The ‘Pose’ Cast on the Show’s Complicated and Authentic Portrayal of Motherhood

There are a million reasons to love Pose, Ryan Murphy’s newest deeply humanizing series. From the glamorous costumes that dominate the ball scenes to its touchingly sincere performances and portrayals of the LBGT community, Pose presents a magnetic world that’s simultaneously as romanticized as any fairy tale yet hauntingly in tune with the horrors lurking in the shadows for its transgender characters.

And beneath Pose‘s quippy speeches and gorgeous scenes is a depiction of motherhood perhaps more complicated than anything we’ve seen on television. At the Television Critics Association‘s 2018 summer tour, Decider had a chance to speak to three of Pose‘s stars about the show’s reconstruction of what motherhood means through chosen family.

“[Pose is] a beautiful way to get out there and show that there are different types of parenting skills whether it be, like I said, through biological or chosen family,” MJ Rodriquez said in an interview with a group of reporters.

Rodriquez plays Blanca, Pose’s central character and force of change. The drama primarily focuses on the African-American and Latino ball culture world of 1980s New York and the houses and chosen families that were part of this scene. Tired of being part of Elektra’s (Dominique Jackson) superficial House of Abundance, Blanca leaves to start her own house that’s characterized by love instead of winning. 

The actress revealed she sees some of herself in Blanca, especially as the show goes on. “For the most part they gave us a little bit of [free] reign to just explore the character that they gave us because they knew that we had these experiences as well,” she said.

Jackson’s Elektra embodies a conflicting side of motherhood and chosen family. Whereas Blanca is motivated by love and acceptance, Elektra values winning balls and her house’s reputation above almost all else. “She a compilation of a lot of women who came before me. Some of my mothers were these women, and they were very over the top,” Jackson said. “But it was the way that they protected themselves.”

“Elektra shows that old-school mother of ‘It’s all about me.’ And MJ comes in now and her character Blanca breaks that up and says, ‘No. It’s about love. It’s about being kind. It’s about being real,'” she said.

Jackson related to several parts of Elektra’s story, including her time working at an adult entertainment store. The actress worked in one of these stores in 1996 doing much of the same work Elektra is shown doing. “It kind of brought tears to my eyes. It kind of made me realize, you know, how grateful I am that I was able to navigate out of that work,” she said.

But Jackson admitted she had a difficult time channeling Elektra’s mean streak. “I was Blanca,” she said. “I was the one saying ‘Why can’t we just be nice? Why can’t we get real jobs?'”

Though her character doesn’t fall on either side of these dueling characterizations of motherhood, Indya Moore‘s hypnotizing Angel still finds herself pulled in the middle. After Blanca vows to leave Elektra’s house, the free-loving and intensely confident Angel stands by her side and leaves her chosen home.

“She reminds me of so much of myself in very beautiful ways, but there are also different parts of her that I’m getting to know for the first time,” Moore said of her character. “She’s helped to me to understand different people better in other ways”

The actress also related to Angel’s struggle in between worlds. “That feeling of displacement, trying to navigate your family circle, trying to find people that you can trust, love, navigating love, navigating leaning on the one person who has shown you the most attention and who is like trying to create a space for you to create your own foundation — like I was going through all that,” she said. “So it’s not very far off from the foundation of Angel’s story.”

Where to stream Pose