Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 6 June 2018
Creator of 'Pose' says FX show celebrates 'incredible souls'

By MARK KENNEDY There is also a social-
NEW YORK (AP) — In the climbing businessman
premiere episode of the (Evan Peters) who falls in
new FX series "Pose," a love with Angel (Indya
young black man hoping Moore), a transgender
to be a star modern dancer prostitute. And there's Billy
is escorted into his first drag Porter, winner of a Tony
ball. Wild-eyed, he eagerly Award for wearing 34-inch
soaks it in. It quite literally red leather boots in "Kinky
makes him speechless. Boots," who plays the balls'
In front of him are members organizer and MC.
of his fellow LGBTQ Porter, who was studying
community dressed in at Carnegie Mellon in 1987,
high-fashion finery, strutting said he never expected to
down a runway with see his own story on national
fierce glamour and arch television. He called it "the
confidence as their friends greatest job of his life" and
cheer. It is 1987 in a gritty hopes people will tune in to
part of New York hit hard open their minds.
by crack and AIDS, and yet "Americans didn't watch
this is an act of defiance. 'Will & Grace' because it
"We are not going to be was about gay people.
walking the red carpet at They watched it because
the Oscars but this is our it was good. They watched
moment to become a it because it was great,"
star," our aspiring dancer is he said. "If you get an
told by his escort. "Balls are education, so be it. If you
a gathering of people who don't, it's still great."
are not welcome to gather If anything, "Pose" is an
anywhere else." This image released by FX shows Indya Moore as Angel in a scene from the new series "Pose," education into the world
"Pose," which airs Sundays, airing Sundays on FX. and language that
dreamed up by newcomer Associated Press would go on to influence
Steven Canals and ushered Madonna, the seminal
into production by mega- celebrated on TV before, "The fact that this incredible and the universal yearning 1990 documentary "Paris
producer Ryan Murphy, starring the largest LGBTQ community of black and to create a family. Is Burning," and "RuPaul's
acts as our escort into a cast ever for a scripted brown queer and trans "It needed to be Drag Race." (The slang
world that has never been series. people could find a way aspirational and hopeful, "throwing shade" comes
to create community because we've never seen from ballroom culture.)
and family and survive in people like this occupy Fans of the 1980s will also
the face of poverty and space in television, ever. enjoy songs from the era,
disease and violence just We didn't want to create including Kate Bush's
astounded me," he said. this bleak, baroque version "Running Up That Hill,"
"So 'Pose' really came out of New York," said Canals. Whitney Houston's "I Wanna
of not only wanting to "And yet we still wanted to Dance With Somebody"
write a love letter about be true to the time period. and Chaka Khan's "Ain't
New York but also a way to So we made sure that we Nobody."
just pay homage to these centered and grounded Someone who appeared in
incredible souls." the narrative in the theme an early draft of the series
Canals, who was born in the of family and ambition and but who didn't make the
South Bronx, came across survival." final cut is, of all people,
the balls in his 20s and wrote The response so far has Donald J. Trump. The writers
the original draft of "Pose" been very warm. The had flirted with the idea of
in 2014 while working on New York Times called it portraying the real estate
his master's at UCLA. When a "boisterous, resplendent mogul as a symbol of the
he tried to get it made, he drama," while NBC called greed-is-good Manhattan
faced plenty of resistance it "the best network family of the late 1980s. They
from TV executives. drama of 2018." Variety backed down, but still show
"There were execs who were said: "There's simply never Trump Tower, where James
just blatantly transphobic been a show on TV quite Van Der Beek plays a coke-
and racist, who were like, like 'Pose.'" sniffing, amoral executive.
'The show is too queer, too The drama contains "If we made Donald Trump
trans, too black, too brown, multiple overlapping stories, a character and centered
it's a period piece, and you including the ballroom him in that way then it was
don't have a name so no rivalry between two houses just going to suck energy
one is ever going to make run by two very different from what the narrative is
this.'" den mothers (Mj Rodriguez truly about," said Canals.
While some of the topics and Dominique Jackson). "The reality is that there are
are heavy — drugs, AIDS Ryan Jamaal Swain plays still folks who are living in
and even anti-trans bigotry the dancer who is thrown poverty (and) there are still
at the hands of white gay out by his parents for being folks who are dealing with
men — the creators have gay and learns about this the fallout of choices that
built the series on optimism subculture. he has made."q