A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME
A celebration of Harlem’s Eighties ball scene, queer family drama series Pose aired in the US last summer, winning acclaim from both the community whose stories it seeks to tell — and a wider audience
Spearheaded by television supremo Ryan Murphy, Pose made headlines around the world for assembling a cast that includes five transgender actors as series regulars. Nominated for two Golden Globes ( including best drama TV series ), this important series finally reaches our shore sin March.
Many will be familiar with the idea of ball culture from the seminal
1990 documentary Paris Is Burning Burning, in which director Jennie Livingston spends time with various members of the New York scene’s “houses” ( chosen families), often from LGBT+ and African- American or Latino backgrounds.
Today, ball culture is most visible in shows such as RuPaul’s Drag Race, but Paris Is Burning is essential queer viewing for those wishing to understand how Mother Ru became a global phenomenon.
For those who’ve not yet ticked it off their Queer 101 viewing list, the film documents the lives of marginalised performers who meet for balls to showcase their individuality and creativity by performing and voguing in “categories.” We also glimpse their lives away from the balls: the rivalries between houses and the struggle to thrive in a society that marginalises LGBT+ people of colour, especially while the Aids epidemic ravaged the gay community.
All of this — with the addition of gentrification and the widening chasm between the social classes — provides ample source material for Pose’s first season, the pilot of which was written by Steven Canals during his screen- writing masters course at UCLA in 2014. At the centre of the drama is a young gay man called Damon ( played by Ryan Jamaal Swain), who arrives in New York after his parents kick him out. Homeless to begin with, he fi nds shelter and support among the ball community and the trans women who dominate it.
“I knew I needed to come up with a really interesting idea, and I just didn’t feel I had anything at that moment,” Steven says. “But years earlier, maybe 10 years earlier, I’d seen Paris Is Burning and had fallen in love with ball culture and the community, from afar. I was surprised no one had done anything with it.
“I wrote the pilot and went out with it into the industry, and initially wasn’t met very kindly — until my producer introduced me to Ryan Murphy. He said, ‘ We should make that together’.”
Up until that point, Steven says, the script was “opening up all the right doors, but not keeping [ him] in the room.” People were interested but it was deemed too niche or too urban — “which is really coded language for black,” Steven adds.
However, he never allowed himself to believe that it wouldn’t be made. “In truth, I believed the show would be made 10 or 15 years [ from now]. As a queer person of colour, I don’t have the luxury to take those identities off , and I couldn’t allow myself to believe that this story has no value, as I was being told. Ultimately, if I believe that then I’m saying that I don’t have value.”
As Drag Race’s sphere of infl uence has grown, the vernacular of drag >
“THOSE KIND OF WOMEN ARE POWERFUL – FORCES TO BE RECKONED WITH”
— a lot of which stems from the balls — has permeated mainstream life and drawn attention to ball culture. Although this undoubtedly helped bolster Pose’s impact, Steven was cautious not to lean into it too much when pitching the show, to avoid conflating the drag community with trans women. But, following the success of shows such as Glee and American Crime Story, Ryan Murphy—along with longterm creative partner Brad Falchuk—wields definite industry clout, and with the added backing of TV network FX, the project quickly took off and the search for its stars began.
They worked with renowned casting director Alexa Fogel to fi nd fresh, untapped talent to put front and centre in the show — such as trans model and actor Dominique Jackson, who plays Elektra Abundance, a fierce, Alexis Car ring to n-e sque tour de force and mother of the House of Abundance. She’s joined by MJ Rodriguez as House of Abundance tearaway Blanca, and Indya Moore as trans sex worker Angel, who becomes romantically involved with married Trump organisation executive Stan Bowes ( X- Men stalwart Evan Peters).
The comparison to Alexis Carrington isn’t new to Dominique, and it isn’t accidental — to trans women who were part of the ball scene in the late Eighties, being able to “pass” was considered important ( and often vital) for survival. The women on shows such as Dynasty were considered the “gold standard.” If you could convincingly channel their looks and attitude in the balls and outside in the real world, then you’d have a chance of securing at least some of the privilege they held.
One of the ball categories in an early episode of Pose is “Dynasty realness.”
Dominique explains: “Alexis Carrington, Elektra and those kinds of women are forces to be reckoned with. They’re powerful, yet they have inner struggles to deal with that they don’t let the world see. Growing up in the Eighties, you would always hear parents say: ‘ Show your best face. Don’t let anyone know what’s really going on’.
“I don’t want to assume but I think that’s the kind of upbringing those women had: to be able to be snippy, strong, conniving, manipulative and even a bit destructive, but you love them because from time to time you see their humanity and it overwhelms you. Alexis is ferocious and strong but you have to think about where that pain is coming from.”
Dominique, who was part of the ball scene in Baltimore and New York in the early Nineties, admits to being nervous initially about the idea of the culture being used in a TV show. “This is not the first time someone has attempted to do a show like this,” she says. “There’s been a lot of misappropriation, where people have taken stuff from us, while we’re facing homelessness, prejudice, marginalisation. Then we look at television and see our creativity being put into the world with none of us [ being] a part of it.
“But it’s the first time someone as powerful as Ryan Murphy has been involved, and he pulled everyone in.”
By that, Dominique’s referring to the consultants from the ball scene — past and present — that Pose brought in to ensure authenticity both aesthetically and in the character creation and development.
One such consultant was Hector Xtravaganza, nicknamed The Grandfather of Ballroom. He was Dominique’s chosen father and died at the end of 2018, aged 60.
“One of the reasons I wasn’t afraid to tackle the enormous task of unpacking New York in the 1980s is that we had really incredible collaborators,” says Steven. “Specifi cally, when it comes to the ballroom community, we had a multitude of consultants who were part of it during the time that Pose is set. They held our hands and shared their stories and experiences with us.
“We knew very early on that this was going to be done the right way and that we had an opportunity to highlight this very particular culture at a very specifi c time, and we took it seriously.”
But amid the costumes, the balls and Met Museum robberies, Pose’s writers — including trans icons Janet Mock and Our Lady J — have developed story lines that tackle serious issues: homophobia, transphobia and racism in both wider society and the LGBT+ community itself, as well as the sex- work industry and the Aids crisis.
Alongside Elektra, one of Pose’s most watchable characters is ball emcee Pray Tell, played by Broadway veteran Billy Porter, who originally auditioned for the part of Damon’s dance teacher, now played by Charlayne Woodard.
But feeling that his experience of being a black gay man who’d lived and breathed New York City since 1987, Billy suggested he could serve the show better
if the emcee character was made into more of a father figure.
Billy says: “I told Ryan, ‘ Think about it and let me know’, and he called me back and asked if I could do an impersonation of the emcee.
“I said: ‘ If? Gay culture has been doing an impersonation of the emcee character for years!’ because we all know what that is.”
Case closed, Pray Tell’s role within Pose was expanded — and the move paid off , as Billy scooped a Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a drama series.
Early on in the series, we see that his boyfriend, Costas ( played by Johnny Sibilly) is a victim of HIV/ Aids, and later, Pray has to deal with his own diagnosis. Not wanting to give too much away, Billy explains that he “deals with it in a very interesting way,” but adds that he felt very supported by the show’s creative team, and that he wanted to “honour those who didn’t make it.”
Billy recalls how within a year of Miss Saigon opening on Broadway in April 1991, three of his cast mates had died from Aids- related illnesses. He describes himself as having been “ballculture adjacent” at the time.
“I vibrated in the circles a bit, and went to balls from time to time but I was not in the ball scene,” Billy adds.
His most profound memory of the city at the time that Pose is set is the impact that the Aids crisis had on the community, and how it responded. “A lot of the show is about chosen family,
choosing life, even in the face of immediate death, in the face of oppression, in the face of nothing that’s remotely positive.
“That’s what I love about this show, it really shows our community choosing life — despite all of the horrible things we’ve had to face.”
That’s not to say that the LGBT+ community has overcome all of those horrible things — especially our trans brothers and sisters. Pose’s success has given Dominique, who turns 44 in March, a bigger platform to talk about trans rights and to fight for those with less of a voice.
Alongside acting and modelling, she’s worked for LGBT+ outreach non-profit organisations in the Bronx, so knows fi rsthand the struggles trans people face. “I live in a reality where being trans is not accepted, especially if you’re a person of colour,” she says. “You’re beaten, you’re ostracised and you’re pushed into a wall.”
The show has created stars out of its three trans leads, altering the way they’re perceived by other people. Dominique explains that beforehand she was more of a “fetish”, or people would be nice to her face, but disrespectful behind her back. “I thought Pose would be another thing that people look down at — some people would get it, but the majority would criticise it,” she explains. “But what I realised was that in some instances, I had become a human being to many people, not just that thing.”
That idea of “normalising” minority groups is echoed by Steven, who points to the current political climate in America as an example of why progressive, inclusive shows such as Pose are needed more than ever.
“It’s about family, community, having a dream and pursuing it,” he says.
“But outside of the politics, we’re putting out a piece of work that is positive. There isn’t any trauma attached to our characters and their lives, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t face hardships or have difficult experiences.
“Historically, in television and film, trans women have been used as points of trauma for stories, and narratively, people of colour are [ portrayed as] the thugs, the drug dealers, or bodies in the gutter.
“It’s exhausting to see that perpetuated over and over.
“It felt important to have a narrative out in the world that showed these people in those communities not only surviving but thriving.”
Pose airs on BBC2 in March
“BEING TRANS IS NOT ACCEPTED. YOU’RE BEATEN, OSTRACISED, PUSHED INTO A WALL”