By: Joseph R. Castel
He’s given us some of our greatest queer iconic television shows such as The Andy Warhol Diaries, Halston, Feud: Bette and Joan; and Feud: Capote vs The Swans. But perhaps his most important work to date has got to be the docudrama Pose that ran for three seasons on FX (2018 – 2021). And now, it’s finally available for purchase on Amazon’s Prime Video.
Set in New York City’s African American Ballroom vogue community of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Murphy adeptly appropriates the legendary Paris Is Burning documentary, by director Jennie Livingston, into a captivating, thrilling docudrama that has heart and history.
The blue print for Pose comes from Paris is Burning, which chronicles the lives of marginalized transwomen who danced and pranced in the ballroom contests – think Madonna’s Vogue. The Material Girl appropriated vogue dancing in the late 1980s, by plucking a couple dancers from the Ballroom scene and hired them to dance in her Blonde Ambition Tour and thusly, put the underground ballroom scene on the international map – if only for a brief time.
Many of the Murphy’s storylines, scenes, characters, and names of the actual dance “Houses” are lifted right out of Livingston’s groundbreaking documentary. The House of Xtravaganza is one of the ballroom House teams, which features the real Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza, who danced for Madonna. Gutierez plays one of the dance judges throughout Pose’s three seasons.
What made Livingston’s doc so compelling was that it was filmed during the height of the AIDS epidemic and despite their dire circumstances of violence, poverty, and discrimination, trans people continued to raise their heads high, walk the ball runways, and imitated the glamourous lives of the rich and beautiful. The runway antics was called voguing, a form of accentuated high fashion model poses, as well as symmetrical movements inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphics that in the series, tells narratives of shading and fantasy.
Each House of several dancers were made up of gays and trans people who were rejected by their families. They competed with other ballroom Houses for towering plastic trophies in various outrageous categories like, “Butch Femme” and “Banjee Realness.”
Pose begins with the House of Abundance, in which the “Ugly Betty” of the House, Blanca, MJ Rodriquez, escapes the cruelty of her legendary Mother Electra, played beautifully by Dominque Jackson, and Cruella-like step sisters, to start her own House of Evangelista made up of her own runaways and throw away gays, trans and even a straight homie drug dealer, the “banshee” boy of the house, Papi. Blanca is not really ugly, but she has no fashion sense, next to her fashionista sisters and ultra-glam Mother on high, Electra.
Like Livingston’s documentary, Pose is full of colorful characters, anti-heroines, Mommie Dearests on steroids, and down and out dreamer. Billy Porter as Pray Tell gives an outstanding performance as the flamboyant MC of the Balls.
Pose has already become a classic TV series because its producer, Ryan Murphy hired more than 50 transgenders to walk the balls on screen. All the leads are trans and for some of them, this was their first real acting gig. Characters, Angel, Electra, Blanca and Candy are all superb as the transgender women competing for trophies, love, and a shot for happiness in the Big Apple.
The story lines are sadly realistic and characters navigate the harsh life of being trans and surviving the AIDs epidemic in New York City. However, by the time Season three arrives, the series, like most series, turns soapy, repetitive and over-the-top story lines. Murphy has a reputation for creating revisionist plot lines, meaning, he takes a piece of history such as what he did with Feud’s Bette and Joan, and plays out what could have happened or what should happen in these tragic circumstances – usually creating a happier ending, or a justifiable ending, sort like what director Quentin Tarantino did with the true to life characters in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood – the director let actress Sharon Tate live (she was actually murdered in 1969) and the Manson family members (who actually all went to prison) were murdered by the heroes of the story.
Murphy revisions the characters in Pose. He turns one of the House Mothers, Electra, into a multi-millionaire and she becomes strangely generous sharing her good fortune with all her daughters, whom she was so cruel throughout the three seasons. Truly, that’s a fantasy somewhat unrealistic happy ending, as most of the real trans ballroom participants succumbed to drugs, AIDs, died penniless, and even murdered.
None the less, if viewers want to get a peak of what life was like in the 1980s, Pose serves up some great stories, outrageous characters and memorable hit songs from Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Chaka Kahn, and many, many more so you can Vogue all Pride long.
POSE is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video for purchase.