Self-nsc about the way he speaks, David Thorpe has explored why some people his muny ‘sound gay’ and others don’t a new documentary.
Contents:
- IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
- WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
- WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
- QUEER VOIC: DO I SOUND GAY? DO IT MATTER?
IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
Michael Schulman on “Do I Sound Gay?,” a documentary by David Thorpe that explor how vol nc are associated wh sexualy. * i have a gay voice *
He sounds gay.
Not long after Thorpe broke up wh his boyiend, he began thkg about the way he speaks, and the way other gay men speak, and why both sudnly bothered him so much.
WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
* i have a gay voice *
”This is how he scrib the moment his documentary “Do I Sound Gay?, ” which opens this weekend at the IFC Center. He terviews gay public figur, cludg David Sedaris, Tim Gunn, Don Lemon, and Gee Takei, who have had to listen to themselv for a livg. He even asks people on the street if they thk he sounds gay.
WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
Self-nsc about the way he speaks, David Thorpe has explored why some people his muny ‘sound gay’ and others don’t a new documentary. * i have a gay voice *
Gay adolcents, Thorpe pots out, often learn that the “tell” of their sexualy is their voic, even more so than physily—a limp wrist is easier to straighten out than an flectn.
The world’s homophobia be ternalized homophobia. Even wh the gay datg muny (and gay porn), hyper-masculy is habually prized, so self-disgt gets easily turned back outward. ”Of urse, not all gay men have the same voice, or any “gay” voice: is a stereotype, after all.
Thorpe talks to a straight iend who sounds “gay” (he grew up on an ashram, surround by women), and a gay iend who sounds “straight” (he has jock brothers). Did he choose to sound gay or did soundg gay choose him? ” (The gay “lisp” is a b of a misnomer, ually referrg to a sibilant “S.
QUEER VOIC: DO I SOUND GAY? DO IT MATTER?
What's so tertg about the gay voice is that 's a primary ditor that we as begs are more plex than we physilly appear to be. * i have a gay voice *
Obvly, the ncln—the film’s, and me—is to dissociate the “gay voice” om shame and reattach to pri, but isn’t so easy.
“For many gay men, that’s the last vtige, that’s the last chunk of ternalized homophobia, is this hatred of how they sound, ” Dan Savage tells Thorpe.
One of the ways gay people tend to pensate, the film suggts, is to adopt the supercil speech patterns of the leisure class, i. The CNN anchor Don Lemon tells Thorpe that he worked harr to ntralize his Southern black accent than his “gay” accent. (The phenomenon of gay whe men imatg black women’s speech is s own thorny subtegory.