Perhaps the most successful transsexual experiment yet for writer-director Nica Noelle, "TS Blondes Have More Fun" goes where even Charles Ludlam never ventured: creating a convincing, well-acted Hollywood rom-com but one in which the female leads are played by trans-females. It works and surprised me in its tastefulness (in context).
Nica's script could have been made as a mainstream Romance, though it would have been deemed corny and of little interest given the thousands of similar assembly-line projects Hollywood continues to crank out with the Katherine Heigls and Sandra Bullocks in the leads. But Nica's let's pretend universe that she has been developing at various porn labels over the past 4 years (beginning with the terrific "Forbidden Lovers" for defunct TransRomantic label) posits that trans- females, who have not had an operation to remove their male genitalia, are normal people and should be treated as such, not as freaks (latter is how they appear in the niche gonzo porn market).
"TS Blondes" goes one step further, in its tacit assumption that ALL women possess cock & balls. This is not made explicit anywhere in the show, but that is how the comedy plays, with the male leads reacting as if their new girlfriends are properly equipped rather than exceptions. Watching it I got the impression that Nica's next film in the genre should be titled "The Girl with Something Extra".
Aubrey Kate and relative newcomer Aspen Brooks are terrific as the "besties" who concoct a plan to stay at the same hotel where football stars Jaxton Wheeler and Alexander Gustavo are lodging, in town for a benefit appearance. They want to seduce the studs, and get more out of it than just a one-night stand.
As Amy Daly proved in 2012 in Noelle's "Forbidden Lovers", there is a deep vein of panache to be derived from casting a plain-Jane in a TS femme role, and Brooks is very appealing and empathetic as the shy, bespectacled girl who Kate presses to come out of her shell and make it with the boys. Kate is an authentic bombshell superstar (in gonzo TS appearances), but is delightful with her plummy voice as the typical Hollywood blonde seductress in a tradition dating back to Harlow, Monroe and Mansfield. The guys have less nuanced roles (Nica's main stumbling block in her new trans-female/boy and boy/boy directing career being a limited talent pool) but provide effective contrast with Wheeler a bear and Gustavo the usual Bieber-esque pretty boy.
Most interesting undercurrent here is that not only are the ladies' private parts never alluded to but I suspect the feature could be easily edited to an 80-minute (still XXX) version in which their cocks & balls are never shown, and they would emerge as TS actresses playing cis-female roles. No market exists for such a project, but it is a testament to Noelle's skills that she manages to deliver the goods without compromising her novel conception.