What it means to 'sound gay'

Sean Hayes as Jack McFarland and Eric McCormack as Will Truman in a scene from Will and Grace. File photo / Getty Images

Most of us are familiar with the stereotype of a "gay voice." A man speaks at a higher pitch, and in a more melodious fashion. The man might pronounce his p's, t's and k's very crisply, or have what's sometimes (incorrectly) described as a "lisp." Think Nathan Lane in The Birdcage, or Buddy Cole of Kids in the Hall.

But is there any reality to this stereotype? Do gay men actually sound different than straight men? And if so, why?

These are the questions in a new documentary, Do I Sound Gay? It's a fascinating and nuanced film, in which the filmmaker, David Thorpe, uses his feelings about his voice to look at attitudes toward homosexuality. It raises a complicated discussion about gay pride, lingering homophobia, disguised misogyny, and the extent to which we all alter the image that we present to the world.

As the film begins, Thorpe is disturbed because he realises he doesn't like his voice any more. He's just gone through a break-up and is feeling unconfident and low. "Who could respect, much less fall in love with, an old braying ninny like me?" he asks.

With these feelings of self-loathing, Thorpe sets on a journey to see if he can become more comfortable with his voice again (and presumably, with himself). He enrolls in voice coaching that promises to give him a "powerful and authentic" voice.

Thorpe explores in other ways the meaning behind his voice and his discomfort with it. He carries out thoughtful conversations with his friends and prominent gay and lesbian figures - including George Takei, David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Margaret Cho and Don Lemon - about what it means to "sound gay." And though these people are all proud of their sexuality, he finds many of them have surprisingly complex feelings about their voices.

The film asks more questions than it answers. But in so doing, it invites everyone to think about what their own voice says about who they are, where they came from, and where they want to go.

The science of "the gay voice"

To start with, the stereotypical "gay voice" isn't necessarily gay.

In a study published in 2003, Ron Smyth, a linguist at the University of Toronto, found that participants readily separated recordings of 25 diverse voices into those who "sounded gay" and those who "sounded straight." People picked up on features of the gay stereotype - voices that were higher and more melodious were more often labelled "gay."

The trouble was that these labels had little relationship with sexuality. In Smyth's study, people correctly guessed a man's sexuality about 60 per cent of the time, only a little better than random.

In another small study at the University of Hawaii, both gay and straight listeners were equally as likely to misclassify people as gay or straight. In fact, the straight men with so-called gay voices weren't aware that people thought they sounded gay at all.

It turns out that what most people perceive as a stereotypical "gay voice" is just a male voice that sounds more stereotypically feminine - mainly, higher pitched and more melodious. And that often has more to do with the voices that a person identified with as they grew up, rather than sexuality.

Smyth and other researchers say some men, both gay and straight, develop more feminine voices because they are influenced by women when young. They might be raised by women, or just gravitate toward female role models or friends, Smyth says. But that doesn't mean that they are gay.

"Some men with 'gay voices' are straight, and some men with 'straight voices' 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." And so on.

Beyond the environment that a person is raised in, one's peers and self-identity can also influence their voice.

Linguists have long observed that people code-switch - slip into a different accent or way of speaking when they're talking to different groups of people, sometimes without even realising it. If you've ever found yourself talking to someone with a different accent and gradually emulating them, you're familiar with the idea.

For gay men, adopting what's called "camp" - a theatrical gay accent, like an old-school starlet - can be a way of embracing their identity. "As a freshly minted gay man, I learned how camping it up could be liberating," Thorpe says in the film.

And there may be more subtle ways that sexuality and our sense of self influence our voices.

Benjamin Munson, who studies language and speech at the University of Minnesota, found in one study that gay men did use a slightly different pronunciation than straight men. However, the difference wasn't the stereotypical "gay voice," but a tendency to use a more contemporary, pan-American accent, rather than the old-fashioned Minnesota accent (as in the movie Fargo).

Munson says that the gay men he interviewed may have wanted to convey an identity that is more stylish and cutting edge. "As speakers of a language, we have lots of freedom in how we pronounce sounds . . . People exploit that variation to create different social meanings," he says.

Even those who are proud can still feel stigma

Do I Sound Gay? shows that even men who are out and proud may still carry with them some shame about having a stereotypical "gay voice," even if those feelings are subconscious.

Dan Savage, a gay activist and author, argues in the film that this is a natural consequence of boys being bullied for walking and talking a certain way when they are young. They grow up "policing" themselves for evidence that might betray them, like their voice, Savage says.

Under-running these negative feelings is also a strong current of misogyny, an ingrained prejudice against women, say Thorpe, Savage and others.

Misogyny and homophobia are "evil twins," which both have a root in sexism and devaluing things that are female, says Thorpe.

"[B]ecause we do still live in a misogynist and sexist culture, people criticise men who are effeminate, whether or not they are gay," says Thorpse. "So women and men who express themselves like women both suffer from misogyny and sexism."

"This is really an issue of gender that then becomes an issue of sexual orientation that then becomes an issue of homophobia," Thorpe said. "It's like a Russian doll of hate."

Like most kids, Thorpe was painfully sensitive to what made him different. He grew up in the Bible Belt in the 1980s, when homosexuality was often considered evil and the cause of a new plague called AIDS, Thorpe says. He didn't know anyone who was openly gay.

At the time, there were also almost no positive gay characters in the media. As Thorpe points out in the film, there have long been public entertainers or artists with stereotypically "gay voices" - Liberace or Truman Capote, for example - but few people openly talked about their homosexuality.

And when characters with "gay" mannerisms or voices appeared in popular culture, they were sometimes coded with negative or insidious meanings.

From the 1940s on, American film saw the rise of a snide, supercilious, and vaguely gay villain, starting with the manipulative Clifton Webb in the detective noir film Laura. That tradition of the effete, aristocratic villain has lived on.

For example, film historian Richard Barrios argues in the film that many of the Disney villains have simpering voices or mannerisms that are subtly - or not so subtly - stereotypically gay, including Prince John in Robin Hood, Scar in The Lion King, and many more.

In an interview, Thorpe pointed out what he viewed as one particularly egregious example - the bad guy in the 2012 Disney animated film Wreck-It Ralph.

"The villain in that film is called King Candy, and he is very conspicuously effeminate," says Thorpe. "And at one point in the film the hero even refers to him as "nelly wafer." (This is a play on a "Nilla wafer" - a kind of cookie - and the word "nelly," a derogatory term for gay men, says Thorpe.)

"It seems innocent and fun, but when you understand the tradition from which that stereotype and those villains come from, it's not innocent, and it's not harmless... This stereotype is still hanging out," Thorpe says.

Things are getting better, Thorpe says. He points to Hollywood's prominent "gaylebrities," like Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Neil Patrick Harris, and young gay YouTube stars like Tyler Oakley, Kingsley and Lohanthony.

"We are pioneers in our time in changing societal perception of what it means to be gay," George Takei, who played Sulu in Star Trek, says in the film.

But homophobia still affects Hollywood. Many actors work to make their voices sound masculine: In the film, Bob Corff, a Hollywood speech therapist that Thorpe visits, says 20 to 50 people a year come to him to sound "less gay."