Purposely Gay By Voice Pitch – How Male Actors Use Effeminate Voices To Feign Homosexuality
Christopher Philip
How do men wishing to act gay modify their voice?
According to researchers Valentina Cartei and David Reby, School of Psychology, University of Sussex, when actors play homosexual male characters in North-American television shows, they speak with stereotypical feminized voices.
They study began by identifying actors who played at least one homosexual role and one heterosexual role. Next, five audio samples were collected in both the homosexual and heterosexual roles. The samples were analyzed for various voice parameters including fundamental frequency, formants and formant spacing.
The results showed that when playing homosexual roles, actors used a higher fundamental frequency suggesting they used a higher voice pitch producing a more melodious and less baritone voice. The fundamental frequency variation also was higher in homosexual roles than heterosexual roles.
Overall, voices were modified to be more feminine than masculine.
“Moreover,” say the researchers “the increased F0 variation observed in the voice of actors playing homosexual characters suggests that they attempt to increase the melodic quality of their voice, another stereotypical correlate of perceived femininity.”
“Besides providing further evidence of the existence of an “effeminacy” stereotype in portraying male homosexuals in the media, these results show that actors perform pitch and vocal tract length adjustments in order to alter their perceived sexual orientation, emphasizing the role of these frequency components in the behavioral expression of gender attributes in the human voice.”
What is interesting about the study according to the research is that while the male actors shifted approximately 40% toward female values in pitch frequency, that there is in fact no noticeable real life difference in voice pitch between homosexual and heterosexual men.
The results provide evidence that men can use behavioural strategies to create gender-related qualities of the voice in order to create intended impressions. The study also showed that heterosexual men modify their voice to appear more homosexual using stereotypic feminine patterns which are largely incongruent with how true to life homosexual men actually speak.
Resources
Cartei, Valentina and David Reby. Acting Gay: Male Actors Shift the Frequency Components of Their Voices Towards Female Values When Playing Homosexual Characters. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2019. 36:79–93
DOI 10.1007/s10919-011-0123-4