Femulating a Femulator

One thing led to another while searching for something or other on the Internet and I got caught up searching YouTube for femulations on the Your Face Sounds Familiar television show in all of its international versions. I was surprised how many femulations I found.

Since the femulators are being made-up, coiffed and dressed by professionals, most of the femulators look very good. But when they open their mouths, it is usually incongruous because most of them choose to sing in their male voice.

On the other hand, a few attempt to sing in a female voice and those who have pulled it off have been appearing in the Femulator slot below this week.

One of the more unique femulations I have found features a femulation of  a femulator femulating Mae West!

Back in 1937, Polish film Piętro Wyżej (On the Floor Above) featured actor Eugeniusz Bodo femulating Mae West. Almost 80 years later, Polish singer Bartek Kasprzykowski recreated Bodo's femulation of Mae West on the Polish version of Your Face Sound Familiar, Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo. YouTube has both and you can view them below.

If you don't understand Polish, you might want to fast-forward to the 58:50 mark of the film to catch Bodo's femulation.

Enjoy!

Wearing Diane von Furstenberg.

Eugeniusz Bodo femulates Mae West in the 1937 film Piętro Wyżej (On the Floor Above).

Bartek Kasprzykowski femulates Eugeniusz Bodo femulating Mae West
on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo.

Statuesque Stars

Most of my free time this weekend was spent working with Turbotax. I finally buttoned up my tax return about 5 PM last night and crashed in front of the television.

The 2013 version of The Great Gatsby was on HBO, so I gave it a look. Visually, it was beautiful --- recreating New York City of the 1920s. And the actress playing Jordan Baker was stunning.

I did not recognize her, so I looked her up. She is Elizabeth Debicki, who happens to be half Polish and half Irish (Happy Saint Patrick's Day) and is 6 feet 3 inches tall!

With that I guess it is time to update my Famous Females of Height List.

Besides Ms. Debicki (photo right), I have two other additions to the list:

5’11” Toni Tenille, the singer of Captain and Tenille fame. (Source: Peaches)

5’8” Vanessa Angel, a model and actress, best known for the film, Kingpin.

Have a stunning week!

 

 

 

Actor Alexandre Styker (right) femulating in Belinda et Moi, a 2014 French television movie.(Thank you, Carmen, for the heads-up concerning this film.)

 

 

 

Wearing Madeleine.

Your Face Sounds Femulated

Most mornings, I check out the "Newest Postings From My Blog List" in the Femulate sidebar to see what's new with the girls in the blogosphere.

"Singer: Julio Iglesias Jr. as Amy Winehouse" on Elle’s Gossip Gurl caught my attention and I found myself on YouTube watching Julio femulate Amy on a television show called Your Face Sounds Familiar.

Evidently, Your Face Sounds Familiar is very popular outside the USA and appears on televisions in over 30 countries and languages. The premise of the show is that celebrities appear on the show to impersonate popular singers. And occasionally the celebrities impersonate singers of the opposite gender, as did Julio, Jr.

I had to check this out more thoroughly!

I spent an hour or so on YouTube searching out more cross-gender performances and I was impressed with many of the femulations I found. The makeup and wardrobe people on the shows performed some amazing transformations turning male celebrities into the likes of Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Tina Turner, Rhianna, Beyonce, Shirley Bassey, and others whose names I did not recognize. (I also did not recognize the names of some of the celebrities who femulated.)

For what it’s worth, some of the male celebrities have performed as the opposite gender more than once on the program… just saying.

There are literally hundreds of Your Face Sounds Familiar videos on YouTube and I probably missed a few of the femulations, but in my opinion, the best came from Spain's version of the program. During an episode which aired last year, Andreo Ermel femulated Amanda Lear. See the video above and the photos below.

I think you will agree that she looks fantastic… her voice, not so much!

 

 

 

Santiago Segura and Julio Iglesias, Jr. femulating as Azúcar-Moreno
on television’s Your Face Sounds Familiar in 2014.

 

 

 

Wearing Victoria's Secret.

She’s tall!

I have not updated the Famous Females of Height List lately because no new tall female celebrities have appeared on my radar. However, I now have three additions:

5'8" - Marthe Keller - actress, film The Marathon Man

5'9" - Jennifer Hudson (photo right) - singer

5'9" - Jennifer Lawrence - actress, film Silver Linings Playbook

If you are new here, you may wonder why the list.

Since the average femulator is taller than the average female, tall femulators might worry that their height might give them away (if they were concerned about passing). The list demonstrates that there are tall females out there to assure the tall femulators that they are not alone.

I used to worry about being tall.

I held back going out in public en femme for a very long time because I assumed that my height would prevent me from passing. But after overhearing comments from passerbys that I was an "Amazon" and a "dyke" and having a tall saleswoman at Nordstrom ask me how I liked growing up tall when I was a girl, I don't worry about my height any longer.

Sharp-Dressed Men

Spring is in the air and it seems that males everywhere are donning pretty frocks to participate in womanless events, according to the many stories coming in on the mojo wire this week.

For example, Aunty Marlena revealed womanless beauty pageants in North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and again in Texas.

Meanwhile, Miss Google mentioned womanless pageants in Connecticut, Tennessee, and yet another in Tennessee.

Clive pointed out a viral video from Thailand.

And Aunty Marlena came back with a ton of Ednas (of Hairpspray fame) popping up in Alberta, California, Georgia, Michigan, New York, Texas, Some Place, and Some Place Else.

So, put on your favorite sundress and enjoy the femulating festivities!

Monumental Monday

Height is the subject of this first day of the work week with five additions to my Famous Females of Height List.

5'8" – Abbie Cornish – actress – film A Good Year

5'8" – Amber Heard (photo right) – actress – television Playboy

5'9" – Madison Riley – actress – film Grown Ups

6'0" – Antonia Okonma – actress – television (UK)

6'0" – Beth Orton – singer

The last two are from Meg of Call Me Meg fame… thank you, Girlfriend.

tall Tuesday

The Famous Females of Height List team has been busy researching the height of new encounters of the female persuasion and has six new entries for the list.

5'8" – Lake Bell – actress – film: It's Complicated

5'8" – Emily Blunt (photo right) – actress – film: The Devil Wears Prada, The Young Victoria

5'8" – Melanie Lynskey – actress – TV: Two and a Half Men, film: Up in the Air

5'8" – Giuliana Rancic– celebrity news personality – TV: E! News

5'10" – Kristin Dos Santos – expert – TV: Countdown (to Golden Globe Awards)

6’0” – Ayla Brown – singer – TV: American Idol

Thank you, Peaches, for the Ayla Brown addition.

stirred, straight up, with a twist

I discovered a very interesting blog called "Stirred, Straight Up, With A Twist" that "celebrate the gods and goddesses of celluloid and vinyl, with nary a trace of elitism: Jeffrey Hunter or Cary Grant; Eydie Gorme or Maria Callas, we worship them all, and accord them their proper place in the pantheon of greats."

TJB, the brains behind the blog, has a great sense of humor and decorates the blog with fantastic photos from 1962 (give or take a decade).

If you are (like me) a femulator who likes glam (isn't that redundant?), visit TJB's blog.

Monday, Monday

Mondays after long weekends are hard.

* * *

Yvonne e-mailed me yesterday with another addition to my Famous Females of Height list: 5'9" actress Julianne Nicholson from the television series Law & Order Criminal Intent.

Meanwhile, I was surfing television channels and ran across a film starring Italian actress Claudia Cardinale (that is her photo on the right). She looked tall relative to the male actors in the scene I saw and I remember her as always being statuesque in all her films. I looked her up and she is 5'8" tall, so I added her to the list, too.

* * *

One thing led to another and I was on YouTube viewing videos of Woodstock performances that did not make it into the film. I was particularly interested in Creedence Clearwater Revival because Creedence was one of my favorite groups and I saw them perform at Woodstock. Since they were not in the film, I enjoyed viewing their Woodstock performances again a few weeks shy of 40 years later.

During my search of YouTube for Woodstock performances, I came across a video of Bert Sommer. I recall the name from way back when, but I was unfamiliar with Sommer's work had missed Sommer's performance at Woodstock, and I was not even sure if the name "Bert Sommer" was the name of a group or an individual, so I viewed the video to see what I missed.

Turns out Bert Sommer is an individual, but when I started watching Sommer's YouTube Woodstock video, I thought Sommer was a female. Sommer looked like a female and sounded like a female, but he was male (died in 1990), so I wondered if he was trans. I cannot find anything on the Internet indicating he was trans, so he probably was not.

I can't find a thing on the Internet indicating he was trans. I know that just because a male looks female and sounds female, he is not necessarily trans, but it did make me wonder.

* * *

I can't help it. Being trans something or other, I often wonder who else is trans.

Clean shaven, long haired males are always suspect. Actors who do a lot of drag are also suspect (John Ritter and Harvey Korman come to mind). Guys who are interested in other guys who are trans or do drag make me wonder, too.

And so it goes.

random thoughts on a Monday morning

I read in this morning's paper that Gale Storm died. Ms. Storm was an actress in television situation comedies.

She was best known for playing the title character of the television series My Little Margie. I watched the show in rerun regularly as a kid and recall that the show was very funny and one of my favorites, but I cannot recall one trans moment in that series.

However, when I recall My Little Margie, I always also remember Our Miss Brooks, another situation comedy that I watched in rerun as a kid around the same time I was watching My Little Margie. Eve Arden played the title character, a high school English teacher, who had a love interest in the shy biology teacher, Mr. Boynton.

I don't recall much about the show except for one episode in which Miss Brooks was trying to convince Mr. Boynton to attend a costume party. Mr. Boynton complained that he did not have a costume, but Miss Brooks offered as solution: with the right foundation garments, he could dress as a woman.

I sat through the rest of that episode waiting for Mr. Boynton to appear en femme, but that never happened and that trans moment in Our Miss Brooks was limited to words. (I cannot recall any other trans moments in Our Miss Brooks.)

Speaking of dead celebrities, I am burnt out by all the coverage of Michael Jackson's death and refuse to watch anymore. As a result, I may have missed if anyone commented that Mr. Jackson may have had trans issues.

I recall reading years ago on more than one occasion that Mr. Jackson had all that facial plastic surgery because he wanted to look like Diana Ross. Does that make him trans? I dunno, but it sure raises the issue.

Suzie Plakson

Lauralee e-mailed me that actress, singer, artist, and writer Suzie Plakson is 6'1-1/2" tall. Our height arbitrator rounds that out to 6'2" and I added Ms. Plakson to the Famous Females of Height List.

Jane Birkin, "I'd Rather Be Dressed As A Man"

Singer, actress, and film director Jane Birkin says, "I'd rather be dressed as a man."

I say, "Each to his/her own."

Read all about it here.

tall Krall

One of my favorite singers is Diana Krall and I just learned today that she is 5' 8½" tall, so I have duly added her to my Famous Females of Height list.