer power.
The show highlights themes such as family and ‘sister’ values ​​within the community, the personal lives of trans people, their desires and experiences in relationships, their relationships with their bodies (with many wanting foreign exchange transactions). gender). The LGBT world in the show
The representation of trans characters on television and in the cinema has been limited by the male gaze. They are often treated as objects of mockery or entertainment, and are deprived of their stories of authenticity, sincerity and honesty.
Every so often, however, a work of art arrives, a TV show, a film that manages to transport its viewers to a new place, a different era, representing characters with different social and cultural identities and doing it in the right way.
POSE by FX (streaming on Netflix) is one such American television series, a period drama focusing on the LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming African American and Latin ballroom cultural scene of New York City of the 1980s and 1990s. The culture of LGBT “Balls”
The culture of dance, drag culture, ballroom scene or house culture and the African-American and Latin LGBTQ + underground subculture, originating in New York City, in which people parade for trophies or awards at events known as “Balls”.
The events are divided into different categories that mix dance, performance, lip-syncing and modeling. The origin of the “balls” culture is the result of the lack of acceptance that the LGBT community has suffered in society. It is a symbol of challenge and urgency, a declaration of claiming space.
It all began at the end of the nineteenth century, when members of the LGBTQ + undergroun community began organizing masked balls called “drags” to defy laws that prohibited individuals from wearing clothes assigned to the opposite sex.
Most of the members were Latin Americans and African Americans which eventually led to the dance culture to include gays, lesbians and trans. Racial discrimination within the dance culture that existed in the 1920s, and that is what prompted black and Latino individuals to form their own dances.
Most members of the LGBTQ + community are often disowned by their families at a young age, and therefore suffer from ostracization and homelessness.
The homes serve as alternative families, made up mostly of Latin and black LGBTQ people, providing shelter, safety and family comfort to those who have been driven out of their homes. They are led by “mothers” and “fathers”, usually older members of the dance scene, who provide them with support and shelter. The “children” of the house adopt the name of the house as their surname.
Stella Grillo
