In this week’s episode, we explore FX’s excellent, multifaceted new drama Pose, which focuses on the lives of trans women and queer people in the ballroom scene of late-80s NYC. Pose confronts the devastation of the AIDS crisis while still showing people with HIV living meaningful lives filled with joy, love, and struggle, and it positions living with honesty and integrity in a hostile world as the heroic act that it is. Also, it actually casts trans actors in trans roles. AMAZING!

We also discuss the firing of Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, the rumored reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, looking back at Avatar: The Last Airbender some ten years after its debut, and more.

Segment Timestamps:

:00 Introductions

Relevant Links:

Writer Suzanne Brockmann’s powerful speech challenging the resistance to gay representation in romance novels while accepting her lifetime achievement award from the Romance Writers of America. https://tinyletter.com/SuzanneBrockmann/letters/that-rwa-lta-speech-news-from-suz

Critic Matt Zoller Seitz’s review of Pose’s first season

The cast and producers of Pose discussing the show

Trailer for City of Gold, the documentary about Pulitzer-Prize-winning L.A. Times food critic Jonathan Gold, who passed away last week