The category is.....Quarantine Realness

Hello frands,

Well, we’re rolling into week 5 of quarantine life out here in California, with no clear end in sight. I’m lucky enough to be able to still do my job from home and for that I am truly thankful. It’s a scary time right now, and one we’ll remember for the rest of our lives and one we’ll tell our children and grandchildren about. I hate to say it, but things are going to get even worse in the coming weeks as our broken healthcare system gets pushed beyond its fragile limit. From the time I started writing this post, til now the US has tripled our number of cases. I actually started writing this post over a week ago and everyday since then the numbers have continued to climb exponentially. Please, please, please stay inside and away from people if you are at all able to. And to all those who are essential workers who can’t sit around and binge watch TV, I will never be able to express my gratitude to your service and sacrifice. After we finally do make it through this crisis, as a nation we must not forget it was the postal workers, the warehouse workers, the grocery store employees, the healthcare workers, the truckers, sanitation workers, and the farm workers who saved this country. And that childcare providers and teachers deserve to make a million dollars a day.

It seems trivial to be writing about TV at a time like this, but I think as everyone is coming to find TV can be a welcome escape these days. The shows I recommended last time were intended to make you forget about world for awhile, but for this post I decided to write about a show that can maybe help us see the current situation with clearer eyes and a little more empathy.

So this week, I’m imploring you to check out Pose on FX (season 1 on Netflix).

To give you the most concise synopsis, from Wikipedia:

POSE is an American drama television series about New York City's African-American and Latino LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming ballroom culture scene in the 1980s and, in the second season, early 1990s. Featured characters are dancers and models who compete for trophies and recognition in this underground culture, and who support one another in a network of chosen families known as Houses.

This show features the most diverse cast on TV, and will give you a newfound understanding of how mainstream trends originate, and how our society often exploits and disenfranchises the very people who drive American culture forward. In its essence, Pose is a show about the bodies and families we are born into and the ones we create for ourselves as we try to find our place in this world.

Season 1 takes place at the very start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with the escalating crisis playing a clear through-line to season 2. It’s not difficult to draw parallels to today’s pandemic as the series shows how the wealthy and privileged weather the same storms as the rest of society, only from above the clouds. While those in the very bottom of the economic and social ladder continue to be disproportionately impacted, furthering the cycle of poverty. But despite all the racist, homophobic, and misogynistic assaults they are subjected to, the characters of Pose march on (or maybe sashay is more fitting). And under the boot of a system designed to make them work infinitely harder for any crumbs of success, to crush their spirit and erase them from history, they refuse to be silenced. Theirs is a message of community and resilience; something we could all use in times like these.

So with that: stay inside, save lives, wash your hands, watch Pose.

Stay healthy friends, much love…