For his new documentary Do I Sound Gay?, which opened the NYC DOC festival this week, director David Thorpe filmed his investigation of the “gay voice”:
The film starts on a clever and fun note, with Thorpe clearing his throat before reading the credits out loud and then staging, in very low-tech manner, the Friday-night train ride to Fire Island that made him realize he disliked people with gay voices — which includes not only practically all his fellow passengers but also himself. Over 40 and newly single, the insecure Thorpe wonders if there’s something that can be done about his voice, so he goes to see a speech therapist, who has him working on his nasality and long vowels.
In a review, Rich Juzwiak calls the movie a “bold documentary that derives its momentum from Thorpe’s seesawing between self-loathing and acceptance”:
I related to Thorpe’s hyper-consciousness over his voice and his attempt to alter it. … Past encounters may have taught us that if we sound gay, we won’t be taken seriously or that we’ll put ourselves in some kind of danger or that other guys who are similarly obsessed with the construct of masculinity won’t want to fuck us. In some instances, it’s impossible to refrain from internalizing this. Part of your responsibility as a considerate human interested in communicating is evolution.
At the same time, and where do we draw the line at improving ourselves, and who dictates what constitutes improvement? If we historically deferred to majority opinion, we’d be closeted and attempting to twist our soft dicks into a point to fuck our wives. Because sexuality involves not just the internal but also the external, there will always be people arguing that being gay is a choice. And it is, insofar as one chooses to live his or her life fully, pursuing happiness to the best of his or her ability. One chooses to reject traditional narratives and cultural expectations and whatever external shame lurks, for the sake of just being. Do I Sound Gay? explores the complications that arise once you’ve settled into a life of just being. For a lot of us, just being is an aspiration itself. Even as adults, even in 2014.
In an interview, Thorpe and Dan Savage (who is featured in the film) talk about why they think the topic provokes so much interest:
Thorpe: The gay voice is a symbol—of homosexuality, of femininity—and symbols are very powerful. So it was important for me to address the gay voice as something larger than the gay voice and something representative of gayness, of femininity, and how it can provoke homophobia and misogyny. It seems like a small thing, but the disruption it causes is enormous. I would liken it to holding hands with your lover or kissing in public: it’s a very small act but if you kiss someone of the same sex in a room like this [a public restaurant], you know people are watching you and the temperature of the room changes. So a small act like speaking has enormous consequences.
Dan Savage: It’s also homophobia. It’s the hatred of gay people by non-gay people, but also the self-hatred that so many people struggle with. Like, what’s wrong with sounding like who you are? Some people have a real issue with that. There are straight people that want to live in a world where they can pretend gay people don’t exist and then there are gay people who so struggle with self-hatred that’s been pounded into them so that they policing themselves for any traits that might give them away. If you’re the kind of gay person that has a very identifiable gay voice, a lot of gay people will say it’s like you’re coming out all the time.
Check out my thoughts on the subject here, and read the long-running Dish thread here.
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