Pose writer and director Janet Mock signs historic Netflix deal
Janet Mock, a director, producer, and writer on FX’s Pose, just inked a three-year, multimillion-dollar deal with Netflix that allows the streamer exclusive rights to her TV series and a first-look option on feature film projects. As Variety notes, the deal is also history-making, as Mock is now “the first out transgender woman empowered to call the creative shots at a major content company.” The deal will not impact her work on Pose, which is currently in the midst of a fantastic second season. That’s especially good news considering FX just announced the LGBTQ drama has been granted a third season.
“As someone who grew up in front of the TV screen, whether that was watching talk shows or family sitcoms or VHS films, I never thought that I would be embraced,” Mock told Variety. “And more than embraced. Given not just a seat at the table but a table of my own making.” Her hope, she says, is that the deal “will be a huge signal boost, industrywide, to empower people and equip them to tell their own stories.”
Mock has a number of projects in the pipeline, specifically a producing role on Murphy’s upcoming Netflix series, Hollywood. She also plans to increase visibility for trans and gender non-binary identities with her upcoming projects, which include an adaptation of her 2014 memoir, Redefining Realness, as well as “a series about New Orleans after the abolishment of slavery and a reboot of a classic sitcom.”
There’s also her “dream” project, a series about a trans girl leaving her small town for the first time. “She decides to not be so open about being trans,” Mock explained. “What does it mean for a trans girl to just be in college? Just have her on a journey, and not so focused on her identity or origin story. What does it mean to be in this body and this world and to share space with people who don’t yet know you?”
“Upon my first meeting with Janet, I knew she was a star and had the stuff moguls are made of,” Pose creator Ryan Murphy added. “Being able to watch her grow, first as a writer, then a producer and now an acclaimed director who’s helmed four episodes for my productions, has been a gift. I am honored to be her mentor and friend, am grateful she’ll be joining me to write and direct on Hollywood, and am so excited to see what she creates at Netflix. Janet is a cultural force, and the world needs her stories.”