TG TV Ads

By Paula Gaikowski

It’s been a long winter. Our CFO (Chief Femulating Officer) has not been feeling well, the pandemic, has many of us locked away at home and after that incident in the supply room during the Femulate holiday party, I’ve been assigned to the front desk at Femulate World Headquarters (by the way, if anyone finds a black Victoria Secret bra, please email me) . 

So, to get back in the good graces of senior management, I’ve decided to take some initiative and find some positive transgender television advertisements. Too often in the past, transgender persons are depicted as the butt of a joke or incorrectly as a drag queen.

The first two commercials I found very positive because they take a real issue that we all have dealt with and treats it respectfully. While out and about as Paula, I’ve often been treated as a woman until I hand over my male credit card and hear “Thank you, sir” or “Thank you Mr. Gaikowski.” In this commercial, Mastercard does a great job showing how it feels and how you can now have your true name put on your card. Citibank does the same.

The next commercial runs a bit deeper and takes a while to watch. It features a social experiment about people working together and one of those persons is transgender. It’s sponsored by Heineken and involves building a bar complete with beer so, of course, I loved it!

The next commercial was so relatable. If you remember the first time you were out in public, you will appreciate this commercial. It features a beautiful nervous transgender woman out in public for the first time. It’s an ad for Secret Deodorant and it touched my heart.

Every time I am addressed as Paula or Ma’am, I feel a pinch of joy. Starbucks' commercial does a great job showing that joy.  

The last commercial for Holiday Inn ran in the 90’s for the Super Bowl. Back then, it was pulled because some people objected to the topic. Today, some transgender persons don’t like it because of the unrealistic standard of beauty that it demands for transgender woman. I have to say I loved it. I thought it was funny, cute and saw myself in the starring role going to my class reunion.   

Interesting to note that back in the 90’s people complained to Holiday Inn that they were “offended” by a transgender person. Times have changed thank goodness. 

Wearing Rue La La

I'm not a drag queen

Transgender Day of Visibility (Today)

A reader sent me the news that Coca-Cola has a drag artist as a spokesperson for their products. 

“I’d call that a big step forward,” said the reader who sent me that news.

Yes – a big step forward for drag queens, but I'm not a drag queen! Doesn't do much for me or my trans sisters.

The new Coke queen is not the first. For the past year or so, drag queens have been appearing in television commercials here and there. The queens are all over-the-top and have no relation to femulators like me. 

The only transwomen I’ve seen on television are in ads for AIDS-related medicines. I applaud the pharmaceutical companies for that, but it would be nice to see a transwoman in an ad for a more generic product like Pepsi or Ford or Walmart where the crossdresser is just another consumer and not the butt of a joke.

Wearing Paige

Peter Outerbridge in the 1999 Canadian film Better Than Chocolate

Ten Ten of Twenty Twenty

Biden 3, Trump 0

We voted early. Absentee ballots arrived on Tuesday, we filled them out on Wednesday and I deposited them in the ballot box in front of the town hall on Thursday.

Friday, I received a phone call from a worker on the campaign to reelect our congresswoman. She was looking for volunteers to make phone calls urging people to get out and vote and to specifically vote for our House Representative Congresswoman Jahana Hayes.

I decided to put my money where my mouth is and volunteered to make phone calls starting Monday evening.

Bubble Bath

I caught a new Harry’s razor commercial on television last night. I was not sure what my eyes had seen, so I fast-reversed it and replayed it. And my eyes did see what I thought I saw: a naked femulator sitting in a bubble bath shaving outdoors. She has a towel wrapped around her head, wears full makeup and tassel pasties on each nipple of her flat chest. 

Now that’s something you don’t see every day on network televsion! (You can see the commercial on YouTube; the femulator appears briefly starting at the 18-second mark.) 

Researching the matter, I learned that Harry’s commercials are known for their diversity. Last year, they had a commercial showing a bare-chested transman shaving with visible scars on his chest (at the 37-second mark).

Wearing Jonathan Simkhai

Femulator shaving with a Harry’s razor

Trans Mascots

From The Cut Monday came this, "As women across America deal with a wage gap, a lack of paid maternity leave, the threat of decreased reproductive rights, and rampant sexual misconduct, brands have responded by bravely … making female versions of their mascots?"

The article pointed out that Brawny paper towels rolled out a flannel shirt–clad Brawny Woman, Reba McEntire became the first woman to play KFC’s Colonel Sanders and Johnnie Walker just introduced a “Jane Walker” logo toto “draw more women to the world’s best-selling scotch and acknowledge a broader push toward gender equality.”

The piece concluded with a list of 15 other male mascots who could be feminized, like The Jolly Green Giantess, Ms. Peanut, The Pillsbury Doughgirl, etc.

Which begs the question, what's good for the goose is good for the gander?

Mr. Betty Crocker

So how about...

👠 Coppertone Boy

👠 Land O Lakes Indian Male Maid

👠 Mr. Butterworth

👠 Sun-Maid Boy

👠 Uncle Jemima

👠 Utz Boy

👠 Little Mr. Sunbeam

👠 Morton Salt Boy

👠 St. Pauli Boy

👠 Wendell's Hamburger Boy

And so it goes!

Wearing Intermix (Source: Intermix)

Andrew Lees (left) and Eamon Farren (center) femulating in the 2014 Australian TV movie Carlotta.

Womanmaker

By Alison, Femulate Guest Columnist

Back in the day, when I started exploring lingerie pictures in catalogs and magazine ads, I used to find reading some of the descriptions almost as interesting as the pics themselves. I'm sure that you have a special place in your heart for phrases like "lift and separate" or for the wonders of fabrics like Dupont Antron3.

I recently found this old Warner's ad on Tumblr. The pic isnt too special, but the words have got to be the most sensuous of any bra ad I've ever read. I hope that whoever came up with this ad copy got at least a week or two extra vacation time for their trouble.

By the way, I plan to attend First Event in a few weeks? I will be there Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Just look for the woman with the ham radio callsign on her name tag. I'll also have my HT in my purse.

Stana's Two Cents

My favorite bra ad phrases were "cross your heart" and "I dreamed I did something (like crossdressing) in my Maidenform bra." While on the subject, you have to wonder if the Warner's Womanmaker ad was aimed at crossdressers, as well as women. Womanmaker!!! Like I always say, "Feel like a woman. Wear a bra!"

Wearing Boston Proper.

Femulating in Pageant: The Musical.

SaveSave

On the job

Wearing Pink Tartan.

Jonah Chalmers femulates as maid of honor in Katy Perry's Hot N Cold music video.

Weekdays and weeknights, too!

Bendeac Anuta femulates Amy Winehouse on Romanian television's Te cunosc de undeva!

Shops for Plus-Sized Gurls

I am a lucky gurl! 

The local mall has both a Torrid store and a Fashion to Figure store and they are right next door to each other. I shop at both stores because they are geared toward younger plus-sized gurls, whereas stores like Lane Bryant and Catherines cater to more mature plus-sized gurls.

Lately, I have purchased more at Fashion to Figure than Torrid because Fashion to Figure's prices are easier on my pocketbook than Torrid's.

And by the way, all the aforementioned stores are very accomodating to gurls... even in boy mode!

Make your legs look longer.

Tuck sheer tights into suede knee-high boots and finish with a mini-skirt. The broken up look will give off the illusion of legs for days. (Source: Popsugar)

Perez Hilton's Madonna costume, Halloween 2014.

Femulating on the Tube

High School Girls

Anna Maria and Paula alerted me to a Shiseido cosmetics advertisement featuring what is purported to be a class of Japanese high school girls, who are actually femulated boys. The ad is amazing not only because the femulations are perfect, but because of the time and effort put into producing the ad.

You can see the ad here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n3Db6pMQ-8

And you can see how the ad was produced here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM_uPPvXUXs

I'll Switch

Poking around the Internet, I discovered The Switch, a television show from Chile, which features femulators competing in song. The program is sort of a combination of The Voice and Ru Paul's Drag Race.

The contestants are drag queens female impersonators, that is "men who live a regular life throughout the day... but in the evening they transform themselves into great (pop) stars." but in In my opinion, their transformations are less drag and more ladylike, that is, they look more like professional female singers rather than drag queens.

There are a bunch of videos on YouTube from The Switch. Here are two samples:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYqP2JFQ7CQ
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCaM1nYmYzE 

By the way, The Switch is also the name of a new Canadian television program, which "features Julie Vu, a transgender woman and YouTube sensation, in the lead role of an upwardly mobile IT manager who loses her job and Vancouver apartment after coming out of the closet.

"But rather than being a downer, the Canadian single-camera comedy follows Vu's character as she rebuilds her life in Vancouver's queer underground with the help of friends, including five transgender characters, each played by a transgender actor." (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)

Wearing Boston Proper.

Actor Christopher Hewett plays the femulating Roger De Bris
in the original 1967 version of the film The Producers.

Actor Gary Beach plays the femulating Roger De Bris
in the 2005 remake of The Producers.

In my dreams, 50 years ago...

Wearing A.B.S. By Allen Schwartz.

Victoria Elizabeth, British actor, magician and stand-up comedian.

Throwback Thursday: His Hanes

Back in 1998, this pin-up girl artwork by Gil Elvgren inspired me to modify it in a femulating way and post it in my old blog nFem. I gave the girl a boy's haircut, modified her bra so that her bust appeared to be more boy-like and added the caption to parody the classic tagline from the Hanes' ads of the 1970s and 1980s.

The parody took on a life of its own and appeared on the Internet in places where girls like us hang out.

Also, my parody (or Elvgren's original) may have inspired a photographic version, which I found on Pinterest.

Always trying to improve things, I took another stab at the parody in 2004. I changed the femulator's haircut, thickened her eyebrows, inserted falsies, added the package of Hanes hosiery and the blurb below the tagline.

Always trying to improve things, I may revisit the parody in the near future.

10 Million and Counting

Earlier this week, the hit counter for this blog passed the 10 million mark! I thank you all for making that possible.

On a typical day, Femulate gets about 5,000 hits, but as I write this midday on Wednesday, the blog has gotten over 36,000 hits so far! That's about a week's worth of hits in half a day! What is going on?

Wearing Sally LaPointe (coat), J.W. Anderson (skirt) and Vince (blouse)

Walton Goggins in television's Sons of Anarchy.