Documentary do i sound gay

Do I Sound Gay? is a American documentary film by David Thorpe [3] that explores the existence and accuracy of stereotypes about the speech patterns of gay men, [4] and the ways in which one's degree of conformity to the stereotype can contribute to internalized homophobia. [5]. Do I Sound Gay?: Directed by David Thorpe. With Michael Airington, Richard Barrios, Margaret Cho, Becky Collins. A documentary about the stereotype of the gay voice.

Filmmaker David Thorpe (middle) explores whether there's such a thing as a "gay voice." In the wake of a bad breakup, journalist and gay activist David Thorpe did what many of us do: He took. The film explores stereotypes about the speech patterns of gay men and examines how conformity to these stereotypes can contribute to internalized homophobia.

Journalist David Thorpe confronts his anxiety over sounding gay by talking to LGBT icons like Dan Savage and George Takei, and exploring the cultural history of the gay voice in film and. Journalist David Thorpe never intended to become a filmmaker. Thorpe was getting his MFA in creative non-fiction with the idea to write a book about his anxiety over his voice, and more to the point, his anxieties over sounding "gay. While nominally about Thorpe's feelings about his own voice, his four year odyssey and the film that came out of it became about much more than that.

Bringing in family and friends, strangers and celebrities, linguists and acting coaches, Thorpe's effort to find out why he sounds the way he does and how he might change his voice ultimately led to questions about how we identify ourselves, the things we do to fit in, and where the way we sound actually comes from. If the eyes are a window onto the soul, then Thorpe's documentary reveals that the voice reveals the state of the soul, perhaps more acutely than other facet of our personality.

I spoke to Thorpe at the Rizoma Festiva l, held annually in Madrid and worth planning a trip around , and then again a few days before the premiere. This is an edited transcript of that discussion. How I feel about my voice is usually tied to how confident I feel about myself. It actually can take a long time to accept yourself.

I was very surprised. In that initial dinner party scene, my friend Alberto says that his dislike of his voice is just part of his generalized self loathing about being gay, and it was such a frank admission. I'm one of his closest friends, and I'd never heard that before.

So I do think that the movie is pointing out an elephant in the room, both for gay and straight people. This anxiety about the way one sounds really seems to touch a lot of people.

can gay people detect other gay people

This is meant to be a universal story. It was the lightning bolt moment that I depict in the film. I was going to Fire Island and hearing all of these stereotypical gay voices and feeling repelled, and also feeling terrified that I sound like that. I knew then that I had to get to the bottom of these feelings about my voice and resolve them one way or another. So my original impulse was just to get to the bottom of those feelings.

One time, I wore a wig when I was starting to feel uncomfortable about being bald. So this is very much in that same vein. Originally I was going to write a book, which is a much more distancing medium. In talking about the story, it became really clear that having me as a guide through the film was the key. To think that my whole personality is some kind of pretentious posture aimed at provoking you.

I thought it was really brave of her to be honest. She seemed to be experiencing these feelings in the present tense—where do you think her feelings of being somehow duped by your "new" voice come from? I think where it really comes from is wishing that I had been able to come out in high school and that she had been able to support me, because we were very, very close.

How could you change? Every time I did an interview with a voice coach or a linguist, they broke down the components of my voice, or talked about the possible origins of why some people sound gay, it felt like being let out of prison. This had been such a big anxiety for me, and I was just as surprised as other people are when they watch some of the scenes that talk about the theories where the gay voice comes from.

The 'gay voice' is just shorthand for the stereotype of the gay voice. There is no such thing as a fundamentally gay voice.