When a House Becomes a Home: Kinship Systems in the FX Series Pose
Department
English & Humanities
Presentation Location
Clark Memorial Library, Room 207
Presentation Start Date and Time
8-3-2024 10:00 AM
Presentation End Date and Time
8-3-2024 11:00 AM
Brief Abstract
Much of the literature on Bryan Murphy’s groundbreaking series Pose (2018-21) has addressed its progressive representation of transgender characters who are not only dealing with personal issues surrounding their gender identity but also face external social and cultural dynamics seeking to enforce a binary, immutable gender system. Building on this research, my talk focuses on the organization of many of the series’ characters into so-called “houses”—the most famous among them arguably being the one formed by Blanca (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez)—and analyzes them as self-selected families that provide support to LGBTQ youth who have been rejected by their birth families. My paper examines the ways in which the series complicates and supersedes the sociological concept of the “chosen family” first introduced by Kath Weston in the 1990s. For instance, I argue that, since the houses are part of New York City ballroom culture (with weekly balls where house members challenge each other in various categories), the series foregrounds as inevitable and organic the connections between families and the larger queer community. Thus, Pose counteracts the privatizing tendencies of the traditional family unit as inherently apolitical. This seems particularly significant as the series is set during the AIDS crisis of the late 1980s, and many of its characters are themselves persons living with AIDS (PLWAs), including Pray Tell (Billy Porter), an emcee in the Ball scene, a member of its Masters of Ceremony Council, and godfather to several of the houses. My presentation argues that, rather than private entities cut off from social politics, the families in Pose are directly involved in the fight against AIDS, which in turn allows the series to address the social stigmatization and marginalization of PLWAs in a manner that promotes social, cultural, and political change.
Recommended Citation
Piontek, Thomas, "When a House Becomes a Home: Kinship Systems in the FX Series Pose" (2024). Faculty Research and Teaching Expo. 1.
https://digitalcommons.shawnee.edu/ffa/Faculty_Presentations_2024/March_8_2024/1
When a House Becomes a Home: Kinship Systems in the FX Series Pose
Clark Memorial Library, Room 207
Much of the literature on Bryan Murphy’s groundbreaking series Pose (2018-21) has addressed its progressive representation of transgender characters who are not only dealing with personal issues surrounding their gender identity but also face external social and cultural dynamics seeking to enforce a binary, immutable gender system. Building on this research, my talk focuses on the organization of many of the series’ characters into so-called “houses”—the most famous among them arguably being the one formed by Blanca (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez)—and analyzes them as self-selected families that provide support to LGBTQ youth who have been rejected by their birth families. My paper examines the ways in which the series complicates and supersedes the sociological concept of the “chosen family” first introduced by Kath Weston in the 1990s. For instance, I argue that, since the houses are part of New York City ballroom culture (with weekly balls where house members challenge each other in various categories), the series foregrounds as inevitable and organic the connections between families and the larger queer community. Thus, Pose counteracts the privatizing tendencies of the traditional family unit as inherently apolitical. This seems particularly significant as the series is set during the AIDS crisis of the late 1980s, and many of its characters are themselves persons living with AIDS (PLWAs), including Pray Tell (Billy Porter), an emcee in the Ball scene, a member of its Masters of Ceremony Council, and godfather to several of the houses. My presentation argues that, rather than private entities cut off from social politics, the families in Pose are directly involved in the fight against AIDS, which in turn allows the series to address the social stigmatization and marginalization of PLWAs in a manner that promotes social, cultural, and political change.