Chapter Three


It was already quite late by the time they got home but since there was no school the next day, Jennifer was in no particular rush to get to bed. Wanting to feel fresh and clean for bed, she dropped her bag of goodies on the bed and went for a quick shower, coming back to her room in her fluffy pink dressing gown which was really starting to get a little small for her, barely long enough any more to preserve her modesty, but fine for wearing on her own in her room or for quick errands around the house, and a towel around her head. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she emptied out the bag and explored her loot! There were the boots and hat, of course, the hand which she realised would also make a very handy phone-stand for when she wanted to film segments for her presentation, the books about Sidney and of course the promo items which the assistant had been kind enough to give her. Too tired to do any serious reading that evening, she put the proper books on her desk but left the joke book on her night-stand to flick through in bed later. She turned her attention to the CD, curious about the bonus video. Hoping that she might be able to rip some of the footage later to use in her presentation, Jennifer typed in the link from the back of the CD case in her laptop’s browser and lay down on her stomach on her bed to watch. When prompted, she typed in the pass-code and the video loaded.

It started with a few bars from the beginning of the song accompanied by a visual of Sidney in her trademark hat and boots, with her back to the camera, doing a sort of shuffle across the screen from right to left in time to the music in the rather endearingly artless manner of someone who can not actually dance, in somewhat stark contrast to Sarah and the other girls she had watched on stage that evening. The musical phrase repeated and a second Sidney shuffled her way across the screen, this time wearing a white hat and boot set unlike her neighbour who she stopped next to in an identical pose who wore pink. A final Sidney appeared as the music repeated once more, already extending the run-time of the song compared to its 1960s original and this one, who shuffled her way to about half way across the screen before freezing like the others, was wearing baby blue. The words “Kinky Boots” appeared in big gold letters across the top of the screen, in a font Jennifer recognised as matching Sidney’s signature, the company logo, right down to the heart in place of the dot if the “i”. In the space left by the trio of Sidney’s on the right of the screen, the words “BEHIND THE SCENES” appeared as if made from pink neon lights, blinking on and off as a third repetition of the musical phrase faded out.

The first proper scene showed Sidney stood in front of a black backdrop while a woman in a facemask touched up her makeup. Jennifer was confused about the mask at first and why the studio or set or wherever they were seemed to empty but then she remembered her school history lessons and about the pandemic which had lasted almost two years from early 2020 onwards and realised that this video must have been made in 2021, towards the tail-end of the restrictions, when people were allowed back to work and to gather in small groups but social distancing and mask wearing were still strongly advised. Since “Kinky Boots” had been a Summer hit that year, this recording had to be taking place in the spring, perhaps March or April, meaning the Sidney she was seeing in the video would be ten years old. There was something off about the way Sidney looked that Jennifer could not put her finger on at first, then it hit her! The hat and boots she was wearing were green! And not the pale, mint-green she had seen her wear in some pictures, this outfit was the colour of Kermit the frog!

“Oh hey!” Sidney looked over and waved as if noticing the camera for the first time. “Glad you could join us! This is our first day of filming and we’re going to do all the scenes where I’m wearing this outfit today! Now,” she grinned, “you’re probably wondering why I’m wearing this colour, huh? It’s not my usual style, I admit, and it’s not even Saint Patrick’s Day!” she added with a giggle. “Well, it’s to make things easier and save me having to keep changing! Check out this neat trick!” She guided the camera over to a sort of editing station with three large monitors and sat down at the computer. She on one of them she brought up a little looping clip, filmed from the front, of her grinning at the camera and shaking her booty and doing jazz hands. It looked like a simple piece of test-footage for lighting etc. She brought up the same footage, playing on a loop, on a second monitor but this time with a colour pallet in the corner. “Watch this!” she grinned, clicking a pink square, changing the hat and boots instantly to their more recognisable trademark colour. She then showed them turn white, yellow, blue, purple and any other colour the pallet could provide. “Pretty neat, huh?” she grinned at the camera, “A hundred outfits in one!” There followed a few minutes of her performing various poses in front of the cameras, putting one foot forward with her hands on her hips, blowing a kiss, turning around and wiggling her rump and also attempting two or three takes of the shuffle that Jennifer recognised from the beginning, now understanding that it was the same piece of footage re-used with her outfit colour digitally altered.

The next scene was an interview with Sidney sat one end of a large white leather sofa, now wearing her more conventional pink hat and boots, and a woman in a smart white pant-suit sat at the other end who Jennifer recognised as Martha, the woman who had served as personal assistant, publicity manager, agent and confidante to Sidney during her campaign and author of one of the books she had picked up.

“So tell us,” the young-sounding voice of an unseen man behind the camera asked, “what made you want to release this particular song?”

“Well everything’s so grim out there at the moment,” Sidney explained, “we wanted to do something fun to make people smile! Took us a while to decide what song we wanted to do,” she continued, “since these are kinda what I’m known for,” she stuck her legs out and kicked her booted feet with a giggle, “we figured it should be something to do with boots so it came down to this and The Boots Are Made For Walking and, honestly, this one just seemed like more fun!” Jennifer couldn’t help but feel warmed by the indulgent, almost motherly way Martha smiled at Sidney as she talked. She clearly did love her little employer a whole lot!

“Of course you’re starring in the video,” the voice behind the camera continued, “but you’re not actually performing the song. Why is that?”

“Are you kidding?” Sidney practically roared with laughter, rocking back and forth on the edge of the sofa. “We want people to actually want to listen to the thing!”

“Oh come on…” the unseen interviewer chuckled. “Your singing voice can’t be that bad?”

“Trust me!” Martha cut in with a wry smile, holding up her hand in the classic don’t-go-there gesture. “The choice Sidney has made about this, just like every big decision she makes,” she shot another fond, loving look at the near-naked little girl, “is for the good of all humanity! We’re very privileged to have two wonderful performers in Sofia Vergara and Ru Paul to put a new twist on this classic hit!”

The pair were replaced on the sofa by a beautiful Latina women of around fifty years old wearing a tight-fitting dress which really showed off her impressive figure, especially her ample bosom with deep cleavage. A quick search on her phone told Jennifer that she was an actress who, at the time this video had been filmed was best known for a sitcom where she played the trophy wife of the family patriarch but later had gone on to find success with a second sitcom in which she played one of three grandmothers who refused to grow old gracefully. Beside her say a well-groomed, effeminate-looking black man maybe ten years older with a shaved head wearing a purple suit and glasses with thick pink frames which matched his nail-varnish. Jennifer learned that he was an actor, singer and presenter, best known as a drag performer and known to mainstream audiences for his talent show and its various spin-offs where hopeful drag stars competed to be the next big star.

“Well I just had to say yes!” Sofia gushed. “Sidney is just darling, isn’t she? So cute and camp!”

“She’s my baby queen!” Ru Paul exclaimed emphatically. “And she absolutely slays!”

The next scene was of the pair in a recording studio, stood in separate booths and wearing headsets but both recording at the same time. Jennifer supposed there were two reasons for this – the first was the nature of the song, with the two performers more or less taking it in turn line by line, bouncing back and forth between them rather than recording different verses or different melodies which could be edited together later. In order for the this song to work, the rhythm of the back and forth needed to sound natural, something that was far easier to achieve if they were recording at the same time. The second was likely practical. Since they were needed for publicity shots together, and potentially to appear in the video, it made sense to get these two busy, hard-working performers together to record the fairly short song which probably took less than an hour to record in total and get everything else done on the same day. As this was her first glimpse of the altered lyrics Sidney had referenced, Jennifer quickly paused the video to bring up the original lyrics on her phone so she could read along to look for changes. Once she had them on her screen, she set the video playing again.

“Sweet girls, street girls...” Sophia sang.

“Yummy little meat-girls!”

“Square girls, cool girls…”

“Tasty little school girls!”

“Maiden aunties…”

“New York debutantes!”

“They all dig those boots!” the declared together. Jennifer chuckled. It had actually all been Ru Paul’s lines that had changed and she could see why! The original was definitely what people called “of its time.” She did wonder about the reference to “street girls”, thinking it probably had a rather different connotation when originally written to now but she assumed it would be passed off easily enough in the video. Sidney had mentioned making the lyrics more “on topic” too and Jennifer was amused how easily a reference to meat-girls could be worked in, and how describing school girls as “tasty” got around what could probably have been quite a problematic line at the time.

“Well yesterday we did all the filming in the hat and boots.” Sidney explained, back in the studio again, stood in front of a rack of costumes. She was naked as usual but this time her naturally straight hair was tied back in a simply ponytail. “Today we’re doing all the other costumes! I get to wear all of these,” she gestured expansively to the long rack which did indeed seem to hold a wild and varied assortment of costumes. “I’m going to be using wigs too,” she explained, gesturing to a table where wigs of assorted styles and colour were laid out, “for the styles that I can’t do easily or would take a long time anyway! Most of the different looks are only going to get about two seconds of screen time after all. Makeup-wise,” she puffed out her cheeks and widened her eyes theatrically, “I’m just glad I have a great time and that wipes are a thing! Ru and Sophia are coming through to do a couple of funny ones once they’re done recording.” she grinned. “We’re gonna have to do a little Photoshop magic for some of the publicity shots since they couldn’t join us yesterday but I’m sure the public will let us off!” She winked at the camera and Jennifer couldn’t help smiling. While she knew that a lot of Sidney’s public persona, including her strong Texas accent, was likely put on for the cameras, she did come across as genuinely likeable and Jennifer had to wonder if she’d had many friends and what they thought of her campaign at the time!

The next few minutes showed Sidney being both filmed and photographed in assorted costumes including a ball-gown and a Victorian swimming costume, a loose-fitting, blue and white striped one-piece which covered her down to her elbows and ankles, complete with parasol, and finally a pink genie-like costume, including a chiffon veil over the lower part of her face, which left very little to the imagination! For most of the costumes she had adopted a more or less static pose but for this one she danced her way across the recording area in the same cutely klutzy way she had performed her shuffle. One thing Jennifer noticed was that every costume, whatever the style, included a pair Sidney’s signature boots in a complementary colour, however incongruous the style! This made sense as the point of the song was that all women and girls, no matter their age, background or walk of life, loved wearing boots!

The video now showed the two adults, in the same outfits they had been wearing on the sofa, posing together in front of the black background, back to back, while Sidney was helped into another outfit.

“After this, we’ve got a couple lined up with them!” Sidney grinned towards the camera, now wearing a black wig with braids like Wednesday Addams while the wardrobe assistant loosely tied a striped school uniform tie around her neck. She was wearing a white blouse tied up at the bottom to show her tummy with a grey, pleated skirt which stopped about two inches above her knees and black boots. With the wig, outfit and only very subtle makeup she was almost unrecognisable and Jennifer started to realise why she had chosen such a distinctive and iconic but ultimately artificial look for her public persona. The colourful hat and boots, curled hair and pageant-princess makeup, not to mention her otherwise naked young body, meant that she was instantly recognisable when she wanted to be but could also vanish into a crowd when she wanted time to herself. It was the over the top look that was familiar to all, rather than the girl’s own features. “This is gonna be fun!”

“Okay make sure you stand exactly on the marks!” the director told Sidney as she took her place in front of the black screen and posed with her hands on her hips. Behind her, Sofia Veraga stood in a costume that was clearly meant to contrast with her glamorous image for comedic effect. She was dressed in grubby chef’s whites with a blue apron and a hair-net. Like Sidney she wore minimal makeup and she posed holding a very large saucepan. Clearly Sidney was depicting one of the “tasty little schoolgirls” referenced in the lyrics and Sophia the school lunch-lady who was about to cook her up, presumably in some kind of stew. A number of still images and few-second clips were shot then Sidney changed her pose to one of surprise with her hand held up and out either side of her shoulders and a shocked look on her face. When given the all-clear from the director, the wardrobe assistant ran forward and helped Sidney out of the school uniform leaving her in nothing but the wig and boots. Now naked, Sidney looked down at her exposed body in surprise then covered her mouth as if shocked then struck a shrugging pose with her palms outwards and head tilted to one side and finally resumed her sassily defiant pose from the start of the sequence with her hands on her hips and a confident grin on her face.

“Wait until you see the next one!” Sidney grinned cheekily at the camera before scampering forward past it and out of view. Sofia carried her pot out of the photography area and was replaced by Ru Paul, wearing a traditional butcher’s costume with a striped apron and holding a comically big meat cleaver. Sidney came back into shot wearing white boots and her hair up in a bun with dotted lines all over her naked body marking out the different meat cuts. She stood back on her mark on the floor and gave the camera a double thumbs-up. “We saved the best until last!” she chuckled, informing the viewer. “It’s going to take about three hours to get ready for this final shot!” she exclaimed. “Totally worth it for… what? Three seconds on screen?” she erupted into peels of giggles.

The final shot of the documentary showed Sidney painted almost totally orange except for a strip which started with her chin and continued down, widening across her chest and belly then tapering again stopping just above the cleft of her plump vulva. A woman wearing a paper face-mask was working carefully with an air-brush adding a yellow border to the white area, blended to provide a transition.

“Marguerite is one of the best body-painters in the country,” Sidney beamed proudly, “and I feel really honoured to be working with her! I can’t wait to see the full effect when she’s finished!” She gushed. “But if you want to see it too, well,” she giggled, “you’ll just have to wait and watch the video! Bye for now!” she waved and blew a kiss and the image faded out to be replaced by what must have been the cover for the limited collectable physical release of the song on CD and vinyl.

The image was of the two singers stood back to back in the pose Jennifer had just seen photographed with Sidney, one hand on her hip and the other touching the rim of her hat in what had become known as the Classic Sidney Pose stood in front of them, presumably superimposed. Above the trio were their names in the same gold lettering as the Sidney’s logo with Sidney’s own name in the middle, slightly below the other two but in a larger size. The title “Kinky Boots” was shown along the bottom of the screen. A countdown began from three with the pink letters starting in the middle of the screen and expanding outwards as they faded. When they countdown reached zero, the image melted away to be replaced by the words “Kinky Boots” in the familiar gold script all the way across the top of the screen. The opening phrase began and four Sidneys in assorted colours shuffled their way across the screen in turn, wiggling their rumps in unison on the last two beats of the repeated phrase.

“Everybody’s going for those kinky boots! Kinky boots!” Sofia sang as the camera zoomed in and out on a posing Sidney, focussing the zooms on her boot-clad feet. Suddenly those feet were replicated across the screen in different colours, tapping the left foot in time to the two beats before the end of the line.

“Kinky boots!” Ru Paul took over. “It’s a manly kind of fashion that you borrowed from the brutes!” he sang as Sidney was shown stealing a pair of boots off the feet of a leather-clad biker, amusingly played by Ru himself, then sneaking away quickly like a Looney Tunes character, leaving the biker leaning against his bike in socks through which his big toe was protruding.

“Borrowed from the brutes!” Sofia echoed as Sidney was now shown in the comically over-sized biker-boots which then sparkled and magically changed into her more familiar pink cowboy boots, prompting Sidney to grin and give a thumbs-up to the camera.

“Kinky boots!” the duo sang together as the camera made a series of quick-fire rapid zooms.

“Fashion magazines say wear ‘em!” Sofia belted as the video showed a close-up of Sidney peeping over the top of a mocked-up magazine called “Boots Etc.” with a big picture of her cowboy boots on the front.

“And you rush to obey like the women in a harem!” Ru Paul responded as Sidney danced her way across the screen in her genie-like outfit, complete with boots of course!

“Full length, half length.” Sofia listed while Sidney stood centre-stage striking a number of different model like poses, sometimes facing the camera and other times with her back to it, looking cheekily over her shoulder with her lovely firm, round rump being given the attention it deserved, giving the video a very 60s vibe and almost appearing like stop-motion as the boots she was wearing changed to reflect the lyrics.

“Fully fashion calf length.”

“Brown boot, black boots.”

“Patent leather jack-boots!” Sidney was depicted marching on the spot wearing military-style but highly polished boots and a soldier’s tin hat but painted pink.

“Low boots, high boots!”

“Lovely lanky thigh boots!” Ru Paul sang as Sidney’s hat was replaced by a traditional Robin Hood-style feathered cap. She raised her leg and slapped her brown leather-clad thigh like the hero of a pantomime.

“They all dig those boots!” The pair sang together.

“Everybody’s crazy for those kinky boots!” Sofia sang while four Sidney’s appeared in sequence on the screen, two standing upright and the other two doing handstands, giving the impression of a stop-motion cartwheel. “Kinky boots! Kinky boots!”

“And whether you’re in evening dress or bathing suits…” sang Ru Paul with Sidney appearing on screen first in an elegant ballgown with her hair in a neat bun, the front of her dress hitched up to just below her knees to show the golden boots she wore underneath then looking confused as the dress turned into the Victorian bathing costume, complete with parasol, that Jennifer had seen in the documentary before finally being replaced by a pink and silver bikini which Sidney seemed to approve of far more, judging by the grin on her face and the double thumbs-up she gave.

“You wear boots! Boots! Kinky boots!” the two singers chorused.
The same instrumental bars that had played at the beginning were repeated here but instead of Sidney shuffling her way across the screen, this time the two singers were shown in a number of poses, mostly goofy poses where both of them were laughing, the still images switching rapidly.

“There are twenty million women wearing kinky boots!” Sofia began the next verse while a very intriguing effect took place on the screen. A single picture of Sidney posing in her traditional pink costume, or the green outfit digitally altered to look pink at least, appeared in the middle of the screen. Almost immediately she was shunted to the side as a second Sidney appeared beside her. Then these two shrunk and another two appeared above them. The number of Sidney’s on screen doubled at least six times per second with Jennifer able to identify at least twenty different poses before they got two small to see. By the time Sofia had completed the line, the tens of thousands of tiny Sidneys had formed into a photo-collage of her face. “Kinky boots!” the montage Sidney winked before vanishing and being replaced with a single Sidney showing off the detailed body-paint that had been teased at the end of the documentary.

“Puss in Boots!” Ru Paul declared as Sidney, covered tip to toe in body paint that made her look like a ginger cat, wearing red boots and matching cape and plumed hat swished a rapier towards the camera. Jennifer giggled, thinking about what Sidney had said about the hours the makeup would take versus the seconds it appeared on screen. “Footwear manufacturers are gathering the fruits.” Ru continued as Sidney, back in her traditional costume, was seen picking an over-sized rosy apple from a prop tree.

“Gathering the fruits!” Sofia echoed as the screen showed a close-up of Sidney taking a big bite from a banana and munching ostentatiously.

“Kinky boots!” A close-up of Sidney’s pink boots, heels together, toes parting the coming back together.

“Advertising men say try ‘em!” sang Sofia as a huge billboard appeared on screen with bright pink neon letters echoing this message with the outline of Sidney-style boots at either end, like something from the Las Vegas strip.

“And you all run amok like a flock of sheep to buy ’em!” A small, static Sidney, followed by dozens of sheep, made her way jerkily across the bottom of the screen then up the side before zigzagging up the screen like an old-fashioned computer game. Next came the section the recording of which had been featured in the documentary.

“Sweet girls, street girls…” By some clever video editing, Sidney was seen in front of a coloured, stylised painting of old-fashioned sweet shop, dressed in a puffy dress like Shirley Temple and licking and oversized lollipop while a gang of three more Sidneys wearing ripped jeans, leather jackets and crop-tops sneered at her.

“Yummy little meat-girls!” The background became a butcher’s shop in the same style as the sweet shop while Sidney, with her body marked up for meat cuts stood in front of Ru Paul’s comical butcher character, giving the camera double thumbs-up then flipped to show her rump, winking over her shoulder.

“Square girls, cool girls…” Sidney appeared centre-screen again, first in a cute but stereotypically nerdy outfit, complete with rucksack, thick glasses and pigtails, hugging a large book to her chest which, Jennifer noticed with amusement, had the title “A History of Cannibalism” printed on the front, then in fashionable white leggings, high ponytail, crop top and a pink puffer jacket. Both variations wearing boots, of course!

“Tasty little school girls!” The scene with Sofia as the frumpy, hair-net wearing lunch lady came on screen, a background of a school cafeteria added in a similar style to the previous backgrounds. In rapid succession, Sidney’s school uniform, all but the black boots, disappeared, leaving her looking first shocked then confident.

“Maiden aunties!” This was the funniest costume of all, with Sidney dressed as an old lady with grey hair, half-moon reading glasses and a baggy cardigan.

“New York Debutantes!” In a flash, like an extreme version of Cinderella, Sidney was now wearing a beautiful prom dress, her hair in a French braid topped with a tiara. Like the ball gown from earlier, the front of her dress was arranged in such a way as to show that she worse silver boots underneath.

“They all dig those boots!” All the Sidney variations from that verse appeared side by side, waving, giving thumbs-up and blowing kisses at the camera.

“Everybody’s rushing for those Russian boots!” Sofia sang as Sidney appeared wearing furry boots and a hat to match, with nothing else in between of course, doing a rather impressive Cossack dance. It occurred to Jennifer that she had not seen any sign of this in the documentary and, given Sidney’s rather limited dancing abilities displayed elsewhere in the video, she wondered if this had been achieved with either a stool that had been edited out or perhaps an assistant or two in green morph-suits holding her up while she kicked out her legs. If that was the case, then it would have been funny to see in the documentary but she supposed Sidney would have wanted to retain a little dignity and not admit to the “tricks of the trade”. Of course it was entirely possible that Sidney, who was after all a talented hockey player, had such good strength in her legs that this was one kind of dancing she could do well!

“Prussian boots!” A close-up appeared of what were presumably Sidney’s legs, shown from half way down the thigh, wearing high black leather boots with a broad upturned piece covering her knees. The left foot tapped twice.

“Kinky Boots!” Another rapid zoom in and out multiple times on Sidney’s pink boot-clad feet and legs.

“Cover up those slender little tender foots!” the pair crooned together as Sidney appeared for the first time in the video with no footwear, sat on the floor with her legs parted in a way that seemed very provocative, especially for the time, leaning back with her weight on her hands and wiggling her cute little toes at the camera. An expression of delight appearing on her face when, with a sparkly glitter effect, a pair of pink boots magically popped into existence on her feet.

“With kinky, slinky.” All the different forms of Sidney that had featured in the video appeared back on screen, set out in three rows of small figures, all dancing on the spot which mostly involved a lot of rump wiggling, before a large “traditional Sidney” in her pink hat and boots combo appeared in the middle, grinning and touching the brim of her hat in her trademark “Sidney Salute.”

“Sidney is so dinky!” She was replaced by Ru Paul, although the mini Sidney’s continued to dance behind him as he tilted his head to one side and made a heart symbol in front of his chest with his hands.

“Come and get those kinky boots! Boots! Kinky boots!” Both adults appeared on screen to lip-synch this final line with Sidney between them who blew a two-handed kiss to the camera before the screen turned black and the website eatsidneyroebuck.com and the hashtag #EATME, both important elements of Sidney’s campaign at the time, appeared on screen in bright pink text before the video ended. Smiling to herself, Jennifer clicked the slider back to the start of the music video and watched it again then, realising how late it had got, closed her laptop, took off her robe and slipped into bed.