spotlight They really liked my writing and thought that the
ball world and the characters were interesting, but no one was really interested in putting actual money behind it. More often than not, questions from execs would say, “I think this project is too niche” and “I don’t know who the audience for this is” or “I don’t know where a show like this will live.” It wasn’t until I met one of our executive producers, Sherry Marsh, who said, “I absolutely see value in this story so let’s tell that story together,” and she eventually introduced me to Ryan Murphy. The thing that I find so lovely aboutPOSE is that it reflects this difficult yet wonderful, magical time when you’re discovering who you are, that there is a larger community out there and how grounding that process becomes for LGBTQ people. That story of seeking and discovery doesn’t get told often enough. I love that you touched upon that because one
of the things that Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and I talked about when we were constructing the pilot, first eight episodes and mapping out the first season. We wanted this to be at its core a story about family, that really and truly is whatPOSE is. A lot of folks are going to look at our show and
want to put it in a very particular box: That’s the ball show or that’s the trans show, or that’s the show about queer black and brown people. When, at the end of the day, it’s about much more than that. It’s a large part of the engine of the show, obviously, going into the balls and touching upon what was happening socio-politically in New York City in the 1980s. But at its core, this show is truly about family, it’s aspirational and a show about resilience. It’s all about transformations and finding your place in the world. Something many of us in the LGBTQ community have had to do, and often not by choice. At the end of the day the narrative that we are
telling, isn’t that revolutionary. We’re telling stories about hope and having aspirations and joy, it’s just the lens with which we now are telling these stories has shifted. As opposed to having them be about the majority, we are focusing on a marginalized com- munity and I think that is what’s been so interesting for our audience. The idea that we’re actually so much more alike than we are different. One of the things I’m thrilled to see in modern storytelling around the LGBTQ community, is that it’s not focused on tragedy. There are terrible things that do happen, but that’s not what defines who we are. Was that a part of your idea when you started out? Yes, especially when I started working with Ryan. My storytelling sensibility tends to lean a little darker,
billy porter as pray tell. photo by:
pari dukovic/fx
the first draft ofPOSE was very dark. Ryan came in and said, “We need to think about how to make this narrative more accessible and more universal.” The thing that Ryan said that really resonated deeply and I’ll take this with me for the rest of my career, is “If you want the community that is the most important to you to be seen in the most positive light, then infuse the work with that positivity.” As a storyteller, I want narratives to be real and to
be truthful. I’m looking for that honesty and that authenticity. My mind set was, “I’m gonna give them the dark gritty version of what it meant as someone who grew up in the Bronx and in the projects.” I wanted people to watch these episodes and to literally smell what New York smelled like in the ‘80s… gritty and dirty. I realized later, there’s a way for us to tell the truth about what was happening and still show this community in a positive light. It doesn’t have to be morose, there can be levity and you can infuse the narrative with humor and with joy. The audience is still going to be moved and is still going to see the truth of what was happening. You’re doing it with the specter of the HIV/AIDS crisis looming as well. It was especially poignant to me because that was when I was coming into my own as a gay man, right in the middle of the AIDS crisis. There’s a line that Billy Porter says, “They want us dead.” That’s the first time I’ve actually heard someone vocalize what I felt at the time so matter-of-factly. I think there are two things that are happening,
represented by Blanca’s diagnosis. One, we didn’t want to be didactive, but we certainly wanted to educate the community and our younger viewers because history is important, and we wanted the viewers to know that it really wasn’t that long ago. What we are reflecting on, what it was like for us as a community, is really only 30 years back. The other important piece to that narrative, to Blanca’s status, is letting the audience know that HIV/AIDS does not have to be a death sentence.
This goes back to what you were saying about
LGBTQ narratives, the perspective with which our stories are told. We’re dealing with poverty, we’re dealing with violence, we’re dealing with disease, it’s always through that lens. We wanted to show specifically that arc and with that thread as Blanca finds she’s HIV positive and uses it as a catalyst to live her most authentic life. It was important for us to tell that story and let the audience know that there’s still more life to live. I really want to highlight the fact that you had such an strong trans representation and that the actors are so wonderfully cast. Can you talk a bit about what the casting process was like and how you make those choices? We have a wonderful casting director, Alexa Fogel.
She worked onThe Wire andThe Ozark. She spent six months with her team going out into the ball community and knows where all the raw talent is. She presented Ryan and Brad and I with all these incredible actors to inhabit these roles. We watched folks on tape and then met with a bunch of the actors here in New York and heard their personal stories. Through the process of meeting with all of them and seeing how much talent there was, we ended up going back to the pilot and creating new roles. We added characters, just so we could hire more actors for the show, we just couldn’t let them go. It was a really wonderful experience. It’s kind of a cliché question, but is there anything specific or personal that you hope people get from the series? I love that question. Quite simply, I just hope the audience will recognize the beauty and the breadth of both the trans and queer experience. That to be LGBTQ or to be black or Latinx, we are not just a monolith. At the end of the day we all want the same thing, to be accepted, we want to be loved and we want to be affirmed for who we are.
POSE is currently running on the FX Network. For more information, go
tofxnetworks.com/shows/pose.
48
RAGE monthly | JULY 2018
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
