Jennifer Tilly is the worst offender, I think.  She’s a strapping great gal (eyes right) who insists on talking in a tiny voice.  Daum thinks the "baby-voice" trend is on the upswing.  Oh, damn. 

It is a blight upon the beauty of the American woman. 

How many times have you found yourself standing in line behind a woman of unsurpassed grace only to discover that she speaks like a cartoon character?

That’s me in 2004.  I had just moved from Canada, and baby voices was one of my most distressing discoveries state-side.  Since then the evidence has been piling up.  Paris Hilton is merely the latest case in point.

These voices are acts of self diminishment.  They say, "It’s just little me: childlike, innocent, unthreatening."   

Oh, please.  Just stop it.  Do these women wish to seem brainless?  I guess they must.  I mean, if someone’s prepared to sound like a cartoon character, what are the chances she’s going to risk an opinion on the new Werner Herzog movie. 

This voices are acts of "don’t mind me" apology.  And that makes them the perfect gender counterpart to Charlie Sheen/Harper and the unapologetic male.  Charlie Harper of Two and a Half Men is happy to let you know that he is completely self interested and utterly incapable of apology. 

So it’s a match made in heaven: women who apologize with every word they speak companion to men incapable of even a single word so spoken. 

But hold on.  Are women using baby voices to apologize for being insubstantial or to apologize for not being insubstantial enough?  I think, it might be the latter.  I think that the classic marker of subordinated womenhood may be the new marker of superordinated womanhood.  Now that some women are entirely in charge of their lives, they have a new message to send out…some sort of "don’t hate me because I’m successful" strategy.  That they use the old apology as a symbol of new status, well, that’s just proof that "the more things change…" 

How should women sound?  Plainly, they should sound however they sound.  But if cultivation comes into it, if they are going to move off their natural voice, I nominate Christine Lahti, Ann Curry, Diane Sawyer, Angela Basset, and Kate Winslet as role models.  There are lots of beautifully voiced women in the world. 

This is a new industry waiting to happen, a new transformational opportunity for our culture to embrace.  God knows, we’ve tried everything else.  Surely, the time for beautiful voices has come. 

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Virginia Postrel for the head’s up. 

References

Daum, Meghan.  2007.  Little voices of distraction.  Los Angeles Times.  July 7, 2007.  here. 

Postrel, Virginia.  2007.  Squeaky Voices.  Dynamist.  July 8, 2007.  here.

McCracken, Grant.  2007. The Charlie and Barney Show: Birth of a new American male?  This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics.  January 3, 2007.  here.

McCracken, Grant. 2004.  Blaming Buffy.  This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics.  July 14, 2004.  here.