In a new documentary, a gay man tri to change the sound of his voice and wonrs why, exactly, he thks he should.
Contents:
- WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
- A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'
- WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
- WHO SOUNDS GAY?
- HOMOSEXUAL MEN WHO ‘SOUND GAY’ AL WH MORE DISCRIMATN, STUDY SAYS
WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
What the way we talk says about gay pri and lgerg prejudice * sound of gay *
Most of are faiar wh the stereotype of a “gay voice.
A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'
* sound of gay *
Do gay men actually sound different than straight men? The are the qutns a new documentary, “Do I Sound Gay?
WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
This short documentary explor the reasons that some men sound stereotypilly gay, whether they are or not. * sound of 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 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.
WHO SOUNDS 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. ” People picked up on featur of the gay stereotype – voic that were higher and more melod were more often labeled "gay.
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. 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.
HOMOSEXUAL MEN WHO ‘SOUND GAY’ AL WH MORE DISCRIMATN, STUDY SAYS
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. "There are butch and fem gay men, there are butch and fem straight men, there are butch and fem straight women.
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.