Title: Who Sounds “Gay“? Summary: This short documentary explores one theory of why some people sound stereotypically “gay.” OPENING CREDITS FADE IN CU Coffee Cup David Thorpe sitting on bed This is me, David David (getting out of a cab in Brooklyn) David VO I’ve always wondered why some men sound gay and others don’t. Kris Marx (at playground) Kalliope, do you want some water? Do you want a nut? LOWER THIRD Kris Matt Bernardo (walking down hallway) See, now, now this is where you get me. LOWER THIRD Matt David VO Take for example my pals Kris and Matt Exterior: Park Slope Food Co-op Kris (moving produce) And we need two of these ... Kris VO My name is Kris. I’m a produce buyer and also do some restaurant consulting. Kris (working/on intercom) We need a chard, a red cabbage and two strawberries... Kris VO As one friend put it my voice is ... Kris (seated interview in park) ...all treble no bass, I guess. Unless I’m upset (giggles)...but generally I think kind of soft, often dies at three feet, that sort of thing. Kris VO (over Co-op b-roll): I would say I’m mistaken for a woman on the phone 98 percent of the time. Matt (playing football) You ready? Hike!... Matt VO My name is Matthew Bernardo. B-roll Matt playing football Come on! ... Matt (in his apartment) I’m a senior vice president for business enterprise. Matt (playing football) Ready, go ... hike! There you go. Matt VO The Bernardos are a brand. Matt Bernardo They all sort of talk the same way, the style of humor is the same, we talk with our hands alot. The whole family was sports. I played baseball. I played golf. We played whiffle ball in the backyard all the time. Matt (playing football) Come in! Let’s do the arm. David VO walking into linguistics department To me Kris sounds gay and Matt sounds straight. So what makes a voice sound one way or another? Photo montage LOWER THIRD Matt, 1 year old LOWER THIRD Kris, 2 years old LOWER THIRD Me, 5 years old Ben Munson VO Think about the learning language environment of the infant and the toddler and pre-school child and the elementary-school age child. Ben Munson interview in his office Every one of us is presented with lots and lots of models of what language should sound like. So we hear men, we hear women, we hear kids our own age, we hear adults, we hear older adults and in all of these interactions we have lots of opportunities to emulate different aspects of those people’s speech. LOWER THIRD Ben Munson Speech scientist, University of Minnesota KRIS (on-camera at co-op/photos as kid with Mom) I grew up largely around lots, lots of women. Most of my life I lived on an ashram. It was maybe 4/5ths women to men ratio, essentially. Matt Definitely male-dominated family. Four brothers and one sister. I was pretty much formed like every one of my other brothers. I did everything that they did. Photo Matt, brothers, father In some ways very unfair roles, like after Thanksgiving dinner the boys went back up to watch football and all the women were left to clean up. David VO It matters who you model your speech after because, as it turns out, men and women, on average, make subtle differences in speech sounds. [[Just use simple shots to show David in booth: establishing EXT door and CU mouth.. we don’t need to hear what he is saying, except for one line after VO ends.]] David on Iphone Dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. B-roll of spectrogram Ok this is an S Ron Smyth Microvariations are tiny differences in pronunciations, like the difference between SSS and sss, but different people pronounce them in different ways. Women tend to make their Ss in a slightly forward position compared to men. And acoustically that means that it sounds higher. SSSS. Ssss. SSS. Sss. LOWER THIRD Ron Smyth Job title, university Broll of spectrogram ...T. T. T. Ron (in linguistics lab) Normally someone would say continent, continent-t, with no release. You said, ‘continenT’ David Did everyone get that? I said ‘continenT’ Ron The clearest most lady-like gay one. [[possible cut]] BEN And it’s not so much that a kid who is going to be gay later in life is going to say I want to sound like a woman, so much as a kid is identifying here is a particular speaker, and here is a particular of that person’s speech that captures what I find so engaging about them and I’m going to emulate that. RON People want gay men to be like women and maybe they picked up on the fact that many of the characteristics of gay- sounding voices are feminine characteristics but they’ve got it all wrong. Because a lot of those gay-sounding voices are from straight guys. B-roll: Kris and his wife Kat kiss in front of their toddler daughter Kalliope; KAT (on screen/cutaways to Kris putting diapers on Kalliope) I would call him a ladies man. He’s pretty much everything that every woman I’ve ever known talks about wanting in a man. Great partner, great fun. Happy, he’s like a happy nice guy all the time. . PHOTO Matt shirtless, younger Matt VO I knew I was gay when I was like 11. Matt (on camera) It didn’t manifest itself through the voice, PHOTO: Matt with boyfriend Matt VO But still the fact was inside that I liked guys Matt People say that I sound straight. I don’t think its particularly something to be extremely proud of. EXT: Playground KRIS with Kalliope You don’t want that in your hand? KRIS VO Do I have a gay voice? Yes. KRIS It’s interesting the more natural I feel and the more enthusiastic I feel the less typically masculine it comes out, I’ve observed. But it never bothered me. MATT The big problem i have is when people assume I’m not [gay] and then I’m anxious are they going to say something stupid? Do I have to get up? Do I ignore it? Do I confront ‘em? What do I do? KRIS In the end, if someone thinks I’m gay, then they’re wrong ... and there’s nothing wrong with that. END CREDITS