Larynx Dissonance: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

* The ''[[Lucky Star]]'' dub has Derek Stephen Prince play a number of female extras.

** And the original Japanese version actually subverts this, by having a female voice actor (Kujira) voicing female characters... with a ''male-sounding voice''. (She also voices Orochimaru in ''[[Naruto]]'', for those interested.)

* [[Seto no Hanayome]] (more prominent in the first OVA) Lunar's Papa talks alternately between his [[Moe Moe]] voice and his manly voice.

* In the Japanese version of [[Princess Mononoke]], Moro's voice is provided by Miwa Akihiro, who has found something of a niche portraying mysterious older female charaters.

* Chimpette from the Zanpakuto arc of ''[[Bleach]]'' is voiced by a woman... who usually voices male characters, and uses a male voice for the role. Probably because the character was originally a male baboon.

* The English dub voice of Grell Sutcliffe in ''[[Black Butler]]'' sounds like he's trying to sound more feminine, which is quite appropriate seeing as Grell is a transwoman. Whether this is on purpose or by accident...

* The Swedish dub for Galaxy Express 999 had over half the female cast voiced by a man. And... not very discreetly either. Imagine a female android entering a train cabin, she is completely naked, and looks like she is made of crystal, with long flowing crystal like hair. Then she speaks and you hear the voice of an old man... it. is. HORRIBLE...

* In the Japanese dub of ''Papuwa'', the character Harada Umako is done by Ishii Kouji to play up the fact that she's the manliest character in the show despite being the sole female. Subverted in the English, however, by Joanne Bonasso speaking broken English in a faux Russian accent.

 

* Edna Mode of ''[[The Incredibles]].'' She's played by the director himself because he couldn't find anyone else who could pull off the Japanese/German accent he wanted.

** Supposedly, he did talk to Lily Tomlin, who had the voice he wanted, but she ended up saying something along the lines of "Why do you need me when you can do the voice fine?"

* Larry King as Doris the Ugly Stepsister in ''[[Shrek]] 2'' doesn't even bother with a falsetto.

** Neither does Regis Philbin in ''[[Shrek]] the Third'', as the other stepsister.

*** In the British version of ''Shrek 2'', Larry King was replaced by a talk show host who is more well known in the UK, Jonathon Ross. While still hardly feminine, his somewhat more high pitched, lisping voice could be considered more convincing.

*** Given that the Ugly Stepsisters are traditionally played by dames (men in drag) in the pantomime of Cinderella, that was probably deliberate.

 

 

* ''[[White Chicks]]''. It does not work at all, because the film expects us to buy that nobody sees through their disguises. Their Miss Piggy voices combined with the "No plastic surgeon is ''that bad''" look to completely ruin the suspension of disbelief.

** It does help that the people the Wayans are supposed to be interacting with seem mildly retarded. "You can get ''knee implants''?!"

* Edna Turnblad in ''[[Hairspray]]'' '''is''' this trope. She's a female character who was played by drag queen Divine in the original movie. [[Harvey Fierstein]] originated the role on Broadway.

** Many fans of the original stage show despised Travolta's interpretation specifically because he was too believable a woman. Edna was intended to be played like a drag queen, and Travolta said there was "nothing gay about Hairspray" and somehow managed to de-gay the word "fabulous."

* In ''[[Orgazmo]]''. One of the women the titular character has to do a porno with is nicknamed "T-Rex" because she's so rotund. She probably has the deepest voice of any character in the film. Anyone who's since seen ''[[South Park]]'' will recognize that Trey Parker is dubbing her. Apparently the overweight middle-aged actress who was such a good sport to appear in the film didn't have a scary enough voice.

** That's because he has done drag as part of his comedy routine in the past, and already had a little experience in that area as opposed to macho men Swayze and Wesley Snipes.

* [[Dustin Hoffman]] does a pretty convincing female voice in ''[[Tootsie]]''.

 

 

* [[The Muppet Show|Miss Piggy]] is probably the most famous example of this. It still works, because part of the joke is that she isn't really that feminine.

** You're saying ''moi'' is not feminine? ''[[Hypocritical Humor|Hai-YAH!]]''

* While ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' specialized in screechy and goofy woman voices, [[The Kids in The Hall]] usually played women's voices dead straight, e.g. Bruce McCullough and Scott Thompson as Cathy and Kathy.

** Kevin MacDonald, in particular, worked very hard in ''[[Brain Candy]]'' at nailing the closeted gay man's aggrieved wife's pain and tone of voice.

* To see how the professionals do it, watch ''[[Maury|The Maury Povich Show]]'' when he has you guess whether that's a woman or a drag queen...

* Used [[Crowning Moment of Funny|brilliantly]] by Colin Lane in an episode of ''[[Thank God You're Here]]''. Colin, a male, was dressed up as a heavily pregnant woman. As soon as he was forced to say something, he affected the deepest voice he could, eventually culminating in this exchange (paraphrased due to a faulty memory).

'''Colin''': You wanna start something, mate? }}

* In ''[[Eureka]]'', S.A.R.A.H., the AI who manages Sheriff Carter's "Smart House", has a female persona. However, Douglas Fargo, her creator and the town's resident [[Butt Monkey]], based her voice on himself doing a female impression. (He claims he wanted to use Sarah Michelle Gellar, but she hadn't returned his calls) It's just obvious enough to [[Squick]] Carter, and even though she has no physical presence, drops her squarely in the [[Uncanny Valley]].

* In the ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' episode where they all try to quit smoking, Lily's smokers voice is dubbed over by Harvey Fierstein.

* In 1964 in honour of [[Shakespeare]]'s 400th birthday [[The Beatles]] performed a skit on a part of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in their show "Around The Beatles". [[John Lennon]] played the role of Thisbe in a very deep male voice. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y24geONER0k Can be found on YouTube multiple times].

 

 

* Multiple [[PDQ Bach|P.D.Q. Bach]] works call for singing by a countertenor (that is, a man singing in the vocal range of a woman). Naturally played for laughs.

** There's [[Truth in Television]] here: Contraltos (female tenors) exist; so do countertenors (male altos). Compositions are sometimes written seriously specifying these ranges.

* On the Pogues' album ''Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash'', Shane MacGowan does both the male and female parts in "The Gentleman Soldier". His female voice is of the screechy, Pythonesque variety.

* Eurobeat singer Davide di Marcantonio often did this, likely with the aid of pitch-shifting, especially in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I1FfJ9TPTY Rose & John - Living in America].

 

 

* ''[[The Reduced Shakespeare Company]] Radio Show'' has special appearances by several female celebrities, whose voices sound a little deep. This is because they're not actually female celebrities, but Reed Martin, Professional Impressionist!

** Female Shakesperian characters are mostly played by Adam Long. This is ''authentic'', people!

* Benjamin "Katon" Carignan's female voice, as heard on [[Fobbies Are Borange|Loids are not Christmas]].

* ''The [[Firesign Theatre]]'', being all men, do both male and female characters on their albums. The eeriest is definitely Phil Austin.

 

 

* A staple of many stage comedians. For example, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOQJiZ_g3Ho Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias].

* Also worth noting that, with the right software, one can sound like the opposite gender. [[Morph Vox]] and others are pretty convincing if you set them up right.

** This is exactly how the female voices are done in [[Hyadain]]'s video game music covers, according to [[Word of God]].

** In speech (as opposed to singing) verisimilitude is not in the pitch or the timbre, as there's a fairly large overlap in both between male and female voices. For about the upper two-thirds of the tenor range and about the lower two-thirds of the alto range, speech mannerisms, subtle and less so, dominate. Skillful manipulation of these can produce a convincing voice (male, female, or genderless) in almost anyone of any sex or gender. For that matter, a person's timbre is more flexible than most people give it credit for.

* [[Transgender]] women go through this, and can only come out the other side after a lot of observation and hard work.

 

 

 

 

* ''[[Stronghold]]'' uses the Monty Python variation for the game's few female characters.

* ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' has Jason Spisak voicing [[Final Fantasy V|Bartz]], a mimic-type character who copies the attacks of other characters and mimics their tone of voice when doing so. In the original game the only female on the hero roster was [[Final Fantasy VI|Terra]], and Spizak didn't even attempt to imitate her. Then the prequel came out, and [[Final Fantasy VII|Tifa]], [[Final Fantasy X|Yuna]] and [[Final Fantasy XIII|Lightning]] joined the group, and Bartz's lines were re-recorded to be better imitations of the person he was copying. Thus, Jason Spisak had to imitate four very different-sounding female characters. ''And he pulled it off''. His impressions are so good in fact, some wondered for a time if it was a distorted version of the original voice and didn't think it was actually him.

* Gruntilda and her sisters from the ''[[Banjo-Kazooie]]'' series. Grunty and Mingella have Python-esque women's voices ([[Speaking Simlish]]), while Blobelda's voice has almost no trace of femininity.

 

 

* Works with most [[Abridged Series]], since they are not supposed to be taken seriously.

** One often-praised aspect of ''[[Naruto the Abridged Series]]'' is Masako's believable female voices, such as Ino, [[Dude Looks Like a Lady|Haku]](?), and Hinata. Meanwhile, Vegeta voices Sakura in the finest Miss Piggy tradition, and does a less exaggerated but no more convincing voice for Temari.

*** Lampshaded in episode 50:

** ''[[Truncated Power Rangers]]'' doesn't even try to disguise the guy voice for the Pink Ranger.

** In ''[[Wedding Peach Abridged]]'', Hinagiku was originally voiced by the brother of Toku Tenshi, the [[Abridged Series]] creator. When he had to vacate the role, she assumed the voice of Hinagiku, but voiced the character as an [[Recursive Crossdressing|exaggeration and affectionate parody of her brother's performance.]]

* [[Homestar Runner|Strong Bad]] does a "growly" variation for his "Teen Girl Squad" toons.

* While Jonathan Sullivan on ''[[Escape Pod]]'' is still recognizably masculine, his girl-voices aren't parodies.

** His girlfriend Liz too. She can do a good vocal imitation of a man, but not a woman!

 

 

* [[The Venture Brothers|Dr. Girlfriend]] is voiced by Doc Hammer, using the lowest and most gravelly vocal register possible. This has led many to think that she is a transsexual (both in the fandom and the show), but the in-story justification is that she smokes a lot (Jefferson Twilight asked her if she smoked cigarettes or ''ate'' them).

** ...Who, it must be noted, was instructed ''not'' to try to hide his voice. Hearing an old granny with a man's voice can be rather [[Nightmare Fuel]]-esque, which fits right into Granny's character.

*** It may be an extension of the [[Pantomime|panto]] tradition of evil dames like Cinderella's Stepmother and Stepsisters.

* In ''[[Futurama]]'', all of the member of [[Yuppie Couple|the Waterfall family]] are voiced by Phil Hendrie, including [[Granola Girl|Frida]]. It's less ridiculous than most examples, but still fairly Miss Piggy-esque.

* Brendon Small's shows ''[[Home Movies]]'' and ''[[Metalocalypse]]'' frequently use male voice talent for female characters. Then there's McGuirk at the Medieval Fair reading his line "in Elizabethan".

* One episode of the ''[[Clerks the Animated Series]]'' shows that all of Randall's ex-girlfriends have become lesbians, and ''all'' of them are voiced by men.

* [[Bugs Bunny]] did this fairly often when tricking his enemies.

** Speaking of which, there have been cases of [[Mel Blanc]] voicing one-shot female characters when Bea Benaderet or June Foray weren't available.

* On the short-lived FOX Family cartoon, ''[[Monster Farm]]'', Cowapatra (the Egyptian queen cow) is voiced by a man named Kevin Killebrew. Come to think of it, since there aren't that many female characters on the show (except for the ones that appear for one episode only), the only female character to have a female voice actress is Zombeef (voiced by Tifany Lenheart).

* ''[[Willow the Wisp]]'' had Kenneth Williams as the voices of Mavis Cruet and Evil Edna. As well as everyone else.

* Tim Brooke-Taylor again, as the villainous Auntie in ''[[Banana Man]]''.

* Tina the T-Rex in ''[[The Amazing World of Gumball]]'' is voiced by a male ''before'' being pitched way the hell down.

** And when the Watterson kids accidentally eat their father's hormone supplements in "The Mustache", making them hulking and hairy, Gumball and Darwin keep the same voice actors but are pitched down while Anais's voice is replaced with what's obvious an adult man's voice.

* Princess Pony Apehands on ''[[Spliced]]'' has a deep, obviously male voice, but the vocabulary and sentence structure of a three-year-old girl.

* [[Kaeloo]] is voiced by an adult man in every language. She usually comes off sounding like a young teenage boy, and it especially comes out when she sings.

 

 

 

* All over the place in ''[[Simoun]]'': there isn't a single male voice actor in the show. [[Justified Trope]] in that everyone in the world of ''[[Simoun]]'' is born female, and any men are women who either chose to be so or allowed the Spring to randomly chose for them.

 

 

* Disney's version of ''[[Mulan]]'', about a young Chinese woman who secretly takes her father's place in the army, has her affecting a ridiculous deep baritone every time she speaks as a man, for comic effect. And it ''works''. It helps that her cohorts aren't any too bright...

*** Potential [[Fridge Brilliance]]? They assume that when she first met them she was faking a deep voice because she was a man with a high pitched voice. Also, by the time she's speaking in her normal voice they've accepted her as a friend, so they'd be more likely to overlook a feminine voice in favour of believing that it was a high pitched man.

 

 

* In an episode of ''Out of This World'', the main character pretends she's a guy over the phone (can't remember why). It doesn't quite work. He friend notes that the guy had a "nasally voice".

 

 

* In ''[[Hedwig and The Angry Inch]]'', Miriam Shor plays [[Ambiguous Gender|Yitzak]], who is presenting a male gender identity throughout the movie (Yitzak's biological sex is left ambiguous in the finished version of the movie). Her distinctly feminine voice is the only giveaway underneath the fake facial hair and men's clothing, which emphasizes that Yitzak is a feminine person who is forced to act masculine.

* Traditionally, the role of adult Gary Coleman in ''[[Avenue Q]]'' is played by a woman with a deep voice.

 

 

* Abridged series again. (eg: Malachite of ''[[Sailor Moon Abridged]]'', played by the female Whip0fAlchemy)

* Several (otherwise unremarkable) attempts at [[The Abridged Series|abridging]] ''[[The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' on [[YouTube]] have had Kyon being voiced by an obvious female.

 

 

* Done in the ''[[Clone High]]'' episode "''A Shot in the D'Arc''" when Joan of Arc poses as a boy in order to play on the basketball team. The disguise is basically a baseball cap, a fake mustache, and a terrible baritone. Somehow, her mask never seems to slip.

* Dick Beals, who died May 29, 2012 at age 83, made a living voicing children in his career as his voice was buffeted by his 4' 7'' body frame. He was Speedy Alka-Seltzer, and was the voice of not only Buzzer Bell on [[The Funny Company]] but he was the voice of Shrinkin' Violette (a girl) on same show.

* In [[The Powerpuff Girls]] episode "Bubble Boy," the girls capture Rowdyruff Boy Boomer and plant Bubbles disguised as him among the others. That the other Rowdyruffs could not suspect anything given Bubbles' normally higher pitched voice and baby blue eyes [[Sarcasm Mode|speaks volumes of their intelligence]].

** Similarly, Bubbles is the head of a poorly-made male disguise in "I See A Funny Cartoon In Your Future," and again, the antagonist doesn't catch on to her disguised voice being abnormally high.

 

* Transgender men can deepen their voices through hormone replacement therapy, but because the medical establishment usually requires all HRT candidates to live openly as their actual gender for a specified period of time, this trope may come into play during that period.

 

 

* [[Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics|About 97.5%]] of books recorded on audio have a) just one narrator and b) several characters of both genders. Even most of the very old and um, traditional books will have at least a [[Most Writers Are Male|few]] female characters. The upshot is a narrator having to voice characters of the other sex a great deal of the time. Success varies wildly.

 

 

** The same goes for [[Guitar Hero]], where you can have [[Heavy Metal Umlaut|Lars Umlaut]] sing 'Stop staring at my D-cup'.

*** Even better, the vocalist generally acts on stage as if their sex was based on that of their singing voice. So not only will he sing like a girl but also sway his hips.

*** This wasn't a problem in the earlier games, where your character didn't do the actual singing - there were two separate vocalists, one of either gender.

** Of course, making your lead singer of ambiguous gender can account for songs sung by either gender. For example, [[Final Fight|Poison]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Voice Acting Tropes]]