Hollywood executive producer and director on the FX drama, Pose, Janet Mock, used the premiere of season three of the show to blast the industry and ask why she and her co-stars of the trans drama were not paid more for their work.
The television series is about New York City’s African-American and Latino LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming drag ball culture scene in the 1980s and 1990s.
But during a rare in-person premiere during the COVID pandemic, held in New York City on Thursday night, Mock, 38, left those in the 100-strong audience stunned, after making a fiery speech lasting almost 15 minutes.
Writer, director and executive producer on the FX series Pose, Janet Mock, 38, delivered a strong criticism of Hollywood at the show’s season premiere event
‘When a talent asks you for a suite, you give them a suite because they need it,’ Mock began.
‘I want to get paid more. Why am I making $40,000 an episode? Huh?’ Mock wondered allowed. ‘Do you know who the f*** I am? Do you know what I f***ing mean?’
‘I am angry!,’ she continued as she went on to demand more money and perks equivalent to other television execs.
‘I’m hurting, y’all. I see injustice and it hurts me inside,’ Mock said at the event, according to The Daily Beast.
‘F*** Hollywood … Does this make you uncomfortable? It should. It should make you f***ing shake in your motherf***ing boots. This is speaking truth. This is what Pose is.’
Mock spoke on stage for nearly 15 minutes, asking why she wasn’t paid more for her work on the series, at one point saying: ‘F*** Hollywood’. She is pictured, center, with Billy Porter, left, and the show’s co-creator, Ryan Murphy, right
She addressed Pose co-creator Ryan Murphy, pictured, and questioned the quality of episodes written by men which aired during the first season of the show before female writers were brought in
Mock, a trans woman and activist, spoke for almost quarter of an hour as she went on to complain about the quality of the writing on the show in front of several Hollywood bosses who were gathered for the occasion.
Mock noted that the first two episodes of the show had been penned by solely male writers.
While on stage, she directly addressed co-creator of the show and Hollywood mogul Ryan Murphy asking him publicly what he did to address the issue.
‘Who brought the girls in?,’ she asked him. ‘I did,’ Murphy replied. ‘I wanted the girls to be there. I wanted to bring in the girls.’
‘You brought… girls in to help you,’ Mock said to Murphy.
Mock said she was being paid $40,000 per episode but that she deserved more
‘It’s a show, but it means so much to everyone to “ensure that we enable black and brown trans women to make it” because that sounds good,’ Mock said sarcastically.
‘It makes you comfortable to talk like that because then I don’t scare you into facing the f***ing truth. You all have stomped on us!’
Mock joined the series as a writer and rose through the ranks as a producer before finally directing the show.
Billy Porter, Mj Rodriguez, and Angel Bismark Curiel in a scene from Pose in 2018
She signed a multi-year agreement with Netflix in 2019 and became the first transgender person to land an overall studio deal.
‘In my career that has now lasted for 25 years, It is the most important thing that I’ve been a part of,’ Murphy said of Pose. ‘And it is the thing I think that I’m the most proud to consider myself a part of.
‘This is what Pose taught me’, she said at the event. ‘I stand up taller in the world because of this show. I know that I matter because of this show. I have a voice because of this show.’
Pose season 3 premieres on FX this Sunday.
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