What means to ‘sound gay’ - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• WHAT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• CHECK OUT THE TRAILER FOR DO I SOUND GAY?
• 14. WHAT DO IT MEAN TO “SOUND GAY”? THE (ACCENTED) VOICE AS SURPL JOUISSANCE
• DO I SOUND GAY, AND DO MATTER ANYWAY?
• BE YOUR OWN SELF: THE LSONS OF 'DO I SOUND GAY?' AND 'TANGERE'
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• WHAT DO MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
• HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
• SOUNDG GAY, PUNK, OR JOCK: WHAT LANGUAGE SAYS ABOUT YOUR SOCIAL GROUP

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

Do I Sound Gay?, a documentary by filmmaker David Thorpe openg this week at IFC, prob the history, science, and cultural signifince of the gay male voice.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

The film is stctured around his personal qut to get rid of his “gay voice”—recently sgle and middle-aged, David Thorpe began to fd his voice a source of anxiety, worryg turned off potential lovers—which grounds what uld otherwise have been a disparate web of amic theori and talkg heads. That spurred him to look more systematilly at the gay voice self; eventually he realized he’d found somethg signifint to say about the subject, a talogue of people reflectg about the history, prevalence, signifince, and science of the voice ’s clear om his enthiasm and breadth of knowledge that Thorpe, a wrer wh an quisive personaly and a voice I found entirely pleasant, has enough material for a whole seri on the subject.

FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'

” In the film, Thorpe nsults a speech therapist, a voice ach, several lguists and anthropologists, a film historian, gay actors, and famo queer celebri cludg David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Tim Gunn, Don Lemon, Gee Takei, and Margaret Cho.

WHAT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'

In one sequence, he recreat a tra r full of boistero gay men bound for Fire Island: They wear lorful beach stum and talk non-stop about fashn, their mothers, chai tea, and what happened at the club last night.

CHECK OUT THE TRAILER FOR DO I SOUND GAY?

“Well all the meaty gay rol go to straight actors, and I’m not buff so I n’t play the token hot gay guy, so really all that’s left is for me to play the bter queen, ” he says.

14. WHAT DO IT MEAN TO “SOUND GAY”? THE (ACCENTED) VOICE AS SURPL JOUISSANCE

Admtg that a roomful of gay voic n be annoyg giv space to pick apart anxieti—which parts are jt annoyance at other people’s nversatns, and which are tied to toxic the film velops, be apparent that much of what we intify as a gay voice is a characteristilly feme voice spoken by a man.

The stereotypil affectatns we associate wh gay men (what lguists ll micro-variatns) are: clearer and longer vowels, long S’, clearer L’s and over-articulated P’s, T’s, and K’s.

DO I SOUND GAY, AND DO MATTER ANYWAY?

To prove his pot, Thorpe shows a straight man who was raised on an ashram by a group of women, who talks a voice that would tonate most people’s gaydar; but he also troduc to a gay man raised the suburbs wh five macho brothers who has the sort of voice that porn actors strive for. Knows this herage, plac the ntext of film history, and ti to the vol spiratn for well known early gay voic on TV such as Liberace and Pl what drew gay men om across the untry and enomic strata to adopt the vol signifiers?

Puttg on the airs of wealth signifi that the speaker isn’t fensels, at least a urt of some pot, though, I wonred, if the gay voice was gog the way of the bathhoe and gay bar—pecially as queer culture be more mastream. ”The feme ponent of the voice particular probably won’t fa until masculy no longer se queerns as a threat; the prevalence of “no homo” jok and the existence of Entourage suggt we still have a long way to go.

BE YOUR OWN SELF: THE LSONS OF 'DO I SOUND GAY?' AND 'TANGERE'

The film was so effective at monstratg jt how pervasive discrimatn agast the gay voice that I wanted to be a ll to arms stead of a lson about self-love.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

It rais a plited discsn about gay pri, lgerg homophobia, disguised misogyny, and the extent to which we all alter the image that we prent to the the film begs, Thorpe is disturbed bee he realiz he don’t like his voice any more. He rri out thoughtful nversatns wh his iends and proment gay and lbian figur – cludg Gee Takei, David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Margaret Cho and Don Lemon – about what means to “sound gay.

But so dog, v everyone to thk about what their own voice says about who they are, where they me om, and where they want to science of “the gay voice”To start wh, the stereotypil “gay voice” isn’t necsarily a study published 2003, Ron Smyth, a lguist at the Universy of Toronto, found that participants readily separated rerdgs of 25 diverse voic to those who “sound gay” and those who “sound straight. In Smyth's study, people rrectly gused a man’s sexualy about 60 percent of the time, only a ltle better than another small study at the Universy of Hawaii, both gay and straight listeners were equally as likely to misclassify people as gay or straight. In fact, the straight men wh so-lled gay voic weren't aware that people thought they sound gay at turns out that what most people perceive as a stereotypil "gay voice" is jt a male voice that sounds more stereotypilly feme -- maly, higher pched and more melod.

WHAT DO MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

And that often has more to do wh the voic that a person intified wh as they grew up, rather than and other rearchers say some men, both gay and straight, velop more feme voic bee they are fluenced by women when they are young.

If you've ever found yourself talkg to someone wh a different accent and gradually emulatg them, you're faiar wh the gay men, adoptg what's lled "mp" -- a theatril gay accent, like an old-school starlet -- n be a way of embracg their inty.

“As a hly mted gay man, I learned how mpg up uld be liberatg, ” Thorpe says the there may be more subtle ways that sexualy and our sense of self fluence our voic. Benjam Munson, who studi language and speech at the Universy of Mnota, found one study that gay men did e a slightly different pronunciatn than straight men.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY

However, the difference wasn’t the stereotypil “gay voice, ” but a tenncy to e a more ntemporary, pan-Amerin accent, rather than the old-fashned Mnota accent (like  the movie “Fargo") says that the gay men he terviewed may have wanted to nvey an inty that is more stylish and cuttg edge.

SOUNDG GAY, PUNK, OR JOCK: WHAT LANGUAGE SAYS ABOUT YOUR SOCIAL GROUP

“As speakers of a language, we have lots of eedom how we pronounce sounds … People explo that variatn to create different social meangs, " he those who are proud n still feel stigma“Do I Sound Gay? ” shows that even men who are out and proud may still rry wh them some shame about havg a stereotypil “gay voice, ” even if those feelgs are Savage, a gay activist and thor, argu  the film that this is a natural nsequence of boys beg bullied for walkg and talkg a certa way when they are young.