Revisionist History - From Inside Voice: Lake Bell and the Sexy Baby Voice Phenomenon

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Malcolm's friend, actress/writer/director/producer Lake Bell, is obsessed with voice. Malcolm is a little obsessed with Lake. This excerpt from Lake's new Pushkin audiobook Inside Voice: My Obsession with HowWe Sound, showcases Lake and Malcolm's conversation about the phenomenon of the sexy baby voice (think Paris Hilton or any Real Housewife). Inside Voice is a deep dive into what our voices mean and what they say about us. Go buy yourself a copy at insidevoiceaudiobook.com, Audible, Apple Books, Spotify, or anywhere audiobooks are sold. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, hello, revisionist history listeners. Hello, hello, revisionist history listeners. Revisionist history listeners. Hello, hello, revisionist history listeners. That didn't sound quite right, did it? It's got to be more like this. Hello, hello, revisionist history listeners. I'm quite grateful that our loyal fans like the sound of my voice,

but why is that? My dear friend, the actress, director, writer, producer, Lake Bell, is obsessed with people's voices. And frankly, I'm a little obsessed with Lake. So it made sense for Lake to join Pushkin's ranks with her new audiobook, Inside Voice. The book is a deep dive into what our voices mean and what they say about us. Lake explores the psychology and social science of voice. She talks with icons like Drew Barrymore, Jeff Goldblum, and Pam Greer. And when she started questioning herself, she talked to me. She was struggling with how to write about the phenomenon of the sexy baby voice. How could she enjoy and respect Paris Hilton, their Kardashians, and various flavors of real housewives, all sexy

babies, but definitively, absolutely not want her own daughter to grow up to be one. It made her feel like a judgmental jerk. So I was the shrink and Lake got on the couch and we had fun working through that one. I may even have tried to put on a little sexy baby voice myself. Enjoy this sample chapter and then go buy yourself a copy at insidevoiceaudiobook.com, Audible, Spotify, or anywhere audiobooks are sold. I'll be back before year's end with some bonus episodes of Revisionist History. When you guys think of like a strong woman's voice, what does that sound like? Someone just like fluent and confident. Anyone come to mind? Michelle Obama. I think just Ariana Grande because she's been very

advocated for the God is a woman thing so I'm just like Ariana Grande. Queen Latifah. I would have to say Michelle Obama. Kirstie Alley I think has a very deep powerful voice. My mom. Yeah my mom for sure. Yeah my mom. Oprah comes to mind. The same here. I would go I agree with that one. Oprah. Definitely Oprah. Okay. Lena Horne. Yeah. Speaking voice too. Yeah. Lena Horne. She's my wife. My wife is stronger, and I really love her, and I'm proud of her, too. What about an alluring, sexy female voice? Jennifer Aniston. Angelina Jolie. Kerry Washington.

Oh. That was good. Angelina Jolie. It could be Siri, I think. Siri? Yeah, no, maybe. Oh, sexy voice. I don't know, I just think of Catwoman.

When I think of a sexy woman, I'm like Catwoman. Kim Kardashian. So, your turn. When you think of a strong woman, what does she sound like? Does she sound like this? We want people who are redefining what it means to be strong, to be powerful, to be inspirational, to be aspirational, to be astoundingly age-defying. Or does she sound like this? Kylie called Khloe and said, hey, I want to take over your party.

Just send me the list. Three seconds later, Khloe texts me. Did you tell Kylie about the parties? And I go, no, what are you talking about? What party? Make no mistake. Both of these women are powerful. Another test.

When you think of a sexy woman, what does she sound like? Does she sound like this? Isn't this a coincidence? No, you? You're the one that doesn't like to talk about the heat. Too bad. I tell you about my chimes. Or does she sound like this?

I like Barnett's sexy voice and laugh a lot. I kind of like that he gave off a vibe that he was a player. One of the more questionable, nay, controversial trends to come out of Gen Z is the sexy baby voice. What is that you say? Let me remind you. My evening's going amazing because I have a rose. I like was gone for a whole week and still all we can talk about is Crystal. All we can think about is Crystal. I like don't want to make this night about her. To honor and kick off this discussion, here is a never-before-seen-and-heard scene from My Future in a World, a film that I wrote, directed, and starred in entirely about the voiceover industry because, as we've already established, I'm clearly obsessed. This deleted scene depicts my character, Carol, trying to coach a sexy baby into finding her true sound. Roll it. So when he told you he was writing a book, were you just like, holy shit, that's amazeballs?

Can I do a vocal experiment on you? Why? Why not? Because that's a weird question to ask. I don't even know you. I'm Carol. You were just interviewing me. Still weird. I'm a vocal coach. I'm a writer.

Be good for the story. Fine. Fine? Okay, good. Um, so you're just gonna count to ten. But when you get to the odd numbers, you're gonna use the lowest point in your register. And when you get to the even numbers, you're going to use the lowest point in your register, and when you get to the even numbers, you're going to use the highest point in your register, and then right after, you're just going to speak without thinking. So you're going to go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Here is my voice.

Oh, my God. Right. That's so weird. It sounds lower. And it sounds... Amazeballs. Let's make something crystal clear before we delve into the sexy baby zone, which is also a no-judgment zone.

This is a safe place to regard and appreciate a unique cultural phenomenon. In fact, I have long been inspired and in awe of this vocal trend and seek to focus on it through a cultural lens. What factors brought it into the American English language in the first place? And how did it evolve over time for any one person? In my formative years, it was Paris Hilton. I thought she was extraordinary, hilarious, awesome, larger than life. And there was something really special there.

Sure, much of the allure was the outfits and the status, but there was something unique about Paris that nobody else could quite emulate. Nobody could get to that level of her stardom. Why? The voice. She captured the world with a voice that broadcasted both little girl submission and overt sexuality concurrently. Unfathomable feat. Or was it? I just have like a drive inside of me. Like, I love creating. I love doing what I do. I love making people happy and I love making money. Paris, thanks so much for being here. I appreciate it. I know that heat wave's been crazy. It was like 97 degrees the other day. That's hot. Did you see that Ross and Rachel might be dating in

real life? That's hot. How would you pronounce Kevin Hart's last name in a British accent? That's hot. It is hot. And yet, I want to admit that I struggle. Okay? There's a struggle here. If my personal cultural North Star is creating space for a female vocal sound to imbue trustworthiness, all-knowing, electable authority, then how does the rampant trend of the sexy baby voice

impact that effort? I mean, I can admit that I enjoy the wildly moorish entertainment provided by the Audis, Paris Hilton, the storm that is the Kardashians, and every real housewives of whatever the fuck. They're all flooded with sexy babies. But here's the kicker. Do I want my daughter to grow up and speak like that?

The answer is hell no. And see, now I feel bad. Now I feel like some judgmental jerk. I'm genuinely in an existential crisis on this issue, so I opted to phone a friend. But not just any friend. I needed a deep thinker who also happened to be a best-selling author, a public speaker type that the whole world has stamped an authority on unpacking big and controversial ideas. So I turned to the iconic public speaker, best-selling author of multiple

zeitgeist-making books like The Tipping Point and Outliers, among others, and of course, founder of Pushkin Industries, that's right, Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm has been hearing about my deep-seated, sexy baby struggle for years at this point. And frankly, he's the only person who can flip the script and interrogate me on this very issue that I myself have brought to the proverbial table. Wait, wait. Okay, hold on. Let's be much more specific and break it down. First of all, we have these elements that you've identified. Are they all equally important or are they... They all play.

You can't rank them. You can't say sexy baby is 60% this, 20% this. No, it's a cocktail. It's a cocktail. Okay. Number one, the vocal fry. I would say number one, pitch. Pitch. Okay. I would go straight to pitch because first you've got to, this is very hard for me to do is to kind of dial in to, because I enjoy kind of putting all the cocktail together. Cause it's like, once you have a martini, it's like once you have a martini it's like you always want the mix so if i can just get the pitch it's so we're here and i'm already starting to fry a little bit but i'm trying not to so that i can just take pitch this is pitch so this is like if i were to be talking to you in an intellectual way, but I'm just pitched up.

Okay. Yes. Now, then you layer on that. Now, by the way, do you ever, we're not talking about sexy baby, we're talking about Lake Bell. Hi. Do you ever operate in that pitch? Never.

Never. Okay. Yeah. Even in a sexual encounter, if I may, I do not find myself pitching up to that level. Yeah. Or, because that's the only time I could think. Sorry, very revealing. When you spoke to your children when they were babies, did you go up that high?

No. Oh, you didn't? No. I would never go this high for anything. First of all, it's, you know, it's athletic. That's one of the things about Sexy Baby is that it's like hard to do. Like you have to work hard at it. It is an athletic feat.

Layer in the next thing. The next thing would be fry. And I'm guilty of a little fry here and there. I think we all are. We have a sprinkle of fry. You know, it's like a cultural trend. It's like skinny jeans. You know, it's in.

And then we all kind of adopt it and we don't even notice. So notice, no, you know, I got a little there. So when you have this and then you start adding in the fry. So teach me how to do fry. Assume I've never heard of it. Again, I'm not a professional, but i will say the fry is a croak uh it's in the back of your throat um so you're gonna roll it kind of like you're a frog so uh closer uh so so give me like a like why like why? Like why? Close. Am I getting there? The thing is you have some, you have some, take some water.

You have some, you're swallowing it. So you're going, you're getting stuck in a tightness in your throat versus like. Forward. Opening it up. Just. Yeah. So. Getting in that. throat versus like forward opening it up just yeah so getting in there i don't know how to form a word with that though um like why why why why wait do that do like why oh yeah you see so like why no you don't the fry in the up talk is there a place in the sentence where those two things operate?

So we're always in the upper register. So pitch is a constant. But we're not frying everything. Fry is like seasoning. You can't fry all the way through or else you would just have a croak sound. So fry is really kind of like, there's a dance there. So for instance, in my normal speech, I would say, for instance, and that's a plateau. We're just like on a road going forward. For instance,

is obviously a classic uptalk with a little sprinkle of Fry and pitch up. What work is Fry doing? Is it comic? Is it for emphasis? I think it comes from a place of like sex. This is part of the like sexy flavor of Spice. Because I think when I've interviewed people, hey, what's the most alluring, sexy voice in a woman? It tends to be croakier voices. It tends to be smokier voices. And whether they're high voices or low voices, they all seem to have that element in them. And it's paradoxical because it's a smoky kind of guttural thing that's taking place at a very high register. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think of like men who fry because there's a ton of men who fry as well.

You know who fries? Who fries? Henry Kissinger. He fries. Yeah, but it's a kind of German fry. A German fry? No, it's a kind of like, but it is. The French are upset. I will stake anything on the proposition that before the end of this year, Gorbachev will be in Washington.

And I'll stake only a little less on the proposition that before the end of next year, President Reagan will be in Moscow. But wait, you did something else in Sexy Baby that you haven't talked about, which is you were also running some words together. So that is quality. So, yeah, that's a little, I will say that kind of creeps into performance a little bit to help me get in there, you know, just as an actor and as a performer. For instance, with accents, I have either a hand gesture or, you know, a catchphrase to get you into an accent. Like Irish is put that back on the bucket, put that back on the bucket.

I don't know if I'll ever need to put anything in a bucket but in an Irish accent probably you know what I mean um so like that's like my in there in my experience with hearing sexy baby in the wild yes sentences without spaces imagine typing a sentence yeah there's no punctuation there's no punctuation whatsoever it's no punctuation whatsoever. It's that that irritates me. Yeah, and, like, what really, like, bothers me about climate change or whatever is that, like, we're not working together. And, like, if we could just, like, work together, like, we'd make so much more of our power together.

And, like, that for me is just like so important if i was like an oil company and i wanted to really get people to be skeptical of climate change i would just run an ad of what you just said. Here's the deal. Driving a car with like gas or whatever is like just like American. So there's that running together and then there's also a little bit of slurring that you're adding. There's no you're right there's like a little bit of slurring. I think that I just want to say something that's really important which is like it doesn't mean you're not smart. The accent and the dialect, why I have a bone to pick with it is because like, I am a feminist.

And like, I don't want to think of women as little sexy babies that can't think for themselves. And so it's really hard for me. I really think of it as a trend that's gotten out of control. You know, it was kind of cute for a beat. It was in a movie or two, you know, and there was a kind of a texture of sound that was born from the California surfer girl community valley-esque environment. But I do think that that compounded with the history. Like before that, where did it come from? It's like, okay, there's Betty Boop. And I think that Betty Boop is a good place to start just as a reference because it's very distinct.

She is sexualized. She's not homely. The idea is that she's alluring. But there's no fry in Betty Boop. Boop, boop, boop. No, there's not. There's not. Betty Boop is kind of the original sexy baby, though.

Yes. Just as a concept. That's where the archetype comes from. Yeah. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. But there's been a great deal of linguistic innovation between then. How does Marilyn Monroe fit into this evolution?

It's breathiness, is it? Yeah, but she also is broadcasting a bedroom voice. So why? I just don't know. And a little baby voice, but, you know, oh, well, listen, piggy. You know, that's very high pitched. So you've got the grounds there for that starting place, which is we didn't really get the breathiness in the sexy baby voice. But we got that pitch, you know, and that alluring, sexy nature of bedroom talk that's like outward and being exposed to everyone. I mean, that was her whole thing. So that's why I have the word sexy in it. It's super interesting because if we think of

Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian as people who are taking the intimacy of the sex tape and kind of taking it public, Marilyn Monroe's famous happy birthday sung to JFK when she was presumably in the middle of having an affair with is the same thing, right? I mean, she's essentially saying I'm having an affair with this guy, right? That's the whole point of the happy birthday thing is this is the way we are when we're in bed together and I'm doing it in front of the entire country. It's like such an incredible like it's like this. Fuck you. First of all, to Jackie. I know. I mean, it entire country. It's like such an incredible, like, it's like this fuck you, first of all, to Jackie. I know. I mean, it's just, but it's like.

It is an extraordinary cultural moment. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. So Paris Hilton comes along in the aughts, right? Talking like this, and it becomes a kind of sensation, and it proves quite culturally contagious. And I'm wondering, why? Why would the sexy baby voice come back at that moment?

It boils down to sex tapes, kind of. Like, the women that we're talking about, if we're going to bring up Paris and Kim, they both had that, right? They had a sex tape that was leaked. And by the way like there's something there where it's like taking the bedroom voice and broadcasting it and allowing for that intimacy to be a part of the brand. Rhinestones. There's no such thing as too many rhinestones because it's hot to bling as much as possible. You have complicated feelings about Sexy Baby, which I want to kind of dig into a little bit. You've alluded to them here and there, but you have a Sexy Baby problem. I have unwelcome judgment in my views on it, because even in penning in a world, it was part of the, you know, sort of joke of it was, what is this trend, this plague that is infecting our women? And it felt like regression. It felt not like progress,

just on a feminist bent. It is a sound that hearkens our ears back to a time when you are a child, when you have to ask for things, you don't have agency. And so why is that sound, a submissive little girl sound, somehow sexy all of a sudden? Like, I had a bone to pick with that. You started to see women who were in their 40s, have great jobs, they're lawyers, they're CEO or whatever. And they started to have this sound. And that's where I got confused and upset because I thought, okay, so you're saying, especially as a mother, society is allowing for or supporting this idea that women can sound like little girls and be leaders. And that for me was difficult because I don't want my daughter to think that that's how you're supposed to sound. I don't want my son to

think that women should sound that way. And I feel bad for feeling uncomfortable because I think that women should sound however the damn, however. This is what I don't understand. I don't understand why you feel bad about being uncomfortable. Because I'm a woman. We feel badly for judging other women. But hold on. The argument that you're making in your book is that a lot of the way we sound is a choice. So women, a certain group of women, have chosen, either consciously or unconsciously, to sound this way. They don't have to sound this way, right? They have options. Our voice is our own. We control the way we sound. And you're simply saying that's a bad choice or a problematic choice. You are saying that I should feel comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.

Yes. Well, I'm wondering why you're so conflicted about the fact that you find this voice to be an issue. Okay. So because for instance, I have a pal, let's call her RS, and she has a very high pitched voice, naturally off the truck. Okay. So she's not putting it on. She just has that voice. I love her. She's so sweet. She's got a little fry and a little up talk, but she's a mom of three.

She works hard, and I just know her. And so it's people like that where I go, I know she's not putting it on. I also understand that she's probably not a vocally obsessed person and isn't thinking about it so much. And so when you say it's a choice, I concur that it is a choice once you listen to it and once you're aware of it and you're in the room with it. But I think that it's important in my research on this to allow for there to be space for that's just how they speak. But when it's something that's like plaguing someone and they're kind of using it as a tool, especially when it comes to a woman of a certain age who's imbuing this sound that's of a young woman. I think in our voices, let's own it. Let's own it that it's sexy to sound your age or it's sexy to sound like a mature woman. I know that's not their natural sound, especially after giving birth twice. Your voice changes after birth. You know, it should. It's an experience.

But also chemically, hormonally, your voice changes. And that's a privilege. Aging is a privilege. So own it. That was an excerpt from Lake Bell's Inner Voice, which is a delight. Go get your copy today at InsideVoiceAudiobook.com, Audible, Spotify, and everywhere audiobooks are sold.