Aerosmith "Dude (Looks Like A Lady) (Single & Video)"

"Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" is a song by American hard rock band Aerosmith. It was released as the first of four singles from the Permanent Vacation album in 1987. The track reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 41 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart, number four on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, number 22 on the Canadian RPM Top Singles chart and number 45 on the UK Singles Chart. It was re-released in early 1990 and peaked at number 20 in the UK. The song was written by lead singer Steven Tyler, lead guitarist Joe Perry and professional songwriter Desmond Child. It appears on MTV Classic's I Want My 80s and Rock Block.

The song, which originally started out as "Cruisin' for a Lady", talks about a male with an effeminate appearance, who is mistaken for a female. Steven Tyler states in the book Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith: "One day we met Mötley Crüe, and they're all going, 'Dude!' Dude this and Dude that, everything was Dude. 'Dude (Looks Like a Lady)' came out of that session."

According to Child, Tyler came up with the idea of the song while at a bar and mistaking Mötley Crüe's lead singer Vince Neil for a woman with long blonde hair. Tyler's bandmates made fun of him, joking about how the “dude looked like a lady.” Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx, in his book, The Heroin Diaries, claims that the song was specifically inspired by Neil.

Joe Perry came up with the chorus riff, and Tyler came up with the chorus refrain. Tyler originally sang the hook as "cruisin' for the ladies", but Child lambasted the lyrical idea, stating that "I don't think Van Halen would put that on the B-side of their worst record."

"Every four or five year old child in America was able to sing that song. It was like, do you realize this is about a tranny?"

— Desmond Child

Despite the song's mainstream success, "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" has often been accused of being transphobic, with "its lyrics and music video’s offensive insinuations about trans women." In a 2012 interview, Child said about the song, "I talked Aerosmith into the whole scenario of a guy that walks into a strip joint and falls in love with the stripper on stage, goes backstage and finds out it's a guy." In 2019, Child confirmed that the song was about a man who "just walks into a bar and sees this gorgeous blonde up on the stage and then goes backstage after the show and then she 'whips out a gun, tries to blow me away.'"

Vox's Abbey White pointed out that "the song also plays on the idea that trans women intentionally deceive men or are 'in disguise', that they are unattractive or repulsive... and at one point mixes pronouns, going from 'Oh she like it' in one line to 'Oh, he was a lady,' in the next."

Child has refuted all allegations of transphobia, describing the song as "accepting" because of the lyric "never judge a book by its cover, or who you're going to love by your lover."

On August 27, 2013, Fox News played this song while introducing Chelsea Manning. As well as the network's use of masculine pronouns and Manning's original name, playing this song received backlash by commentators.

After Caitlyn Jenner called "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" her "theme song" in 2017, backlash ensued from fans and from LGBT activists due to the perceived transphobia.

The video for "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" features the band performing live onstage as well as random moments of characters portraying drag queens, including a cameo appearance by A&R man John Kalodner dressed up in a wedding dress at one point. This is a joke based on the fact that Kalodner always dresses in white. Joe Perry's wife Billie also appears in the music video, pretending to play the saxophone on stage.

There are also some provocative sexual performances, both led by singer Steven Tyler as well as a presumed female who has her skirt torn off to reveal the Aerosmith "wings" tattoo on her buttocks. The video was directed by Marty Callner.

"Dude" picked up two MTV Video Music Award nominations in 1988 (the first for the band). It was nominated for Best Group Video and Best Stage Performance, but failed to gain the wins. The band made up for it eventually, winning over 10 "moon-men" and 4 Grammys in the 1990s.