Monday 28 November 2016

Transsexual Shock Cinema. Using Transgender Characters to Shock the Audience

Using Transsexual Characters in Film for Shock Value

transsexuals in prison

I have often written about the poor use of transgender characters in film to either provoke or shock the audience. Here are two examples. Sleepaway Camp from 1983, when the mainstream media  didn't know any better and also more recently with the 2012 transsexuals in prison film K11.

Sleepaway Camp (aka Nightmare Vacation)

This review does contain spoilers, but you can still enjoy the movie (if you like such movies) whilst still knowing the twist. The clip here shows 'Angela' with her doctor mother whilst still a boy, informing young Peter of his new future as a feminized male who will be called Angela. We presume as she is a doctor the mother will be supplying hormones etc, although this is not part of the plot. We then see the unhappy boy now 'Angela' with her brother and mother before going off to summer camp. The clip also shows some bullying from one of her room mates about the use of the shower.



sleep away camp posterThe film was successful enough to  spawn three sequels. After the first film Angela has her sexchange operation and is now even more psychotic than before. The suggestion that Angela is now more unstable is in poor taste but remember the media didn't know better at the time. Technically speaking this film is not about a transsexual but about an ordinary boy forced to live as a female to satisfy his mothers' desire for a daughter. So perhaps we should not get too critical of the theme. The recent ReAssignment movie is similar as it's just using the idea and methods of transsexuality and not a real based character. Is a person who becomes transsexual not subject to the same rights and respect as someone who is born transsexual?

The original poster shown on the left shows a large knife penetrating through a pair of shorts. I wonder if this is some castration complex being illustrated here?





sleeaway 2 poster
Notice how the poster for Sleepaway Camp II shows a rather androgynous Angela, who is now post op, and presumed more dangerous than before. Her title has been upgraded to "The Angel of Death".

All of the Sleepaway Camp films are freely available to purchase from Amazon here and are also available on many streaming services.

The basic synopsis from the Amazon site is
After a terrible boating accident killed her family, shy Angela Baker (Felissa Rose, Return To Sleepaway Camp) went to live with her eccentric Aunt Martha and her cousin Ricky. This summer, Martha decides to send them both to Camp Arawak, a place to enjoy the great outdoors. Shortly after their arrival, a series of bizarre and violent accidents begin to claim the lives of various campers. Has a dark secret returned from the camp’s past…or will an unspeakable horror end the Summer season for all? 



transsexual exposed
"Oh God..Angela....She's a boy!!!"

K11 'Transsexuals Bare Behind Bars' (well almost!)

transsexual in prison

K11 was made in 2012 by Jules Mann-Stewart. The tag line for the movie reads, "There is a unit in the Los Angeles jail system that separates gay and transgender inmates from the general population. It's called K11." It's in this unit that many new rookies do at least four weeks duty, apparently most of them survive.

There are a number of trans characters featured in the story and we are told by one of the prison guards, "Don't get distracted by the females in here. There aren't any females in here". These trans ladies are hard, very hard, no one messes around with them. The transgender diva of the inmates actually calls herself The Queen / Mousey and enjoys establishing her position to any new inmate. She is played by Kate del Castillo, who in real life looks nothing like her frightening character Mousey.

Sadly the film only uses CIS actors to play the transgender inmates. I don't know why this was as in todays world there are plenty of very talented trans actors. However I wonder how many would be willing to appear in such a film. The film was not well received by critics and was awarded an 8% 'cotton' rating from Rotton Tomatoes.

Kate del Castillo looks nothing
like her Mousey character.

Despite the trailer promising a very nasty rough ride, I enjoyed this film and actually warmed to the Mousey character. She didn't seem that bad after all.

This film didn't seem to cause offence within the trans community despite the very negative image of trans people.  Still it did show then as very tough and not to be messed with. I am comparing the recent 'Reassignment' controversy to this film, which as far as I know missed the trans activist radar.

From Amazon the synopsis reads:
Record producer Raymond Saxx, Jr. (Goran Visnjic), has never seen anything like this before. After a weekend of binge drinking and drug use, he wakes in a jail cell completely oblivious of what happened and how he got there; Ray is abruptly hauled off into a completely new brand of Hell Los Angeles County s controversial K-11 unit. Like Alice in a brutally violent Wonderland, Ray must learn to navigate the politics of vicious transvestites and drug-addicted criminals if he wants to see his perfect life again. 


Complicating matters is a troubled young transgender named Butterfly (Portia Doubleday), a predatory child molester (Tommy Tiny Lister) and K-11 s drug-dealing gang headed by Mousey (Kate Del Castillo, Under the Same Moon, La Reina del Sur) and Ben (Jason Mewes). Even the so-called authority, Sheriff s Deputy Lt. Johnson (D.B. Sweeney), can t be trusted.

You can stream the film on Netflix or Amazon and the DVD can be purchased here






Friday 25 November 2016

Crossdressing MTF Transformation Fun Short Films

Short Crossdressing Transformation Films


Here are some fun short MTF crossdressing videos I have recently uploaded. Each feature MTF ,crossdressing and transformation. Simply click on the photos and links below to watch the associated video on YouTube.  The full films are available via Tranisa.

If you are effected by crossdressing or the desire to be female check out Cross Dream Life forum.

Enjoy!!!!

1 Paige and Lara give our male a lesson in crossdressing and feminisation. Watch this now here

man crossdressed
A crossdressing and feminisation lesson at the hands of Lara and Paige.

2. A Wife finds out about her husbands crossdressing but to his surprise is very accepting. Watch this now here

crossdressed husband
A transvestite discovers his wife accepts his crossdressing


3. A MTF Crossdressing photo shoot. Watch the transformation now here

transgender model
MTF Photo shoot

4. A pretty and very feminine male is crossdressed and transformed. Watch this now


beautiful trans model
MTF of Pretty Boy into convincing female


5 A wife prefers her husband to crossdress as a woman. Watch this now
wife crossdressing her husband
Wife prefers husband crossdressed



Are you affected by crossdressing? Do you have cross gender feelings that you find difficult to talk about? Why not try Cross Dream Life at http://crossdreamlife.lefora.com






Sunday 20 November 2016

FREE Transgender Makeup Video for Crossdressers and Transsexuals A Free 1 Hour How To Guide.

Free Transgender Makeup Lesson

I have uploaded a free 1 hour long transgender makeup lesson. I made this a little while ago with a professional makeup artist known as T. She her transform young Paul into a very convincing natural woman. The transgender makeup lesson is split into two parts each with a 30 min running time.

Part One of the Makeup Lesson can be found on our YouTube Channel Here 30mins running time

Part Two of the Makeup Lesson can be found on our YouTube Channel Here 30mins running time

As part of a new YouTube Channel you can view here 





Transvestite crossdressing supper groupAre you affected by crossdressing? Do you have cross gender feelings that you find difficult to talk about? Why not try Cross Dream Life at http://crossdreamlife.lefora.com





Tuesday 15 November 2016

A New Wave of Transgender Stars: Trace Lysette, Hari Nef, Rebecca Root, Laverne Cox, Candis Cayne & Kelly van der Veer

Trace Lysette trans actor from Transparent

Transgender Stars of Today

The media in the US and the UK has finally caught up with the value of trans actors and performers. Back in the 1970s and 1980s a transgender character was only to be included if sleaze or corruption was required in the filming project. Thankfully todays world is different. I want to highlight some of the recent transgender performers who have been appearing in mainstream media over the past few years.

Some of these have been highly successful mainstream projects such as Sense 8, Transparent and Orange is the New Black.

Trace Lysette Transgender Actress

First we have Trace Lysette, who has recently appeared in three seasons of the Amazon Transparent  series. In the current series Lysette's character has been open to far more scope than previously, and there is even a hint of romance for her with 'Josh'. She says of 'Shea's situation,  "There is no blueprint for a CIS hetero man who has feelings for a trans woman". I do hope the series creators bring 'Shea' back for the fourth series.

Trace has also appeared in Blunt Talk (2015) , The Curse of the Fuentes Women (2015) and the reality show I am Cait. You can read a new interview with Trace Lysette here. You can also watch all three series of Transparent now on Amazon.

Trace Lysette trans actor from Transparent


Trace Lysette before and after
The Very Beautiful Trace Lysette Before and After

Hari Nef Trans Model/Actress

Hard Nef trans actor from TransparentTransgender model Hari Nef has also recently played a transgender character in the Amazon series Transparent. She played a family member, a 'lost uncle', during the flashback sequences set in Germany in the early 1930s during the rise of the Nazis. The series Transparent seems to imply that there is some family history with crossdressing, one of the female characters in Transparent states, "All of the men in my family want to be women".

Hari Nef also has an established modelling career appearing on the covers of Elle Magazine. She says of herself, " In an ideal world, I wouldn't have to change my body. I wouldn't have to do all this stuff. I wouldn't have to be pretty, or "feminine" and people would respect that." You can read more about Hari Nef here

Advertisement

Jamie Clayton Makeup Artist & Actress


Jamie Clayton was 19 when she moved to New York to pursue a career as a makeup artist. She exploited her talent by appearing in the VH1 makeover series  'TRANSform Me'. She also become known as the '2nd Most Beautiful Woman in NYC',  by The New York Observer. She has been extremely busy with her acting appearing in the third series of HBOs Hung, a web series Dirty Work and also the TV series Are We There Yet?.


She is perhaps best known for the Netflix produced series Sense8 which she plays Nomi Marks, a trans political blogger and hacker. You can read more about Jamie here.

Rebecca Root Transgender Actress

Rebecca Root famous for her appearance in the BBC comedy series Boy Meets Girl, which so far has run to two series. You can read more about this series here on a previous blog entry of mine. You can also read a full interview with Rebecca Root here . She says of her self "When I get chatted up, I feel like I've achieved something. Feeling just a tiny bit sexy - which I never did as a male."

Laverne Cox Transgender Actress. 

Laverne Cox is a reality television star, producer and LGBT advocate. She is perhaps best known for her role in the hugely successful Orange is the New Black which has spanned four series so far on Netflix. Interestingly there are some pre transition segments within the series which are played by her own real life twin brother M Lamar. 
Laverne can also boast that she is the first openly trans person who has a wax works of her own image at Madame Tussauds. 

In an interview in 2015 Laverne said, "Now I have the money to feminize my face I don't want to. I'm happy that this is the face God gave me. You can read this interview here

Candis Cayne Actress & Performance artist

Candis Cayne  became a performance artist working in New York nightclubs in drag during the 1990s, she began her transition in 1996. She shot to fame acquiring a lead role in the television series Dirty Sexy Money, playing the part of Carmelita.  She also appeared in the reality series I Am Cait. More information about the life of Candis can be found here and there is a piece here well worth reading too.
Candis Cayne pre transition as a teenager.Candis Cayne transgender performer and artist


Kelly van der Veer (Holland)

Kelly Van der Veer is Dutch television personality and Webcam business owner. She transitioned very young having SRS at 19 years old. Kelly initially became known for being a participant on the De Travestiet Show (The Transvestite Show) on Dutch television. She then appeared in the Dutch Big Brother series and then went on to invent her webcam business and pursue a career in music.







Transvestite crossdressing supper groupAre you affected by crossdressing? Do you have cross gender feelings that you find difficult to talk about? Why not try Cross Dream Life at http://crossdreamlife.lefora.com








Saturday 5 November 2016

Grayson Perry Crossdressing Artist New Transgender Series

New Transgender Series With Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry the crossdressing English artist, born 1960, best known for his ceramics, tapestries and his alter-ego Claire, presents a new mini series about transgender. The short series of films titled, 'Born Risky' explores three transgender individuals through the unique insight of Grayson Perry who uses his own experiences of being a crossdresser highlights the personal struggles of each person.

Perry states: “I am very proud to be part of Born Risky – it was fascinating, fun and a privilege to meet and work with three such brave, tender souls. If just one viewer feels more confident enough to live the gender they feel driven to live then we would have done our job, but I'm sure these lovely films will do much better than that.”



In the video below Grayson tells us how he had forced feminisation fantasies as a child, also how his sexuality was like 'Going through a maze in the dark pushing on the walls, and one opens....".




The series will be available online via the Channel 4 network of ALL4, Twitter and Facebook feeds.

Here are some clips of the new series









Thursday 3 November 2016

Forced Sexchange Film Reassignment (aka Tomboy) New Exploitation Film With Michelle Rodriguez

Forced Sexchange Film (Re)Assignment (Tomboy) First Look & Thoughts

(Re) Assignment 2016, the new film by Walter Hill with Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver will be getting its release very soon. What's it about? It's a Forced Feminisation fantasy movie which has a forced Gender Reassignment (a sexchange) followed by revenge as part of the plot line.


Reassignment aka Tomboy Film Poster
Forced Sexchange & Revenge
Highly Offensive
This film has generated quite a bit of interest for all of the wrong reasons, even before a film trailer has been released. All of the marketing of this film has been at the hands of Trans Activists who have not seen the movie and are offended by the 'forced sexchange and revenge' plot line. It does remain to be seen if they are justified in being offended we will just have to wait and see.

It is worth pointing out that in 2011 Pedro Almodovar directed his own Forced Sexchange tour de force The Skin I Live In. This film had a mad surgeon played by Antonio Banderas, forcing SRS upon a young chap whom he had kidnapped. For some reason this film did not seem to offend anyone, I can only presume it was because the film had English subtitles and was not really a mainstream release. Some effort had to be made to see the film. Personally I found the film highly creative and very stylish.

 Forced Sexchange as Exploitation?

So why is (Re)Assignment considered an exploitation film?   Is it exploiting transgender people, even though there are no transgendered characters in the movie? It's only the device or gimmick of gender reassignment surgery as part of the story that seems to be causing the offence. If the story had another life saving surgery gimmick would it offend people who had/due to have that alternative life saving surgery?

First we have to understand what exactly an exploitation film is.

Forced Sexchange & Revenge
Not Offensive
Wikipedia states:
An exploitation film is a film which attempts to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality "B movies". Even so, they sometimes attract critical attention and cult followings.

The film already has attracted negative reviews from those critics who have already seen it, and it has been classed as a 'B Movie' by many. The story, from what we understand, is very basic and perhaps designed to simply shock. The revenge part also has many parallels with other older Grindhouse type movies from the 70s and 80s. I Spit on Your Grave, Vigilante, Death Wish etc etc.

IMDB has this user comment regarding the plot line:
Following an ace assassin who is double crossed by gangsters and falls into the hands of rogue surgeon known as The Doctor who turns him into a woman. The hitman now a hitwoman sets out for revenge, aided by a nurse named Johnnie who also has secrets.



The Guardian Newspaper reports:
There are many thoughts that run through one’s head while watching a film for the first time. What will happen next? Is the twist that he’s really dead? Why am I so alone? But the most fascinating, and perhaps ultimately frustrating, process begins by asking: what the hell were they thinking?

When films are not just bad but incompetent, incoherent and incomprehensible, you start to wonder whether an actual human being was in charge or if a group of monkeys was given free rein on a soundstage for a month and this is what they produced. Such is the case with [re]Assignment (previously Tomboy), a B-movie in which the b stands for bad.....(see more)

I will not be persuaded by the Guardian review. The review they gave was pretty much the expected 'political correct' review they would give considering the films controversy. I personally enjoy low budget exploitation movies and review them myself in a completely different manner to a big budget mainstream project. The expectations are totally different.

The photo below is supposed to be a still from the film. It has been suggested that this photo shows 'her' escape after having the Gender Reassignment surgery.



At the moment I am reserving judgement on this film until I have seen it, at this stage I really don't think the film makers have set out to offend the transgender community. However once I have seen the film I may feel differently. Time will tell.



Here we have a video of Michelle Rodriguez telling us what it's like to 'have cock and balls', whilst working on the film.




Are you affected by crossdressing? Do you have cross gender feelings that you find difficult to talk about? Why not try Cross Dream Life at http://crossdreamlife.lefora.com

Transvestite crossdressing supper group