Read the caption first .. there be spoilers ahead!
Believe it or not, I got the idea of this through remembering 2000 Maniacs and Brigadoon, and swung it around to a TG caption (of an old tradition from before anyone can remember a la Wicker Man) by way of the recent posting about how to avoid cliche and hackneyed writing.
There are so many captions about how if the new girl gets cum on her or in her (or achieved an orgasm) before a certain time, she'll remain a girl. I figured I could do a caption where the guy in the girl's body had to get laid before a certain time frame to go back to being a guy. Piece of cake really huh? I mean, what could go wrong?
Well, I can imagine that with all those petticoats, garters, stocking, girdles, etc .. Perhaps she'll need bolt cutters!
The hard part about reversing or cutting out overused TG cliches and tropes is that they often serve as a shortcut when creating captions. As soon as you see, "How can I help you this afternoon?" said the man in the bathrobe behind the counter. .. you know its an Spells R Us caption or story and pull in whatever previous knowledge you had to form your expectations about where the story will go. Now, perhaps the writer will bring you on a wild trip with many twists and turns, but guess what? You knew that "the trickster" trope was there to make an appearance, either taking a wish literally, or perverting it to an alternate state.
When you have a chance to "borrow" something with as much back story as Spells R Us, or a typical Magical, Hypnotic Dominatrix .. why wouldn't you? Yes, it can be considered lazy writing, but when you have a caption with a limited amount of textural real estate, cutting out a few sentences that would set up the plot beforehand becomes a godsend.
I am as guilty of this as just about anyone out there, and I use "implied and acknowledged" TG conventions as well, figuring that if you are reading my work, you have a degree of understanding the vernacular that underlies the concept of what goes into a TG caption. Sometimes I wonder if someone that is just starting out reading captions can grasp what I'm trying to do as much as someone that's been following the TG genre for some time beforehand.
I like to bend and break the rules that we use in our TG palette, and I think that you need to know what they are first before you can appreciate those that use them for caption fodder. That is another reason why cliches and tropes are important .. it establishes those "rules" and places them into a codex of what you are likely to see. Most Westerners won't understand Kabuki theater, because there is such a tradition and scope of commonality that the viewer must really be immersed into before any sort of subtlety can be seen.
So what actually am I trying to say here in this (already!) too long blog post? Certain things that pop up in captions over and over really frost my corn flakes, but it can be good in healthy doses to keep everyone up to speed. God knows I wouldn't want to make a bunch captions filled with of almost fully clothed and covered women like the one I posted above, but the only way to be comfortable in our chosen genre of TG Captions is to stretch out and do what hasn't been done before ... enough times to where its considered the new normal. Define the edges and push through them!
I would so love to have to try to remove those clothes, if only for the opportunity to have worn them at all. So beautiful!
ReplyDeleteHow could you NOT fell feminine dressed up like that!
DeleteEvery layer buries you deeper in femininity! Pettis and camis and vests and pantaloons and hoop slips all the rest! I wouldn't want to wear these every day but i really would like to wear them sometimes!
ReplyDeleteI think its another reason why TG captions often center around Wedding Gowns. So much lace, crinoline, satin, silky sensations, etc ... All made for one single purpose, to ooze femininity.
DeleteOh yes, dressing up just so is definitely appealing. Lovely cap. (And I'd be waiting impatiently for midnight...)
DeleteLovely caption, the 2000 maniacs part shimmers through, but Brigadoon a little less. Brigadoon has been an inspiration for me too. I got the idea for one of the caps I made for Anne Oni Mouse after seeing Brigadoon again, I couldn't resist giving Cyd Charisse a cameo.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to look like a Southern Belle at least once.
Clichés and tropes are very useful when you start to write, no matter what the genre. These are nice paved roads, without too many bumps. Some like to stay on these roads, while others get bored with it, and like to go off road, paving the ways for those to come. I myself don't care to much at this point if I use them, as long as it doesn't go against someone's don'ts, I go where the story takes me.
I'm not familiar enough with Kabuki myself to appreciate it, but I am familiar with Wajang klitik, one form of Javanese shadow puppet theatre, it is marvelous how they can tell a story with that. Despite all the traditions surrounding it, they tell a story for children, and adults at the same time. The more understanding you have of the Javanese culture and history, the more you get out of a story. But even the westerners who don't even have a basic understanding of that, can get mesmerized by the shadow play.
I hope my caps are more like Wajang than Kabuki, so people can enjoy them without being familiar with this genre.
Madness, yes.
Though I am not really THAT old, I have a soft spot for some of the glamorous ladies of the past, and I think 2 of the most beautiful and captivating women on the 20th century were Cyd Cherisse and Julie Newmar .. then Bettie Page and Jayne Mansfield.
DeleteI am not really up on my Kabuki, but I read a book on how it became ingrained upon the culture and how its rigid structure shaped their civilization, and that only the older generations really care anymore. In a way, they are the Japanese version of a Punch and Judy show, with a strict setup, defined good and evil, and the way its presented.
Great cap Dee! I love seeing those tropes turned in on themselves!
ReplyDeleteI think you really hit the nail on this one. We all work in a common universe and choose to cover similar ground. A man is going to go through some transformation and become more feminine. Sissy, cross dresser, woman… one or many of these are going to happen. To get there in cap form requires a concise use of space and if grabbing something out of the cliché bag helps us tell the details we want and not waste space on the details we don’t’ want to discuss… then I’m all for it.
Using cliché’s is fine so long as the cliché isn’t the star of the story. Using a seemingly befuddled old man in a bathrobe working in an odd shop in the mall is fine so long as the story is about the person walking INTO the store. It’s just a short hand way of saying that he’s interacting with a magical trickster. Sure, you could tell the story without referencing Spells’R’Us, but it might take a paragraph or two to set it up. Why waste that space?
And it’s not as though the use of cliché’s is something unique to TG stories and caps. I could write a story and spend a chapter setting up the location…. A huge tall towering center city with skyscrapers all around, a lake to one side with beautiful vistas, a humbling decrepit slum to the south with a magnificent stylish glamorous shopping center along one particular mile… or I could just say that my subject is in Chicago. When the location isn't directly important to the story why would I spend time describing it when I can simply state it?