Fake Chicks and the Simulacrum of Impersonators
Email This ArticleIn my travels around the internet, I once heard a fellow refer to transgender / transvestites as “fake chicks.” Ugh. I thought it couldn’t get worst than the phrase, “but dude, you’re a dude.” But my money’s on “fake chicks.” It can’t get worst than that.
I wonder if anyone has yet discussed the simulacrum inherent in transvestite modes of expression. We all know and implicit understand that the artifice of femininity itself, even when practiced by genetic girls, is a ruse. But when a person emulates a girl, or even on a more severe level, a movie personality who distills all the most desirable (to men anyway, because these personalities were created, historically, within the realm of male-owned industries) qualities of womanhood onscreen, he is twice, or even thrice removed from the day-by-day woman.
I suppose that’s why I steer clear of lip-synching. The practice (popular among T* culture) has only escaped inspection because in the postmodern environment of remakes, it doesn’t seem all that foreign a concept.
The definition of simulacrum (or simulacra) is “an inferior imitation.” Fake chick sounds about as close to inferior as you can get. I say, why settle for a copy? Approach the problem with a synergistic solution, and aim for the skies.
Settle for nothing less than the third sex.