“And the category is . . . season three!”: Why ‘Pose’ is so important

Children! The ballroom is here for you. FX gave word that Pose has been renewed for S3 – already. We’re beyond thrilled the second season of Pose won’t be the landmark television show’s last. Shanté – Pose stays!

If you don’t already have this epic drama in your bingewatch list, get with it. Pose is hilarious, incredibly crafted, sweet, and heartbreaking all at the same time. It also features the largest transgender cast in TV history and has a crew made up of exceptionally talented LGBTQI and POC folks.

To celebrate this momentous news and to help anyone who hasn’t seen the show yet, here’s why you need to watch Pose immediately. We’re looking back at the second season opener to illustrate just why this show needs to be your new obsession.

Need to brush up on your reading skills? The library is open, children.

In our time of internet memes and reality TV shows, we often forget the origins of snark. Pose takes place in an era before smartphones, when if you wanted to sass someone you had to do it to their damn face. Pose has included some of the fiercest reads in TV history.

Pose never shies away from the serious issues facing LGBTQI and POC characters

Did your heart break when we met our heroes Blanca (Mj Rodriguez) and Pray Tell (Billy Porter) after a year apart on Bronx’s Hart Island? If you didn’t know already, Hart Island is the place the city of New York buried over a million poor and displaced people in mass unmarked graves. Those who died of HIV- or AIDS-related illnesses suffered the further indignity of being quarantined at the special southern tip.

Did your eyes well up with tears when you saw Angel (Indya Moore) here?

And when this b**ch dared to talk smack to our Mother of the Year Blanca?

Pose is groundbreaking in many ways, but none so much as how it represents the queer community. Guess what? Gay, trans, bi, intersex, and HIV+ people are people just like you.

They deserve respect, they deserve love, they lead normal lives and have the same hopes, dreams, and aspirations as you. They f***, they love, they scheme, and they can be absolutely awful – we’re looking at you, Elektra Abundance (Dominique Jackson) – because (news flash!) they’re normal people.

Did you know how the US healthcare system treated early HIV+ and AIDS patients in the 80s? Did you know about the campaign of hate the Catholic Church spread around sexuality and AIDS back then? Did you know how hard it is for trans people to gain work and acceptance, even to this day?

Did you know teenagers are still being thrown out of their parents’ homes in America simply because they’re gay? Did you know there’s still not much support for at-risk LGBTQI youth in America? (Thank you, The Trevor Project, for doing all you do.) Did you know many working in the sex industry and drug trade do so because of lack of education and the absence of any other viable employment opportunities?

Pose is here to provide education. After every episode, you come away with more knowledge about recent queer history.

A lot of this exceptional narrative work comes from the writers room. Pose is a show written by POC LGBTQI people about POC LGBTQI people for everyone, not just LGBTQI POC people. It tells real stories using history as a basis, crafting complex, deeply layered characters.

Pose isn’t a depiction of the cookie-cutter gay characters slapped onto an otherwise straight show for diversity’s sake. Pose ain’t weaving in some queer storylines from behind your white picket fence. It tells real queer stories that might make people uncomfortable, but desperately need to be told.

We dare even the most bigoted person to watch this show and not fall in love with Blanca or Angel. It’s impossible!

It’s the most fab-u-lous show ever made

We have no words.

Pose puts the ballroom front & center

While Pose is a found-family dramedy based around the ballroom subculture, the show never forgets its dancefloor roots. We see how the ballroom is deeply entwined with the lives of our heroes. Whether dancing in the kitchen, planning strategy for future balls, or just getting Mother of the Year Blanca, the ballroom is a huge part of our characters’ lives.

In real life, the ballroom is a refuge for runaway teens with nowhere else to go, many of whom were saved by their house mothers from a life on the streets. It’s totally realistic that the ballroom should play such a huge part in our characters’ lives.