Filmmaker And Speech Pathologist Weigh In On What It Means To 'Sound Gay' : NPR

Contents:

• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
• GAY SLANG 101
• "DO I SOUND GAY?"
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• HOMOSEXUAL MEN WHO ‘SOUND GAY’ AL WH MORE DISCRIMATN, STUDY SAYS
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

As might be expected, dockg is thought to be practiced more equently among men who are homosexual or bisexual; however, there seem to be a nsirable number of straight men who have docked wh another man. Pri, formerly known as Gay Pri, is a regnn of LGBTQ inty, affirmatn of equal rights, and celebratn of visibily, digny, and diversy the LGBTQ muny.

While the word homosexual is still ocsnally ed some ntexts, you might have noticed that don’t make an appearance any versn of the LGBTQ acronym. As our age note on the term stat, “up until 1973, homosexualy was listed The Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM), psychiatry’s standard reference on the classifitn of mental illns. And many feel that this word plac undue emphasis on sexual activy, or that sounds overly clil.” In fact, the term homosexual was liberately rejected by early gay rights activists bee, acrdg to The New York Tim, “they did not want to be intified as exclively sexual begs.”.

GAY SLANG 101

Gay, on the other hand, n be ed to scribe a person of any genr who experienc same-sex attractn, although is most often ed to scribe a man who is attracted to men. On June 28, 1969, the New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn, a bar equented by gay and genr-nonnformg people (at a time when terms like LGBTQ didn’t yet exist).

Partially rponse to Stonewall, 1970, queer activists New York Cy anized a march to Central Park wh the theme “Gay Pri.” A more prehensive history of the Stonewall Rt or the Stonewall Uprisg n be found our Pri Month explaer. Queer lerally means “strange or odd om a nventnal viewpot,” and by at least by the late 1800s, queer was ployed as a rogatory term for an effemate or gay man. 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.

"DO I 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.

” 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.

FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT 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. “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.

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.

Bee masculy is so unacmodatg to difference, many of the gay men the film (cludg Thorpe) grew up closer to women than men. 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.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

(Speakg of porn: The gay voice is almost entirely absent om erotic films, which suggts that misogyny the genre persists many ways.

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?

HOMOSEXUAL MEN WHO ‘SOUND GAY’ AL WH MORE DISCRIMATN, STUDY SAYS

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.

DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T

”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. 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.

My anxiety, cursy, and eventual love of the gay voice began wh learng to accept for what is: a way to get my pot across. GLAAD prefers that we don’t e the term homosexual bee ’s “aggrsively ed by anti-gay extremists to suggt that gay people are somehow diseased or psychologilly/emotnally disorred.