Strike-a-Pose
. Five transgender actors have been cast in lead roles in Ryan Murphy’s “Pose,” as well as three additional actors in recurring roles. Top (l. to r.) are MJ Rodriguez, Indya Moore, Dominique Jackson and Hailie Sahar and bottom (l. to r.) are Angelica Ross, Billy Porter, Ryan Jamaal Swain and Dyllon Burnside. (GETTY IMAGES, AP, TWITTER)
Ryan Murphy, begins to pen the latest 90s era themed series and this time it is a juxtaposition between the have and have nots. Latinos and blacks from the 90s ballroom culture will have their stories told alongside those of a more affluent group, the upper class. Signed on amongst the writers is Janet Mock, trans activist and author. Amongst the consultants are Hector Xtavaganza, Skylar King and Sol Williams. Leiomy Maldonado and Danielle Polanco have been brought on to choreograph the vogue dances. Twiggy Garcon Pucci and Michael Robertson will also be acting as consultants and populating scenes from the ballroom community at large.
My biggest concern about all these 90s era retelling of stories is that the people who were not there really do not know what it was like. They take a slice, a sample of the population of that time and highlight it, showcase it. How truthful can you be about this era? Truthful to the point of speaking about the incredible poverty that existed amongst the blacks and latinos of this era?
The 90s were not this joyful and frivolous era, that everyone makes it out to be. There was nothing pretty about the 90s. A huge percentage of the young people of that era were sex workers. Many died from aids, drugs and/or violence. It is not pretty, all that happened. Janet Mock, says on a twitter post, “Pose is gonna be lit.� That kind of showboating and energy is disconcerting to me because young people are watching. That mentality of diving into the pool head first thing proved really dangerous back in the 90s. People have no idea what happened in the 90s. They romanticize it as a period of luxury, glitz and glamour. A generation that came of age, against huge disadvantages and beat the odds (not entirely). I would say more than half of our generation disappeared. We are talking about people that did not see their mid 20s in most cases. In 2017 we have to be more careful about how we tell stories, especially to young audiences, that are loosely based on real events. According to the CDC, As of December 31, 2000, 774,467 persons had been reported with AIDS in the United States; 448,060 of these had died; 3542 persons had unknown vital status. The number of persons living with AIDS (322,865) is the highest ever reported. Of these, 79% were men, 61% were . or Hispanic, and 41% were infected through male-to-male sex. Of the black AIDS cases, approximately one third were reported during 1981--1992, 1993-1995, and 1996--2000 (Table 1) https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5021a2.htm#tab1 This does not include the statistics on deaths related to drugs and homicides. So yes what happened in the 90s noone is speaking about. The 90s were not this joyful and frivolous era, that everyone makes it out to be. There was nothing pretty about the 90s. The word erasure is the new buzz word of many. It comes up a lot, especially from people of color (poc). Just because you put a person of color on a screen does not mean you have combated erasure. Combating erasure begins, when you tell a story truthfully. I fear this new social media generation will never know the gravity of the loss of our community, the plague that was everything 90s. Anyone who survived the 90s is a true hero.
70 million people are living with HIV/AIDS 35 million people have died from AIDS Compared to the holocaust 6 million Which was the true holocaust of our generation?
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Global situation and trends: Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 70 million people have been infected with the HIV virus and about 35 million people have died of HIV. Globally, 36.7 million [30.8–42.9 million] people were living with HIV at the end of 2016. An estimated 0.8% [0.7-0.9%] of adults aged 15–49 years worldwide are living with HIV, although the burden of the epidemic continues to vary considerably between countries and regions. Sub-Saharan Africa remains most severely affected, with nearly 1 in every 25 adults (4.2%) living with HIV and accounting for nearly two-thirds of the people living with HIV worldwide. http://www.who.int/gho/hiv/en/
I hope Murphy, takes a moment to tell the stories that really impacted our community. I do have major concerns with the retelling of a period piece that relies heavily on a NYC that no longer exists. I look forward to seeing what Murphy, does with all of this. I hope he tells the stories truthfully and does not go the route of sensationalizing it to appease a social media audience. From what I know about Murphy, appeasing audiences is not his style, so I hope he does not do that with Pose. There are maybe less than a handful of people that care anything about what really happened. Those people who think for themselves, those people who cannot be bought, are our core audience,our 50k readers. My hope is that you continue to be unpopular. That you continue to know that you matter. That you always believe and never question how important your voice is. When someone tells you to shut up, clap back tell them to go screw off. People will try to impede your progress and you must not ever allow that to happen. You must march onward no matter who and/or what steps in your path, in your way. Time is a construct, that lives within the recesses of our minds. It is not a physical, palpable thing you can touch or feel. Time is not tangible. No matter how many stories people make about the 90s, or any other era, none of it will ever matter again. I will end this with one of my favorite lines from Angela Chase, Claire Danes, from the revolutionary My So Called Life series 1994-1995. A series that was hailed as a pioneering series, using real storytelling. After a long night of clubbing, fighting, getting picked up by cops Angela, on the following morning, looks at her best friend Rayanne Graph, played by A.J. Langer, and says to her with full sincerity, “We had a time.� That is life in a nutshell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swjj7QEyr1g Photo Courtesy of The Atlantic [Pilot 1994]
Remembering things that happened, acknowledging them and then moving on to the next thing. As a teenager this is how our generation dealt with life. I always hear Angela's voice, when I see how our present day youth and some adults also, postulate and POSE so much. Angela: It just seems like, you agree to have a certain personality or something. For no reason. Just to make things easier for everyone. But when you think about it, I mean, how do you know it's even you? And, I mean, this whole thing with yearbook - it's like, everybody's in this big hurry to make this book, to supposedly remember what happened. Because if you made a book of what really happened, it'd be a really upsetting book.
I hope that what happens with Pose, is that people begin to see the best and the worst of themselves in these characters. I hope they learn the true lesson of what my generation learned and are still learning; that seeking out a life of excess more often than not comes at a very high cost (npi). How people acquired things really did not matter in this world of excess, the world of the 90s. The means never justified the ends. What mattered to most people back then in some cases still matters to some people today. It is a huge misconception to believe that if we can acquire the same material things that wealthy people can, we are equal in class status. By having expensive things, we somehow feel better about ourselves. We believe we will be more readily accepted by our peers. We even falsely feel somewhat superior to others and empowered. We have never been wealthy and probably never will be. We are at a very important point in our history. With all this attention being given to our generation, it is a perfect time to send out a message of healing. The first thing we must do, is admit that we have been fraudulent, POSE-ing. Being fake has gotten people this far in life, so why stop now, right? They have invested way too much energy in creating these falsehoods about themselves. How many of us have expensive things, that really have no value or serve no purpose whatsoever? Things that sit in a closet, things that just take up space. Space that fills some kind of void in our lives. What happens when we run out of space for these inanimate things? We create more space. We surround ourselves with expensive things to cover up for the fact that we belong to a lower class. We could live in shacks, yet when we step out onto the street we pretend we live on Park Avenue. We create these fake personas, personas that cover up and hide who we really are because it is way easier than speaking the truth. Fake it til you make it, if you ever make it. And if not GOD help you. . We continue to project our insecurities onto others, we deflect, we obliterate, we point fingers, we shame, we ridicule, we gang up on and worst of all we silence people, who have different points of views or opinions . We change everything about ourselves. The way we speak, the way we interact, the way we think. Everything about us is premeditated, precontrived to illicit a set response. I find myself more than ever questioning so many things that are presented to us, about us and informing us to aspire to be like the images we are viewing. The type of images that taunt us until we give in and assimilate. Our lives become forever changed by chasing the unattainable. Be very careful about what you accept as a reality. The amount of work it will take to reverse, the damage done, will take an entire lifetime to fix. It is never too late to become what you might have been, start now. Things did not work out too good for my generation and I doubt it will work out any better for yours. Do not idolize us. We are nothing to idolize.
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