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

Contents:

• SOUNDS GAY, I’M 
• SOUNDS GAY, I’M IN
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
• THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• WHAT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'

SOUNDS GAY, I’M 

And if so, why?The are the qutns a new documentary, “Do I Sound Gay?” It’s a fascatg and nuanced film, which the filmmaker, David Thorpe,  his feelgs about his voice to look at attus toward homosexualy. 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 world.As 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.” And though the people are all proud of their sexualy, he fds many of them have surprisgly plex feelgs about their voic.The film asks more qutns than answers. 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 go.The science of “the gay voice”To start wh, the stereotypil “gay voice” isn’t necsarily gay.In 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.” People picked up on featur of the gay stereotype – voic that were higher and more melod were more often labeled "gay."The trouble was that the labels had ltle relatnship wh sexualy. In Smyth's study, people rrectly gused a man’s sexualy about 60 percent of the time, only a ltle better than random.In 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 all.It 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. And that often has more to do wh the voic that a person intified wh as they grew up, rather than sexualy.Smyth and other rearchers say some men, both gay and straight, velop more feme voic bee they are fluenced by women when they are young.

SOUNDS GAY, I’M IN

But that don't mean that they are gay."Some men wh 'gay voic' are straight, and some men wh 'straight voic' are gay," says Smyth.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

"There are butch and fem gay men, there are butch and fem straight men, there are butch and fem straight women." And so on.Beyond the environment that a person is raised , one's peers and self-inty n also fluence their voice.Lguists have long observed that people -swch – slip to a different accent or way of speakg when they’re talkg to different groups of people, sometim whout even realizg .

If you've ever found yourself talkg to someone wh a different accent and gradually emulatg them, you're faiar wh the ia.For 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 film.And 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.

THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT

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").Munson says that the gay men he terviewed may have wanted to nvey an inty that is more stylish and cuttg edge.

“As speakers of a language, we have lots of eedom how we pronounce sounds … People explo that variatn to create different social meangs," he says.Even 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 subnsc.Dan 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. They grow up "policg" themselv for evince that might betray them, like their voice, Savage says.Unr-nng the negative feelgs is also a strong current of misogyny, an graed prejudice agast women, say Thorpe, Savage and others.Misogyny and homophobia are “evil tws,” which both have a root sexism and valug thgs that are female, says Thorpe.“[B]ee we do still live a misogynist and sexist culture, people cricize men who are effemate, whether or not they are gay," says Thorpse. "So women and men who exprs themselv like women both suffer om misogyny and sexism."“This is really an issue of genr that then be an issue of sexual orientatn that then be an issue of homophobia," Thorpe said.

He grew up the Bible Belt the 1980s, when homosexualy was often nsired evil and the e of a new plague lled AIDS, Thorpe says. As Thorpe pots out the film, there have long been public entertaers or artists wh stereotypilly “gay voic” – Liberace or Tman Capote, for example -- but few people openly talked about their homosexualy.And when characters wh “gay” mannerisms or voic appeared popular culture, they were sometim d wh negative or sid meangs.From the 1940s on, Amerin film saw the rise of a sni, supercil, and vaguely gay villa, startg wh the manipulative Clifton Webb the tective noir film “Lra.” That tradn of the effete, aristocratic villa has lived on.For example, film historian Richard Barrs argu  the film that many of the Disney villas have simperg voic or mannerisms that are subtly – or not so subtly – stereotypilly gay, cludg Prce John "Rob Hood," Sr "The Ln Kg," and many more,In an terview, Thorpe poted out what he viewed as one particularly egreg example – the bad guy the 2012 Disney animated film “Wreck-It Ralph.”“The villa that film is lled Kg Candy, and he is very nspicuoly effemate,” says Thorpe.

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

“And at one pot the film the hero even refers to him as “nelly wafer.” (This is a play on a “Nilla wafer” – a kd of okie -- and the word “nelly,” a rogatory term for gay men, says Thorpe.)“It seems nocent and fun, but when you unrstand the tradn om which that stereotype and those villas e om, ’s not nocent, and ’s not harmls... He pots to Hollywood's proment “gaylebri,” like Jse Tyler Fergon and Neil Patrick Harris, and young gay YouTube stars like Tyler Oakley, Kgsley and Lohanthony."We are pneers our time changg societal perceptn of what means to be gay,” Gee Takei, who played Sulu "Star Trek," says the film.But homophobia still affects Hollywood. Many actors work to make their voic sound mascule: In the film, Bob Corff, a Hollywood voice ach who Thorpe viss, says 20 to 50 people a year e to him to sound "ls gay."The tyranny of a voiceThe voice achg the film follows the self-help narrative of actualizatn and improvement, but has an unsettlg unrcurrent.

Siarly nonsensil is the assumptn that this humble three-letter word enjoyed a centuri-long untroubled existence as a synonym for “happy” before gettg -opted by the Gay Lguistics Agenda* some time around 1967. By the 13th and 14th centuri gay was ed adjectivally of anythg (or anyone) bright, lourful, or generally reee, and this fn has ed persevered for a signifint perd of time tanm wh s later variants. Gay also appears at a noun this perd, somethg which may be more regnisable today pound forms such as nosegay – a ltle bundle of flowers tradnally given as a gift.

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

As recently as 1922, ventor Leo Gerstenzang veloped the first mercial tton swabs and lnched them on an unspectg public as Q-Tips Baby Gays.

Bright beme gdy and reee beme rels and sooner or later a gay person uld jt as easily be unrstood as a lasciv or hedonistic one.

WHAT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'

It’s worth emphasisg that the two terpretatns uld fortably -exist: Troil & Crisey (1385) Chcer scrib a lover’s heart as “sh and gay”, whilst  The Miller’s Tale (1390) a “gay gerl” is a wanton one. In the US, gog gay had a particular meang among Quakers: renouncg pla livg and givg onelf over to pleasur such as drkg, gamblg, and dancg ( other words, behavg like the Church of England).

In the late 18th-19th centuri, a gay woman uld also be a prostute and a gay hoe a brothel – both phemistic given the word’s more mastream terpretatns. Given the word’s pluraly of terpretatn – and the forced clanste nature of non cis/het relatnships – there is some bate as to the first rerd e of gay meang a homosexual person or qualy.

This meang is generally unrstood to have emerged as US slang, and the OED c s first example as Gert Ste’s Geography and Plays (1922): “Helen Furr and Gea Keene lived together then… They were together then and traveled to another place and stayed there and were gay very gay there, jt gay there.