Creator of ‘Pose’ says FX show celebrates ‘incredible souls’

NEW YORK (AP) — A new FX series about the drag ballroom subculture in New York of the 1980s was supposed to have a character almost everyone knows — Donald J. Trump.

The writers had flirted with the idea of portraying the real estate mogul-turned-president as a symbol of the greed-is-good Manhattan of the late 1980s.

They eventually backed down, saying it would “suck the energy” from the narrative. But they still show Trump Tower, where James Van Der Beek plays a coke-sniffing, amoral executive.

“Pose” is headed by mega-producer Ryan Murphy, and it acts as the viewers’ escort into a world that has never been celebrated on TV, starring the largest LGBTQ cast ever for a scripted series.