Transgressions

Pam treated me to lunch today at Woodranch as a sort of "thank you" meal for having picked her up from LAX (she just returned from her post-Bar Exam vacation in Thailand). The restaurant speakers were playing Aerosmith's "Dude Looks like a Lady," not the typical muzak lunchtime fare you'd expect to hear at most restaurants.

So the song got me thinking again of this reality show I want to create. Actually, the idea came to me while listening to Britney Spears's "I'm Not a Girl, Not yet a Woman." "Mmm," I thought to myself, "this song is so catchy. It'd make the perfect theme song to a reality show, but which one?" Then, the epiphany! Spears's ballad would make the perfect accompaniment to a reality show that tracks the transformation of three or four transexuals as they undergo the various hormone therapies, sessions of psychological counseling, and finally the surgeries to reverse their gender. Besides being very emotional, dramatic, and intriguing programming, it would be absolutely phenominally hilarious as we move to commerical saying "coming up after the break," and show a little tease of the next segment while playing "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman...all I need is time, a moment that is mine, while I'm in between," in the background. Hilarious: I laugh aloud each time I think of it—and I have thought of it often. The name of the show will be "Transgressions."

Of course I know it's not enough to have a whole show revolve around the joke of one theme song...so I had to think of other theme songs that would be somehow appropriate. So far, we have:

"Dude Looks like a Lady," by Aerosmith;
"You Make Me Feel like a Natural Woman," by Aretha Franklin; [I've never really understood this song; what kind of woman did she feel like before meeting the person whom the song addresses? An unnatural woman? I think by the end of the season, "unnatural woman" would be the perfect term to describe the show's contestants.]
"Man, I Feel like a Woman," by Shanya Twain.

"Reflections," the theme song to Mulan, also has really appropriate lyrics: "Look at me,/I will never pass for a perfect bride,/Or a perfect daughter. Can it be,/I'm not meant to play the part?/Now I see/That I were truly to be myself/I would break my family's heart...Must there be a secret me I'm forced to hide?/I won't pretend that I'm/Someone else for all time..." Danny also suggested Mulan's "I'll Make a Man out of You."

Six songs are significantly better than just one; still though, I thought it'd be good to have a larger arsenal of music from which to draw, so I went googled a few keywords to see what goodies the information highway could supply.

Bob Dylan has a song called "Ugliest Girl in the World." A second Dylan song I found entitled "Just like a Woman" goes, "She takes just like a woman/Yes, she makes love just like a woman/Yes, she does/And she aches just like a woman/But she breaks just like a little girl."

Sinead O'Connor's "No Man's Woman" seemed like a good choice, as did Carly Simon's "One Man-Woman." Think of the emphasis on the hyphenation in "man-woman" in the lines, "Feeling like a one man-woman/Acting like a one man-woman/I guess I'm just a one man-woman." ["Man-woman" also seems an appelation befitting the show's stars after the culmination of their alterations.] My search of the net also turned up this little nugget which I had forgotten about until now, Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman to Me": "And she'll promise you more than the Garden of Eden/Then she'll carelessly cut you, and laugh while you're bleedin'/But she'll bring out the best, and the worst you can be/Blame it all on yourself, 'cause she's always a woman to me."

One find that filled me with utter delight at its sheer germaness was Boy George's "She was never He." First of all, it would be difficult to begrudge a place on a show like this to any song by Boy George; secondly, the lyrics: "She was never he/For as long as I remember/She was never of her gender categorically/She was never he/Though the boys at school were cruel/You would have to be a fool not to see." I'm not sure how the melody of this one goes, but I envisioned it playing softly in the background of a Real World-style confessional scene as one of the transexuals sobs while retelling how he-she was merilessly teased as a child, and never really fit in at school.

But the crowning jewel of my search was by a band previously unknown to me, Urge Overkill. The piece, entitled "Girl, You'll be A Woman Soon," would provide the perfect musical accompaniment to the climax of show, the final surgery that indelibly transforms the contestant from the sex assigned to him/her at birth, to the sex he/she feels best expresses his/her gender. "I've been misunderstood for all of my life,/But what they're saying, girl, it cuts like a knife." I guess the song would be most suitable for a man-to-woman surgery, since its entitled, "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon." As for the use of direct address "girl," I thought it isn't so much "girl" as in "little girl's room," Girl Scouts or Boys and Girl's Club; it's more of the way some cross-dressers refer to each other as in "Giiiiiirl, you look good in that dress!" or "Giiiiiirl, I know you didn't take my mascara without permission!"

If there are any MTV producers out there interested in this idea, you can leave a comment for this entry with your contact information, and I'll respond as soon as possible; I am ready to negotiate selling my idea at a very reasonable fee.

As this entry comes to a close, I'd like to end with the song that started it all.

(I'm not a girl) I'm not a girl, don't tell me what to believe! (Not yet a woman) I'm just trying to find the woman in me! Yeah (All I need is time) Oh, all I need is time, (A moment that is mine) That's mine while I'm in between. [Still laughing.]

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For those who are interested, there is a segment from This American Life that is both informative and entertaining about a woman who takes massive amounts of testosterone to become a man. I offer a complete money-back guarentee that you will enjoy it and laugh regularly while listening. Click on the link, and listen to Act II.