Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Acting Gay: Male Actors Shift the Frequency Components of Their Voices Towards Female Values When Playing Homosexual Characters

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Nonverbal Behavior Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether actors playing homosexual male characters in North-American television shows speak with a feminized voice, thus following longstanding stereotypes that attribute feminine characteristics to male homosexuals. We predicted that when playing homosexual characters, actors would raise the frequency components of their voice towards more stereotypically feminine values. This study compares fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequencies (F i ) parameters in the speech of fifteen actors playing homosexual and heterosexual characters in North-American television shows. Our results reveal that the voices of actors playing homosexual male characters are characterized by a raised F0 (corresponding to a higher pitch), and raised formant frequencies (corresponding to a less baritone timbre), approaching values typical of female voices. 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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Audibert, N., Aubergé, V., & Rilliard, A. (2010). Prosodic correlates of acted vs. spontaneous discrimination of expressive speech: a pilot study. In Proceedings from 5th International Conference on Speech Prosody. Chicago, USA.

  • Avery, J. D., & Liss, J. M. (1994). Acoustic characteristics of less-masculine-sounding male speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 99, 3738–3748.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battles, G. K., & Hilton-Morrow, W. (2002). Gay characters in conventional spaces: Will and Grace and the situation comedy. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 19, 87–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blashill, A. J., & Powlishta, K. K. (2009). Gay stereotypes: The use of sexual orientation as a cue for gender-related attributes. Sex Roles, 61, 783–793.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2009). PRAAT: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 5.1.19) [Computer program]. Retrieved from: http://www.praat.org.

  • Busby, P., & Plant, G. (1995). Formant frequency values of vowels produced by preadolescent boys and girls. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97, 2603–2606.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chuenwattanapranithi, S., Xu, Y., Thipakorn, B., & Maneewongvatana, S. (2006). Expressing anger and joy with the size code.In Proceedings of Speech Prosody. Dresden, Germany.

  • Chuenwattanapranithi, S., Xu, Y., Thipakorn, B., & Maneewongvatana, S. (2008). Encoding emotions in speech with the size code: A perceptual investigation. Phonetica, 65, 210–230.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chung, S. K. (2007). Media literacy art education: Deconstructing lesbian and gay stereotypes in the media. International Journal of Art and Design Education, 26, 98–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clopper, C., Pisoni, D. B., & Jong, K. (2005). Acoustic characteristics of the vowel systems of six regional varieties of American English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 118, 1661–1676.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Costanzo, F. S., Markel, N. N., & Costanzo, P. R. (1969). Voice quality profile and perceived emotion. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 16, 267–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, M. S. (1987). Acoustically mediated neighbor recognition in the North-American bullfrog, Rana-Catesbeiana. Behavioral Ecolology and Sociobiology, 21, 185–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Devillers, L., & Vasilescu, I. (2003). Prosodic cues for emotion characterization in real-life spoken dialogs. In Proceedings of Eurospeech (pp. 189–192).

  • Dow, B. (2001). Television, and the politics of gay and lesbian visibility. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 18, 123–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drahota, A., Costall, A., & Reddy, V. (2008). The vocal communication of different kinds of smile. Speech Communication, 50, 278–287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fagel, S. (2010). Effect of smiled speech on lips, larynx and acoustics. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5967, 294–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fant, G. (1960). Acoustic theory of speech production. The Hague: Mouton and Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feinberg, D. R., Jones, B. C., Little, A. C., Burt, D. M., & Perrett, D. I. (2005). Manipulations of fundamental and formant frequencies influence the attractiveness of human male voices. Animal Behaviour, 69, 561–568.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fitch, W., & Giedd, J. (1999). Morphology and development of the human vocal tract: A study using magnetic resonance imaging. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106, 1511–1522.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fitch, W. T., & Reby, D. (2001). The descended larynx is not uniquely human. In Proceedings of the Royal Society. London, UK: Royal Society Publishing.

  • Frick, R. W. (1986). The prosodic expression of anger: Differentiating threat and frustration. Aggressive Behavior, 12, 121–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaudio, R. (1994). Sounding gay: Pitch properties in the speech of gay and straight men. American Speech, 96, 30–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hajek, C., & Howard, G. (2005). Intergroup communication schemas: Cognitive representations of talk with gay men. Language & Communication, 25, 161–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henton, C. G. (1989). Fact and fiction in the description of female and male pitch. Language & Communication, 9, 299–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henton, C. G. (1995). Pitch dynamism in female and male speech. Language & Communication, 15, 43–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hillenbrand, J. M., Getty, L. A., Clark, M. J., & Wheeler, K. (1995). Acoustic characteristics of American English vowels. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97, 3099–3111.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hodges-Simeon, C. R., Gaulin, S. J. C., & Puts, D. A. (2010). Different vocal parameters predict perceptions of dominance and attractiveness. Human Nature, 21, 406–427.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hollien, H., Green, R., & Massey, K. (1994). Longitudinal research on adolescent voice change in males. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 96, 2646–2654.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, W. F., Emde, R. N., Scherer, K. R., & Klinnert, M. D. (1986). Recognition of emotion from vocal cues. Archives of General Psychiatry, 43, 280–283.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kienast, M., & Sendlmeier, W. F. (2000). Acoustical analysis of spectral and temporal changes in emotional speech. In Proceedings from the ISCA ITRW on Speech and Emotion. Newcastle, UK: Textflow.

  • Kite, M. E., & Deaux, K. (1987). Gender belief systems: Homosexuality and the implicit inversion theory. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 11, 83–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ko, S. J., Judd, C. M., & Blair, I. V. (2006). What the voice reveals: Within- and between-category stereotyping on the basis of voice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 806–819.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lasarcyk, E., & Trouvain, J. (2003). Spread lips + raised larynx + higher F0 = smiled speech?: An articulatory synthesis approach. In Proceedings of the 8th International Seminar on Speech Production. Strasbourg, France: INRIA.

  • Lee, S., Potamianos, A., & Narayanan, S. (1999). Acoustics of children’s speech: Developmental changes of temporal and spectral parameters. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 105, 1455–1468.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Linneman, T. J. (2008). How do you solve a problem like Will Truman? The feminization of gay masculinities on Will and Grace. Men and Masculinities, 10, 583–603.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez, P. T., Narins, P. M., Lewis, E. R., & Moore, S. W. (1988). Acoustically induced call modification in the white-lipped frog, Leptodactylus albilabris. Animal Behavior, 36, 1295–1308.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Madon, S. (1997). What do people believe about gay males? A study of stereotype content and strength. Sex Roles, 37, 663–685.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mattingly, I. G. (1966). Speaker variation and vocal-tract Size (A). The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 39, 1219(A).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munson, B., & Babel, M. (2007). Loose lips and silver tongues, or, projecting sexual orientation through speech. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1, 416–449.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munson, B., McDonald, E., & DeBoe, N. (2006). The acoustic and perceptual bases of judgments of women and men’s sexual orientation from read speech. Journal of Phonetics, 24, 202–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, I. R., & Arnott, J. L. (1993). Toward the simulation of emotion in synthetic speech: A review of the literature on human vocal emotion. Journal of Acoustic Society of America, 93, 1097–1106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ohala, J. J. (1984). An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 of voice. Phonetica, 41, 1–16.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Perry, T., Ohde, R., & Ashmead, D. (2001). The acoustic bases for gender identification from children’s voices. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 109, 2988–2998.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pierrehumbert, J., Bent, T., & Munson, B. (2004). The influence of sexual orientation on vowel production (L). The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116, 1905–1908.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pisanski, K., & Rendall, D. (2011). The prioritization of voice fundamental frequency or formants in listeners’ assessments of speaker size, masculinity, and attractiveness. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 129, 2201–2212.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Plant, R. L., & Younger, R. M. (2000). The interrelationship of subglottic air pressure, fundamental frequency, and vocal intensity during speech. Journal of Voice, 14, 170–177.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Puts, D., Gaulin, S., & Verdolini, K. (2006). Dominance and the evolution of sexual dimorphism in human voice pitch. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 283–296.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Puts, D. A., Hodges, C. R., Cárdenas, R. A., & Gaulin, S. J. C. (2007). Men’s voices as dominance signals: Vocal fundamental and formant frequencies influence dominance attributions among men. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 340–344.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raley, A. B., & Lucas, L. J. (2006). Stereotype or success? Prime-time television’s portrayals of gay male, lesbian, and bisexual characters. Journal of Homosexuality, 51, 19–38.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Reby, D., & McComb, K. (2003). Anatomical constraints generate honesty: Acoustic cues to age and weight in the roars of red deer stags. Animal Behavior, 65, 519–530.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reby, D., McComb, K., Cargnelutti, B., Darwin, C., & Fitch, W. T. (2005). Red deer stags use formants as assessment cues during intrasexual agonistic interactions. London: Proceedings of the Royal Society, Royal Society Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rendall, D., Kollias, S., Ney, C., & Lloyd, P. (2005). Pitch (F0) and formant profiles of human vowels and vowel-like baboon grunts: The role of vocalizer body size and voice-acoustic allometry. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 117, 944–955.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rendall, D., Vasey, P., & McKenzie, J. (2008). The Queen’s english: An alternative, biosocial hypothesis for the distinctive features of “gay speech”. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37, 188–204.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Riordan, C. J. (1977). Control of vocal-tract length in speech. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 62, 998–1002.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sachs, J., Lieberman, P., & Erikson, D. (1973). Anatomical and cultural determinants of male and female speech. In R. W. Shuy & R. W. Fasold (Eds.), Language attitudes (pp. 74–84). Washington: Georgetown University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, A. P. (2009). Phonetic differences between male and female speech. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3, 621–640.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, D. R. R., & Patterson, R. D. (2005). The interaction of glottal-pulse rate and vocal-tract length in judgments of speaker size, sex, and age. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 118, 3177–3186.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Smyth, R., Jacobs, G., & Rogers, H. (2003). Male voices and perceived sexual orientation: An experimental and theoretical approach. Language in Society, 32, 329–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Staats, G. R. (1978). Stereotype content and social distance: Changing views of homosexuality. Journal of Homosexuality, 4, 15–27.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sundberg, J., & Nordstrom, P. E. (1976). Raised and lowered larynx: The effect on vowel formant frequencies. Speech Transmission Laboratory Quarterly Progress, 17, 35–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tartter, V. C. (1980). Happy talk: Perceptual and acoustic effects of smiling on speech. Perception & Psychophysics, 27, 24–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Terengo, L. (1966). Pitch and duration characteristics of the oral reading of males on a masculinity-femininity dimension. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 9, 590–595.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, E. R. (2003). Secrets revealed by southern vowel shifting. American Speech, 78, 150–170.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Titze, I. R. (1994). Principles of voice production. Iowa City: IA7 National Center for Voice and Speech.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tivoli, M., & Gordon, M. J. (2008). The [+ spread] of the Northern Cities Shift. In University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. (Vol. 14, pp. 111–120).

  • Tom, K., Titze, I. R., & Hoffman, E. A. (2001). Three-dimensional vocal tract imaging and formant structure: Varying vocal register, pitch, and loudness. The Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 109, 742–747.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vorperian, H. K., & Kent, R. D. (2007). Vowel acoustic space development in children: A synthesis of acoustic and anatomic data. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50, 1510–1545.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Vorperian, H. K., Kent, R. D., & Lindstrom, M. J. (2005). Development of vocal tract length during early childhood: A magnetic resonance imaging study. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 117, 338–350.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wolfe, V. I., Ratusnik, D. L., Smith, F. H., & Northrop, G. (1990). Intonation and fundamental frequency in male-to-female transsexual. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 55, 43–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wondershare Software Co. Ltd. (2010). iSkysoft Audio Ripper (Version 1.8.2.7) [Computer program]. Retrieved from: http://www.iskysoft.com.

  • Wyatt, D. A. (2008). Gay/lesbian/bisexual television characters. [Website] Retrieved from: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~wyatt/tv-characters.html.

Download references

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Karen McComb and Robin Banerjee for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9QH, UK

    Valentina Cartei & David Reby

Authors
  1. Valentina Cartei
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. David Reby
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Valentina Cartei.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Calculation of Formant Spacing

Formant spacing (ΔF) was calculated by fitting a model that assumes that the vocal tract is an open (lips)—closed (glottis) tube with a uniform cross-section (quarter-wave resonator) to the observed formant values (Reby and McComb 2003). In this model individual formant frequencies are inversely related to the length of the vocal tract by the following formula:

$$ F_{i} = \frac{{\left( {2i - 1} \right)c}}{4VTL}, $$
(1)

where c is the speed of sound in air (approximated as 350 m/s in the vocal tract), i is the number of the formant (i = 1, 2,…) and VTL is the length of the vocal tract (Titze 1994).

Since the formant frequency spacing can be expressed as the difference between any two adjacent formants, ΔF is inversely related to VTL:

$$ \Updelta F = F_{i + 1} - F_{i} = \frac{c}{2VTL}$$
(2)

By replacing VTL in Eq. (1) with ∆F estimated in Eq. (2), individual formants are directly related to ∆F:

$$ F_{i} = \frac{{\left( {2i - 1} \right)}}{2}\Updelta F $$
(3)

Thus, ∆F can be derived from Eq. (3) as the slope of the linear regression of observed formant frequency values Fi (y-axis) over the expected formant positions (2i−1)/2 (x-axis), and with the intercept set to 0 (Reby and McComb 2003).

Appendix 2

See Tables 2, 3 and 4.

Table 2 Acoustic characteristics (in Hz) of actors’ voices in homosexual roles
Full size table
Table 3 Acoustic characteristics (in Hz) of actors’ voices in heterosexual roles
Full size table
Table 4 Acoustic characteristics (in Hz) of actors’ voices in interviews
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cartei, V., Reby, D. Acting Gay: Male Actors Shift the Frequency Components of Their Voices Towards Female Values When Playing Homosexual Characters. J Nonverbal Behav 36, 79–93 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-011-0123-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-011-0123-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation