In the television show Pose, music plays a large role in adding meaning and depth to its characters and the events occurring. Just in the first episode, at least a dozen popular songs were used. Because Pose is set in 1987, its music supervisors used only music from that time period, creating a “sonic fingerprint” for the show. One of the songs used, “I’m Not in Love” by 10cc, was a perfect choice for the scene between Angel and Stan.
To provide some background for this song, a member of 10cc, Eric Stewart, wrote this song for his wife after she told him that he did not tell her “I love you” enough. Stewart believed that saying “I love you” to someone too much made it lose its meaning, and therefore, wrote “I’m Not in Love,” showing different ways he expressed love for his wife. When he played it for his bandmates, they originally hated it and abandoned it. However, Stewart convinced them to try the song out again, and they ended up creating a new arrangement of it. Instead of using instruments, 10cc recorded themselves singing “ahhh” for every note in the chromatic scale and looping it. This created a choir of voices in the background.
In this scene, Stan- a businessman, has brought Angel- a prostitute, to a hotel room. He is clearly nervous, and Angel asks if it is his first time doing something like this, to which he replies yes. Stan then asks Angel to take off her clothes, and she reveals she’s a transgender woman. She tells him she’s saving up to eventually get surgery, and then asks him if there are any parts of his body he would like to change. He says yes, but only on the inside. They then lay on the bed, and Stan asks her what she wants out of life. Angel replies that she wants a home and family of her own, to take care of someone and for someone to take care of her. While she says this, it plays over Stan arriving home to his wife and kids.
Sonically, this sound works well within the scene. Up until then, most of the songs had been very upbeat, dance music. However for this scene, it made more sense to choose a song that was softer and slowed down, as it played during an extremely intimate moment between the two characters. The choir of voices in the song further emphasize the beauty of this vulnerable moment between the two, sounding almost angelic, making her name Angel even more fitting.
Lyrically, the song works on two levels. If one takes the song at face value, the lyrics “I’m not in love,” emphasize the fact that Stan does not truly love his wife, as it plays over the scene of him greeting his wife and kids after leaving Angel. During this part the song is also layered with Angel’s voice saying she wants all of the things that Stan has. Another way of interpreting the lyrics could be that both of them seem to have a hard time loving themselves, as Angel does not feel comfortable in the body she was born into, and Stan says that he wants to change the “inside” parts of himself. The song also shows the strong connection between Stan and Angel. The lyrics “that doesn’t mean you mean that much to me” and “it’s just a silly phase I’m going through” represent how Stan wants to feel about Angel even though he cannot get her out of his head. The repetition of “I’m not in love” is almost them fighting the connection, trying to trick themselves into thinking that there is not anything between them. The lyrics “I keep your picture on the wall, it hides a nasty stain that’s lying there” could represent them using each other to cover up the parts of themselves that they want to hide.
In the scene, Stan turns on the radio, which plays “I’m Not in Love,” thus making it a diegetic sound. The act of him turning on the radio also brings the audience’s attention to the song. This makes them use a causal mode of listening, noticing where the sound is coming from, as well as a semantic mode of listening, having them focus on the meaning the song carries for the scene. However this changes, as later it plays over Stan arriving home and greeting his wife and kids, making it nondiegetic. This emphasizes the meaning of the song even more, as it does not apply to just Stan and Angel, but also the situation between Stan and his family.
The song “I’m Not in Love” playing in this scene between Angel and Stan elevates the small moments between the two, and adds more meaning behind it. Based on the first episode, it is clear that the relationship between the two will span for more than this episode. By using this song, the showrunners made the first real moments between these two characters feel like the start of an extremely complicated and deep relationship.
