Camping Out

You would think, as pervasive as television is, that it would have averaged out American accents until it sounded like a bland Midwestern talk.

Yet, it hasn't. Many African Americans are still more influenced from parents and friends than from Bernard Shaw or Bill Cosby. Southerners still have that drawl that belies where they grew up. A long time ago, I read about a Vietnamese girl (or was it Cambodian?) who escaped with her family, one of those boat people, that was ultimately relocated in Chattanooga, where she learned to be a spelling whiz.

Her story was told in the daily papers, serving as inspiration to the devoted readers, and eventually became a Disney special. At the end of the special, they showed the real girl. She had such a huge Southern drawl. It was difficult associating that accent with that face.

I knew someone at Maryland who grew up in Boston. At one point, she had a huge Boston accent. But of course, not living in Boston, she was made fun of, and had to spend a great deal of time learning a more acceptable accent.

Much of how we learn to speak comes from who we hang out with. Parents have a strong influence, as do friends, who correct us by making fun of us. Lacking the willpower to do otherwise, many of us concede.

But there's one accent that's always struck me as completely odd that I wonder what linguists think of it.

Gay men (and it seems to be just men, not women) in the US (I don't know that it happens elsewhere) have learned to speak in an affected manner, which is known, in the vernacular, as camping. Not every gay man speaks this way (that would be weird). But that even a significant minority do is rather compelling.

If you watch American Idol, you may have seen one Danny Noriega, already eliminated by the audience. He had a rather campy voice, and many speculated that he swung to the same gender (not that there's anything wrong with that). Why? Because of the way he spoke.

Straight folks, especially straight men, tend to view this accent in one of two ways. Either, they've come to expect it, and find it rather charming. Or, they find it decidedly creepy, wondering why people would speak in such a manner. Though campy accents are perceived as feminine, they aren't particularly feminine. The classic feminine voice was Marilyn Monroe, her breathy voice defining womanly sensuality for a decade (thank goodness it's gone).

The funny thing is that straight guys (or should I say, straight white guys) often have a campy voice for when they want to sound gay. I'd like to say this is a recent phenomenon, but I recall guys trying to act gay (that weren't) when I was in college, and that was 20 years ago. I have to figure the phenomenon has to be even ten years older than that.

Their impersonations have never quite sounded right, just like white guys trying to sound black have never quite sounded right, as if they just hear the basics, but don't really try to perfect it.

Personally, I like to do accents too, and find that any other accent takes a lot of work to master. My "Indian" accent is improved by listening to more Indians speak, and you realize, just as there is no one Southern accent, nor is there one British accent, there's also no one Indian accent. And, the accents vary between the genders, so that I find it almost easier to do an Indian female accent (badly, I'm sure) than a male one.

African American gay men also have their own version of a campy accent (I guess Chasing Amy, one of Kevin Smith's films, would serve as an example).

The point is: how did this come about? How did people who don't share familial bonds pick this accent up? And why is it mostly men? Butch dykes don't seem to have a their own lesbian-speak (of course, lesbians are shown on television far less often).

And how does it manifest itself in other countries. In countries like Thailand, where homosexuality is in the open, it may be more obvious. In countries that are more repressed, presumably, you don't hear a local variety of campy accents.

And the accent has changed. If you ever watch old Bugs Bunny, there would be this waiter, and he'd go "Yeeeesss" in this drawn out way. When I was young, I found that amusing, but nothing notable. However, it turns out that was the way that early films portrayed gays.

I'd be curious what linguistic sociology has to say about this phenomenon.