A Documentarian Wonrs: 'Do I Sound Gay?' : NPR

Contents:

• IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
• THE GAY VOICE
• WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• WHY IS THAT SOME GAY MEN EMPLOY AN EFFEMATE VOICE?
• A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• OF LISPS AND LGUISTICS: THE POWER OF THE GAY VOICE
• MY GAY VOICE

IS THERE 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.

”This is how he scrib the moment his documentary “Do I Sound Gay?, ” which opens this weekend at the IFC Center.

THE GAY VOICE

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. 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).

WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'

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.

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.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

(The phenomenon of gay whe men imatg black women’s speech is s own thorny subtegory.

As gays and lbians ga cultural pal, helped along by equaly victori like the one jt hand down by the Supreme Court, “gay voice” will surely evolve, too.

Why do some gay men “sound” gay? After intifyg phoic characteristics that seem to make a man’s voice sound gay, their bt hunch is that some gay men may subnscly adopt certa female speech patterns. They want to know how men acquire this manner of speakg, and why – pecially when society so often stigmatiz those wh gay-soundg voic.

WHY IS THAT SOME GAY MEN EMPLOY AN EFFEMATE VOICE?

Rogers and Smyth are also explorg the stereotyp that gay men sound effemate and are regnized by the way they speak.

They asked people to listen to rerdgs of 25 men, 17 of them gay. Perhaps fewer than half of gay men sound gay, says Rogers. The straightt-soundg voice the study was fact a gay man, and the sixth gayt-soundg voice was a straight man.

A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'

Stay ahead of the trend fashn and beyond wh our ee weekly Liftyle Ed newsletterStay ahead of the trend fashn and beyond wh our ee weekly Liftyle Ed newsletter After a particularly bad break-up, David Thorpe, a journalist who’s his forti, cid to take his md off thgs by leavg his ts his Manhattan apartment and drowng his sorrows at a gay beach town on Fire Island. On the Friday-night tra journey he found himself surround by loud chatterg gay men.

“I knew then that I had to get to the bottom of that feelg and to the importance of the voice as part of gay inty.

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

”It was the start of a four-year journey of self-disvery durg which Thorpe tried to figure out his so-lled “gay voice”: when did he start talkg that way, what ed , how exactly did sound, and, fally, what was so wrong wh anyway? The rults n be seen his new documentary, Do I Sound Gay?, which featur terviews wh lguists, amics, fay and iends, as well as a number of high-profile personali, cludg David Sedaris and Dan Savage.

A high-pched, lispg voice that go up at the end has been part of the gay male stereotype for years. Another expert that he terviews for the film is a Canadian lguist who studi vol microvariatns between gay and straight men and speculat that many gay men more readily pick up speech s om women. Intertgly, a straight iend of Thorpe’s has what is nsired to be an archetypal “gay voice” and turns that out he was raised entirely by women at an ashram.

A iend suggts that he was “advertisg” his homosexualy, havg kept a secret for so long.

OF LISPS AND LGUISTICS: THE POWER OF THE GAY VOICE

When he was younger, Thorpe not, the only “gay voic” on televisn were those belongg to figur such as Liberace and Charl Nelson Reilly, the host of The Match Game. He also wonrs if Disney villas such as Aladd’s Jafar and The Ln Kg’s Sr, wh their soft, threateng voic, have ma young people associate soundg gay wh beg evil. It pleas him to hear so many more “gay voic” reprented today, pecially young vloggers such as Lohanthony and Tyler Oakley.

“Growg up, I was always told that what was wrong wh me was that I was gay, so ’s not hard to unrstand that a moment of vulnerabily I might also feel secure about my sexualy. As Dan Savage, the activist who found the It Gets Better mpaign, says the film: “What’s wrong wh soundg like you are who you are – a gay man? Most of are faiar wh the stereotype of a “gay voice.

Do gay men actually sound different than straight men? 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.

MY GAY VOICE

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.

” 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. 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.