Amanda Lepore

February 2, 2006 7:37 PM

Amanda Lepore (second link is official site, nsfw, music) is quite the hip transvestite. From her MAC Cosmetics slash Heatherette bags commercial (NSFW/sanity) by David Lachapelle, to her new tracks Champagne and My Hair Looks Fierce.

Much Love to Home Taping is Killing Music for mp3 linkage.
posted by sourbrew (26 comments total)

Harsh images, crass message. The canonical picture of her on the Wikipedia is particularly nasty.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:49 PM on February 2, 2006

lupus_yonderboy, thats a image she uses on her official site. was taken by David Lachapelle, and im wagering she might take offense to you suggesting it was nasty.
posted by sourbrew at 7:52 PM on February 2, 2006

Honey, you say nasty like it was a bad thing.

You just gotta let your inner nasty freak right out. Won't do you any good otherwise.
posted by loquacious at 7:58 PM on February 2, 2006

Also, i wasn't trying to be crass. I think its truly amazing that today the technology exists to rewrite your gender, and that society has become accepting enough that it is possible to then become a pop icon after reworking your plumbing. Her line of swatch watches "Time Tranny" created by David Lachappelle is the fastest selling line of swatches ever.
posted by sourbrew at 8:01 PM on February 2, 2006

Wow, what an amazing set of . . . . . lips!

You just gotta let your inner nasty freak right out. Won't do you any good otherwise. Yup, I'd hit it. But I also have a thing for cheez-wiz. Anyhoo, kudos to Amanda.
posted by ashbury at 8:09 PM on February 2, 2006

What loquacious said. And, yeah, those lips: dang.
posted by everichon at 8:18 PM on February 2, 2006

I have nothing at all against trannies of any type and I have a friend whom I really like and don't see often enough who is a hermaphrodite (really) -- but Lepore reminds me of the Bride of Wildenstein (and to my amusement, the top result there has a link to Lepore's site at the bottom of the page, so I'm not the only one making the visual connection).
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:31 PM on February 2, 2006

Man, that video is the craziest thing I've ever seen. Those breasts, man. They're wound up a little too tight. But hey, big thumbs up to Amanda! Rock on, baby!
posted by Hildegarde at 8:40 PM on February 2, 2006

(NSFW/sanity)

Oh lord no.

Those are, quite possibly, the worst augmentation job I've ever seen. I couldn't even think of them as real -- more like a pair of bobble-antennae or something. She needs to sue her plastic surgeon, pronto.

And while it's nice that transgenderism is making it to mainstream culture, does it really have to be such a freak show? I have two friends who are MtF trans, and they both look like perfectly normal (and, I might add, cute) women. I'd say Amanda is more of a cross-dresser than trans -- made up into an outrageous caricature of womanhood.
posted by xthlc at 8:40 PM on February 2, 2006

The Home Taping is Killing Music blog is more worthy of attention than Amanda.

(Lachapelle is fucking awful - for the love of Pete why isn't his 15 min's over yet?!)
posted by photoslob at 8:45 PM on February 2, 2006

I so would not hit that it isn't funny. I think Lepore is some kind of exception-proving-the-rule example -- all the "signals" are there, but they're so comically exaggerated, there's a spanner in the signal-works.

I was struck in the ad how few natural "feminine wiles" she seems to have. Most women can do more than the pouty-lips look (which she achieved surgically and permanently) and shaking the ta-tas.
posted by dhartung at 8:58 PM on February 2, 2006

Funny, I may not have been so far off: In this recent interview, she doesn't deny that her appearance is similar to Jessica Rabbit.

She's not nasty, she's just drawn that way.
posted by dhartung at 9:03 PM on February 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

She's not a transvestite, she is a transsexual.
posted by interiority at 9:23 PM on February 2, 2006

You people are idiots. That was hilarious.

David LaChapelle has been redeemed, in my eyes.
posted by fungible at 9:29 PM on February 2, 2006

interiority, true... shame on me
posted by sourbrew at 9:30 PM on February 2, 2006

That MAC commercial was fucking brilliant. That will haunt me until the end of my days. Lipstick, my ass.
posted by ColdChef at 9:30 PM on February 2, 2006

Oh god. She hurts my BRAIN! I don't want to like, but I do.
posted by geekhorde at 11:30 PM on February 2, 2006

So much pink! I'll never get it all off of my eyeballs...
posted by YurikoKinje at 12:45 AM on February 3, 2006

Personally I go for Tootie.
posted by adamvasco at 1:09 AM on February 3, 2006

Sorry, but the video was a complete rip-off of the Aphex Twin video for Windowlicker by Chris Cunningham: screencap, video.
posted by ori at 2:14 AM on February 3, 2006

Wow -- The MAC cosmetic video is just incredible. Especially the last seen when she's running and the car is following.

Fascinating. Great links, thanks!
posted by NewBornHippy at 2:19 AM on February 3, 2006

I know Amanda...her own pronunciation:
"A man...DUH!"
hee
her 'melting marilyn' is a masterpiece
posted by sexyrobot at 2:24 AM on February 3, 2006

"Sorry, but the video was a complete rip-off of the Aphex Twin video for Windowlicker by Chris Cunningham"

ori, i hope you're kidding
posted by sourbrew at 6:30 AM on February 3, 2006

Meh. If you want utter post-human gorgeousness acheived through bad lip surgery, Pete Burns is your man.
posted by jack_mo at 6:49 AM on February 3, 2006

jack_mo, from the Home Taping is Killing Music Piece on her

"Amanda rocks. I have admired her from afar for some time and always thought that Pete Burns, of Dead or Alive had blatantly stolen from Lepore's imagery. "
posted by sourbrew at 7:10 AM on February 3, 2006

Possible, I suppose, but Pete does it waaaay better, and has been since the 70s (pre-surgery). She is just a cartoon woman, Pete Burns' look has nothing to do with women, only Pete Burns, an entirely different aesthetic.

Post-human beats trans-sexual every time, easy.
posted by jack_mo at 9:04 AM on February 8, 2006