Narratives of resistance, survival and kinship: the representation of Black LGBTQ+ characters and HIV and AIDS in the drama series pose

Abstract

This study explores the subversion of dominant heteronormative stereotypes in the representation of Black LGBTQ+ characters living with HIV and AIDS in the American drama series Pose (Murphy, Falchuk and Canals 2018). The subversion is analysed through the intersecting themes of resistance, fugitivity, kinship and survival, which emerge from the drama series’ narrative. Set the in 1980s and 1990s HIV and AIDS pandemic, the series through its characters and narrative themes explore the lived experiences of the Black LGBTQ+ community who are faced with white supremacist ideals that create state sanctioned neglect, economic discrimination (Mbembe, 2003), homophobia and transphobia. Applying a qualitative discourse analysis, this study frames Pose as a media text embedded with layered meanings. This drama series’ subversive representation is examined through the theoretical frameworks of Queer Theory, Black Studies and Critical Race Theory. Central to this analysis is the conceptualisation of Pose’s characters through Harney and Moten’s (2013:47) notion of “Blackness”, not as an identity based on race, but as a generative, anti-disciplinary force and a mode of social existence that emerges in resistance to the violences of colonial modernity and racial capitalism. While Harney and Moten’s (2013) discussion dwells on issues of race and racism and does not explicitly engage issues of gender and sexuality, this study aims extends their framing of Blackness to account for the intersectional experiences of Black LGBTQ+ characters living with HIV and AIDS. This conceptual approach enables a deeper analysis of these Black LGBTQ+ characters as complex individuals whose identities and modes of being resist oppressive heteronormative and white supremacist structures. Harney and Moten’s (2013:50) argue that “Blackness emerges through conditions of violence but transforms that violence into movement and expressive technique”, in Pose characters transform their harsh realities and create queer utopia in the ballroom halls where community and identities resist the oppressive constraints of the heteronormative community. In this sense, the characters’ acts of resistance are understood through the lens of “political Blackness” Harney and Moten (2013:64). This study is carried out through the analysis of drama series elements namely, narrative, mise en scène and character development in order to determine how the function to disrupt of offer counternarratives of resistance, survival and kinship. To assist in the understanding of how Pose subverts heteropatriarchal stereotypes, the study has identified two dominant thematic representations visible within the drama series’ narrative namely, the construction of a political Blackness through the ballroom scene, and the centring of chosen family with the Black LGBTQ+ community. Pose uses these thematic representations together with mise en scène to strengthen its narrative that problematises the harmful historic representations of queer characters as identified in Russo (1981). This study demonstrates that Pose challenges the historic and prevalent television tropes that emanate from white supremacist ideologies that have continuously relegated the Black LGBTQ+ community to the state of the ‘other’, by reframing narratives of tragedy and state sanctioned neglect associated with HIV and AIDS pandemic into powerful narratives of resilience, support and cultural reproduction. The study further demonstrates how through its narrative, Pose moves beyond mere visibility of the Black LGBTQ+ characters to provide powerful counternarratives of resistance, survival and kinship that create a queer world where identities, community and existence are redefined on these Black LGBTQ+ characters’ terms.