The Problems With Black Suffering On-Screen
How far is too far when it comes to exposing Black pain?
Candy Ferocity could have been any Black trans woman, and maybe that was the problem. On the award-winning FX series Pose, Candy’s position oscillated between being the laughingstock of the balls, a bullying house mother, and a witty sidekick. But unlike other house mothers, such as Blanca and Elektra, Candy’s character didn’t give audiences much insight into her life when she was just Candy Johnson, which is why her untimely murder became that much more harrowing.
Candy was the victim underneath Pray Tell’s gaze in the ballroom scene. He made fun of her once-tiny figure and her absent dance moves. She asked him, “Why do you always have to put me down?” He responded, “I don’t have to put you down when you’re always in the bottom.” All Candy wanted, in her words, was “to be seen,” and that was one of the last scenes where viewers saw her, animated and resistant, before witnessing her bloodied body in a closet within a seedy motel, her eyes open and staring off into some imperceptible spot.
The internet commentary was swift. Many members of the LGBTQ+ community were upset because the material hit too close to home. Exactly two weeks before the airing of this particular episode, Brooklyn Lindsey, 32, was found dead on the front…
