Is there an out-of-the-closet tone of voice? Is the way you talk determined by sexual orientation? Is there a gay intonation? Some of these questions appear in David Thorpe’s head, and he asks them out loud in this documentary whose first-person singular becomes plural. Incorrectly dissatisfied with his own voice, Thorpe decides to investigate on his tone in a journey that takes him long to complete, in which he gathers the voices of friends, passers-by, comedians like Margaret Cho, actors such as George Takei, and linguists and speech therapists, including a specialist in training the voices of Hollywood stars such as Robert De Niro. Through the generational inquiry of American culture and the influence of Truman Capote, Liberace or Disney villains –but also taking into account the peculiarities of autobiography– the filmmaker succeeds in going through different layers of experience on an issue that is, paradoxically, silenced. Stigma and homophobia, but also the construction of one’s identity –the tone of voice is considered to have enough freedom to assume and one’s own prejudices as well other people’s, and a also to elevate one’s intelligence as well as other people’s.
DT