When I start a new blog post, I often have images already in mind for the Femulate Her and Femulator slots before I have written the text of the blog. So I slip in a “yadda yadda yadda” for the text, insert the images and then I work out the blog’s text in my head and on my keyboard.
And oftentimes, the title of a blog post is the last thing I compose, so I insert a “yadda yadda yadda” in the title slot until I come up with something.
Big time Seinfeld fan that I am, I often recall the episode where Jerry is in a dress department of a clothing store and he remarks how he gets a little nervous being surrounded by so many dresses because he fears he might want to try one on. (Been there, done that!)
By the way, isn’t that a great image in the Femulate Her slot below? I love the composition of the photo, as well as the model’s outfit.
Regarding the Femulator image, I am still amazed at all the female impersonation that occurred in prisoner of war camps during the two World Wars.
One thing I learned after researching and reading articles and books related to the POW environment, some of the soldiers who femulated on stage to entertain their fellow POWs were not civilians, if you know what I mean. A few even femulated when they were not performing on stage, not that there is anything wrong with that.
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| Wearing Venus |
Pinky Smith, World War II French prisoner of war, femulating to entertain his fellow POWs
Here is the Seinfeld vid clip:
ReplyDeletehttps://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/d1b99e30-144b-48a0-992e-409850f9361a
I got a little 'rush' when I first saw this episode.... same urge.
Velma posted on 06, Nov. 2019 05:49 Z hrs...
http://seinfeldism.com/seinfeld-quote.php?id=438
ReplyDeleteJerry: I never feel comfortable in the woman's department. I feel like I'm a little too close to trying on a dress.
http://seinfeldism.com/seinfeld-quote.php?id=438
ReplyDeleteJerry: I never feel comfortable in the woman's department. I feel like I'm a little too close to trying on a dress.
Three points:
ReplyDelete1. Thank you for the insight as to how your posts are put together
2. The skirt in Femulate Her is amazing
3. The POW is not a civilian,
PS: Seinfeld was great. His insights into things was always spot on.
All the business about POWs femulating for entertainment shouldn't be considered so unusual. In Britain there's a very long history of "pantomime" in theater, both formal and music hall -- especially the latter. There's also a long history of Drag all over Europe, which provided a great place for our "non-civilians" to be themselves without causing a stir. Maybe the Brits can claim it's a long holdover from the Shakespearian Age when only men were on stage. Whatever it is, they have no problem with it and it was just natural to carry over to the POW camps. What really gets me is how they got such fabulous outfits in Prison. Could it be the Germans had a thing for female impersonation??
ReplyDeleteThere's the story of an early transgendered woman, Roberta Cowell, who was selected to play women's roles in her POW camp. As a female character, she grew her hair long to fit the role and was apparently pleased with her selection. After the war she continued being female and eventually had the surgery. I'm thinking it wasn't just her theatrical experience that did it but it certainly triggered her "inner woman" and once out she would't go away.
Back in the late 1960's I worked with a man who had been sent to an English boys boarding school. It was a tradition from both sides of his well-to-do family. He was a petite boy and was chosen to be a female character in their theater program. He had dressed prior to going to boarding school and his parents encouraged him to strive for leading actress roles. So he grew his hair long and kept it cut in a female style for the 6 years he was in school. An interesting aspect of his female roles was that once rehearsals started the boys playing females wore women's clothes until the end of the play, "to get into their characters". The photos he showed me were amazing. Most of the boys could be picked out, but there was this one girl.....
We were both on a major programming project for NASA Goddard and spent a fair amount of time together for 6-7 months. He knew I loved Drag shows and we showed up independently at the same show one night, except "he" was a "she". She nudged up to me and whispered, "You really don't recognize me, do you"? Yikes!
After that evening we became even better friends and she shared more of her stories. And, back to the topic, her theater instructor had been a pantomime actor before WWII and was a female character in his POW camp. Like most of us, he was straight, married with kids and a very regular femulator, even to the point of sometimes wearing female outfits when teaching Shakespeare. A photo my friend shared with me was with her teacher -- they were both beautiful. Where's that time machine when I need it? I want to be a thespian in the 1950's too!
If one searches 'Cross dressed prisoners in POW Camp' many results
Deletehttps://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ypa8qy/a-farewell-to-pants-the-role-of-cross-dressing-during-wwi
I went to a boys only secondary school where a play was put on each year. Obviously, boys had to play female roles. I desperately wanted to play a girl/woman role but at the dame time was terrified that I'd be "outed immediately. The fact that I would have insisted on correct underwear as well wouldn't have helped. The boys who took these roles never suffered any problems save for a little gentle teasing, but I was scared stiff. So until quite late in life forays into my mother's wardrobe were all that I had
DeleteIt is the same single sex "group" wanting to put on a show
DeleteSome people will have to play the opposite sex
POWs had to improvise using what ever they could lay their hands on by fair means or foul
I believe some "make up" was not easy to remove
I can just imagine men with feminine hair styles and bright red lips living in the camp
Lucy