February 1, 2012, - 1:56 pm
New York Times Identifies Latest “Sexist Crime” Against Women
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
Leave it to the New York Times in pioneering the art of fabricated feminist grievance. Now, the Times has identified a new marketplace which isn’t “fair” to women: the world of voice-overs in movie trailers. I don’t know about you, but like most women, I trust a man’s voice more. And the marketplace–both men AND women–agrees with me. But the NYT sees some sort of sexist civil rights crime, where the rest of us see, “that’s life–deal with it.”
In the sanctuary of cinema the voice of a sonorous, authoritative, fear-inspiring yet sometimes relatable presence is, invariably, that of a man. Consider the trailer and the omniscient, disembodied voice that introduces moviegoers to a fictional world.
“Most movie trailers are loud and strong, and film studios want that male impact, vocally and thematically,” said Jeff Danis, an agent who represents voice-over artists. “Even if it’s a romantic comedy or nonaction movie, they still want that certain power and drama that men’s voices tend to convey on a grander scale.” . . . Women are seldom cast.
“There are some very talented, very gifted women in this business that can satisfy any request for a narrator, but the opportunities aren’t given to them,” said Mike Soliday, a talent agent who represents prominent male voice artists like Scott Rummell and Tony Rodgers.
As Mr. Danis put it, “Trailers are really the last frontier for women.”
Mr. Long [John Long of Buddha Jones Trailers] noted that his company had worked on dozens of campaigns a year, “and as much as everyone talks about wanting to be innovative and do unexpected things, the idea of a female voice doesn’t come up that often,” he said. “It’s really not part of the formula. Maybe that’s our own shortsightedness.” . . .
Do moviegoers want to hear female voices? Research indicates that our brains are wired to prefer theirs to male ones; that’s the reason robotic voices, like those in GPS devices, tend to be female. (This probably has an evolutionary explanation: fetuses in the womb, identifying with their caretaker, can distinguish their mother’s voice from others, a study published in the journal Psychological Science found.) When it comes to credibility, however, research into the perceived believability of a voice — an important quality for the omniscient narrator of a trailer, as well as the spokesman or -woman for any product, which is the function a trailer serves — tells a different story.
“On average both males and females trust male voices more,” said Clifford Nass, a professor of communications at Stanford, noting some gender disparity exists in that women don’t distrust female voices as much as men distrust them. In one study conducted at Stanford two versions of the same video of a woman were presented to subjects: one had the low frequencies of the woman’s voice increased and the high frequencies reduced, the other vice versa. Consistently subjects perceived the deep voice to be smarter, more authoritative and more trustworthy.
Science aside, the conventional wisdom in the movie industry has it that audiences respond more favorably to trailers with male voice-overs. “People don’t buy that product from women, and I don’t know why,” said Seth Gaven of AV Squad, which produced the trailers and television campaigns for “The King’s Speech” and “Captain America.” “Female voice-overs don’t have the same credibility.”
[Emphasis added.]
See, this is the thing with feminist whining. They want to fight human nature and deep, ancient psychological preferences and wiring. And they can’t.
Clearly, movies with men voicing the trailers do better and are more believable . . . to both sexes. Obviously, the liberals in Hollywood who send us a different message in their movies and TV shows, recognize that feminism is bunk, at least in this category.
It’s the marketplace, stupid. And in the movie trailer voice-over arena, the marketplace has decided for male voices.
Women are taking over every single sector in the workplace, to the detriment of men and our culture. If the “last frontier” is movie trailers, what the heck are they whining about?
Seems to me they are batting 1,000. And it’s the men who should be whining a little louder.
**** UPDATE: Don LaFontaine is one of the leading trailer voice-over artists. Reader Ari sent this video:
Tags: AV Squad, Buddah Jones Trailers, Clifford Nass, female voices, Feminism, feminists, Jeff Danis, John Long, male voices, Mike Soliday, Movie Reviews, movie trailers, New York Times, Scott Rummell, Seth Gaven, Tony Rodgers, voice-over, voice-over artists, voice-overs
More to follow.
Juan on February 1, 2012 at 2:01 pm