In a new documentary, a gay man tri to change the sound of his voice and wonrs why, exactly, he thks he should.
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”?
Michael Schulman on “Do I Sound Gay?,” a documentary by David Thorpe that explor how vol nc are associated wh sexualy. * gay guys voice *
He sounds gay.
THE 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. * gay guys voice *
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.
WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
What the way we talk says about gay pri and lgerg prejudice * gay guys 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.
WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
This also appli to gay women and their employment of the mascule ton. * gay guys voice *
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?
WHY IS THAT SOME GAY MEN EMPLOY AN EFFEMATE VOICE?
* gay guys voice *
” (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.
A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'
We might thk we know what a gay person sounds like. But there are veats to the cliche — and ‘voice-shamg’ tells a lot more about our culture than do about the person speakg * gay guys voice *
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. 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. Rogers and Smyth are also explorg the stereotyp that gay men sound effemate and are regnized by the way they speak.
DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
In 'Do I Sound Gay?', David Thorpe exam the myster orig of the "gay voice" while tryg—and failg—to rid himself of his own gayish flectn * gay guys voice *
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.
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. ”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?
OF LISPS AND LGUISTICS: THE POWER OF THE GAY VOICE
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. 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.
MY GAY VOICE
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?