Fantastic Film Femulations

Lee Pace in Soldier’s Girl

A few days ago, Mikki commented that Mehdi Dehbi in the film He’s My Girl “does the best job of female impersonation I’ve ever seen in a film. Unlike very many of these films, there’s no reason to go into ‘deliberate suspension of belief’ when perceiving Naim/Habiba as a female.”

I admit that my trans-radar did not sound off immediately when I first saw Mehdi Dehbi in that film and he should receive two bra cups up for his femulation. On the other hand, there are other film femulations that can compete with Mehdi Dehbi. 

Lee Pace in Soldier’s Girl, Romain Duris in The New Girlfriend and Matthias Schweighöfer in Woman in Love come to mind immediately and I am sure there are others that are just as good. (For a long time, I thought Tony Curtis’ femulation in Some Like It Hot was excellent until I discovered that his very female voice was dubbed in – by a man, Paul Frees.)

That’s just my opinion. So who do you think was an excellent film femulator? Let us know in the Comments below.

Wearing Retro Stage

Matthias Schweighöfer femulating in the 2011 German film Woman in Love (Rubbeldiekatz).

Very Comfortable

A reader commented, “You must feel very comfortable in your skin to be able to go into the situations you go into Stana.”

Yes, I am very comfortable.

I admit that before I take that first step out the door en femme, I am a little hesitant. Part of it is due to fear and part of it is due to awe.

 “Fear” that something may go wrong. (Except for wardrobe and automobile malfunctions nothing has ever gone wrong.)

“Awe” that I am actually going out en femme and functioning as a woman in society.

I hesitate for only a moment or two, then push myself out the door.

As soon as I hear the click of my high heels on the floor, pavement, sidewalk, or wherever I take those first steps, I stop thinking about being en femme because at that point, I am femme.

Wearing New York & Company

Ronnie Barker femulating on British televisions’s The Two Ronnies.

Separated at Birth

In an email titled, “She looks just like you...,” Tami wrote, “when i first saw this short video i thought it was you!”

I was flattered and responded, “Separated at birth! LOL”

Tami retorted, “You should post her video and link to her site... see if others see the resemblance that I saw. She also seems to have a similar fashion sense, with pretty feminine clothing. She also has very feminine mannerisms - she’s someone all of us 'gurls' should strive to femulate!”

Do I resemble her, who BTW goes by the name “Deborah Boland”? 

In my opinion, there is some resemblance especially when my hair is blond. But I should be so thin – Deborah probably weighs 70 pounds less than me! 

I do agree that our fashion sense is similar – emphasizing pretty feminine clothing – and my mannerisms are comparable to hers. And absolutely yes, she is someone all of us should strive to femulate.

By the way, Deborah also has a YouTube page, which I now subscribe to.  Coincidentally, I also am subscribed to Schellea’s Fabulous 50s YouTube page. (Wonder if there is a Fabulous 70s YouTube page. If not, maybe I should start one!)

Wearing New York & Company

Abdel Moneim Ibrahim femulating in the 1960 Egyptian film Sukkar Hanem (Lady Sugar).

"Your Face Sounds Familiar" Observations

By Yamini Argo

Follow are my notes regarding some of the quirky things that happened on the Your Face Sounds Familiar television franchise.

The show has produced so many wonderful femulations over the last decade. The number of challenges the femulators have overcome is something all of us would have gone through. But the support they receive for the transformations is phenomenal. I like to look at the backstage makeup process and their physical and psychological aspects during the week of preparation.

Apart from bending the gender, many participants crossed racial boundaries. Few even successfully twerked and danced around muscular men. Not that everyone enjoys such performances; Romanian actor stated he felt violated when the male dancers touched him all over.

Carlos Marco femulating on Spain's version of Your Face Sounds Familiar.

Almost all the contestants had to walk in high heels and almost none fell on their rears, thanks to the practice they have at the studio and also at home. A few girlfriends and wives have supported this endeavor by lending them shoes or simply encouraging them. One Spanish contestant was given the original dress worn by the singer to lend authenticity for the performance. 

Makeup artists give them flawless appearance, which combined with their fine features can have unintentional outcomes. One such transformation found the Brazilian actor Victor Kley being mistaken for actress Meghan Fox. In the same show, another actor had to be censored by Instagram when he showed off his new assets. 

The actors need not always wear the panties that go with their bras, but they don’t seem to mind. Few have flashed inadvertently, few intentionally. And they had to tuck their bits for the duration of the show. Some have showcased their bodies in revealing attires including bikinis.

Things get interesting when these men have personal relationships with the singers. These instances include when the son became his mother, brother became his sister and the times when boyfriends became their own ex-girlfriends. Fiancés have swapped roles and weirdly, brothers have danced as couples on two different shows.

Quite a few amusing things happened in the Bulgarian version this season. One contestant went on to kiss the judge deeply in the mode of the character he was in. Another actor had a mishap of his lifetime when the tube top slipped and revealed his fake breasts. He was described as a pornstar on national television. 

The psychological aspect of this observation also questions how do they feel when they had become a sex symbol that they had wet dreams about in their teenage years. They learn dance moves to seduce the male dancers during the song and they also get voice training, which leaves them with sultry voices. These are potential tools they can use at any point in time with anyone. I'm not sure how many did venture outside the studio in full glam; at least once it was noted that Romanian singer Florin Ristei went home in between takes. 

Overall, I'm glad this show exists and continues to provide some crossdressing entertainment for all of us.

P.S: I'd like to give a shout out to Vlad Nicola who has been amazing as a cosplayer and hostess. He’s got an appreciative girlfriend just like Zach Scuderi.

Wearing Ann Taylor

Joel Grey femulating in the 1972 film Cabaret.

Metamorphosis Balls Revisited

March 2020, I wrote about Catherine the Great's “metamorphosis balls” in which the male and female attendees crossdressed under orders from the Russian empress herself. I researched the subject, but only found an article from Vogue magazine, which was sparked by the metamorphosis ball scene in the HBO series Catherine the Great (photo above).

Yesterday, an article came across the mojo wire via Atlas Obscura, “The Weekly Cross-Dressing Balls of 18th-Century Russian Royalty” by Sarah Durn, which goes into much greater detail than the Vogue article. 

The men would be required to wear the stockings, corsets, petticoats (up to five was customary), ruffled lace sleeves, hoop skirts, and elaborate sack back gowns that, on any other occasion, the women of court would’ve worn. The women, on the other hand, had to wear men’s embroidered waistcoats, full-skirted coats, breeches, white silk stockings, shoes with ostentatious buckles, a powdered wig, and an unwieldy sword.

In the metamorphosis balls, in which both men and women dressed as the opposite gender, there are two power shifts going on. First, Cole says, “there’s the power of somebody making you dress outside your gender.” Second, there’s the power play that “by doing it yourself, you are critiquing the power dynamics of gender and gendered dress.” By forcing their male courtiers to dress as women, Elizabeth and Catherine were reminding everyone who was boss. They made the rules. And even men had to follow them.

It is a fascinating read and I recommend it to all Femulate readers.

Wearing Madeleine.

Femulating Russian nobility in the 2019 Russian television series Ekaterina (Catherine).
You can view the femulation scene from Ekaterina on YouTube.

TV on TV (You know what I mean)

Comedy Central now has the Seinfeld franchise and Saturday evening, they kicked things off with the “fans’” top ten Seinfeld episodes. Here is the top ten list:

#10 – The Contest

#9 – The Hamptons

#8 – The Festivus

#7 – The Boy Friend (Part 1)

#6 – The Close Talker

#5 – The Yada Yada

#4 – The Little Kicks

#3 – The Bizarro Jerry

#2 – The Puffy Shirt

#1 – The Soup Nazi

Seinfeld is my all-time favorite television comedy series and I disagree with some of the top ten choices (numbers 3 and 8, for example) and the numerical order of the top ten. (“The Soup Nazi” is good, but most of the other episodes on the top ten are better than “The Soup Nazi”).  

And how can “The Chinese Restaurant” not be in the top ten?

“The Red Dot” is another episode that is top ten-worthy. Besides the humor of that episode’s plot, it also includes one of the few crossdressing references in the series when Jerry finds himself in the women’s department of a department store and he says, “I never feel comfortable in the women’s department. I feel like I’m just a little too close to trying on a dress.”

👩  👩  👩

Ninety minutes after the Seinfeld top ten, Kim Kardashian guest-hosted Saturday Night Live. 

I am not a Kardashian fan, but she is Femulate Her-worthy and she fills that slot in today’s post primarily because I love her hairdo in the Lotto Drawing segment of Saturday’s broadcast. 

Where can I get a wig like hers?

Kim Kardashian

Saturday Night Live alumnus Terry Sweeney femulating Nancy Reagan at his book party.

Coming Soon: The Candy Store

Aunty Marlena sent me an email containing a link to a YouTube video titled CANDY STORE SIZZLE. So I watched it and it seemed to be a trailer for a new television show about a couple inheriting a brick and mortar store. The trailer was a tease and did not specify what kind of store. Since Aunty sent me the video, I assumed it was trans-related and I guessed that the store might be a crossdressing emporium. If that was the case, I was excited that this might be just the television show I was asking for – not another program about drag queens, but a program about crossdressers and femulators like you and me.

I quickly checked out The Candy Store website and Facebook page and discovered that I had guessed correctly.  

The Candy Store is an “original dramatic TV series (currently in development) about the complex lives of crossdressers and the struggles that crossdressing brings to families and communities.”

“The purpose of The Candy Store is to help the world better understand and accept the motives behind crossdressing and the different ways it affects individuals, families and communities.”

This is very much a work in progress and nothing may come of it, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Wearing ShopBop

Paolo Pazzaglia and Franco Caracciolo femulating in Dove vai se il vizietto non ce l'hai? (Where Can You Go Without the Little Vice?). This 1979 Italian comedy has a lot of crossdressing and you can view it on YouTube.

What would be your reaction...

...if you walked in on a guy trying on a dress?

Source: De (de_chasing) on TikTok

Wearing Paige

Piotr Gawron-Jedlikowski femulated Jessie J on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo. You can view the femulation on YouTube.

Easter Envy

Easter is not a big holiday in my family. We hardly notice it.

It was different when I was a kid. My family were practicing Catholics, so it was a big holiday for us back then.

Our usual Easter routine was Mass on Sunday morning, dinner with the whole family at my aunt’s house Sunday afternoon and an egg hunt for the kids after dinner.

In preparation for Easter, Mom would sew new Easter outfits for herself and my sister. My Dad and I wore whatever suit was the most recent addition to our wardrobes.

I was jealous of my sister. She usually wore a new dress, new shoes and a new hat for Easter. My female cousins got dolled up for Easter, too, meanwhile, I was stuck in a boring suit.

I wonder how many Femulate readers also experienced “Easter envy?”

Wearing Venus (a recent Stana purchase)

British femulators in the 1920's

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