The Female Voice - Essay Example

The Female Voice There are many theories regarding the female voice in a variety of arenas in which itis illustrated that the woman’s voice, while often constrained and marginalized, has a great deal more power to it than has been generally admitted. Partly as a result of the way in which women expressed themselves in ancient times and partly as a result of men’s reactions to that expression, women have lived in a paradoxical space that is at once external from society and often severely constrained within society. Our understanding of the female voice has been shaped by this history and continues to be shaped through our customs, traditions, stories and communications. This is reflected in the new stories that we make up in our films and on television. However, this does not mean that these concepts can’t change. As the ideas surrounding the female voice have been explored by Hollywood during the course of its history, the female voice, and ideas about it, is seen to be undergoing a subtle shift, gradually acknowledging that the woman’s voice has greater strength than she has been given credit for or been permitted to use. To gain a greater understanding of the female voice, a brief history of the voice will be explored as foundation for discussion of current views which will be applied to specific films emerging from Hollywood either created or depicting different time periods. From very early history, women have been defined as a sort of sub-human who existed only on the margins of civilization yet strongly contained within this civilization. In discussing the role of women in ancient Greece, Anne Carson () illustrates how Alkaios uses the women’s voices around him to illustrate his isolation and exile. Alkaios writes that he is among the wolves, which are animals associated with the outlaw because they exist on the fringes of the community, living in the wild off of the leavings or extraneous elements of civilization. “Women, in the ancient view, share this territory spiritually and metaphorically in virtue of a ‘natural’ female affinity for all that is raw, formless and in need of the civilizing hand of man. So, for example, in the document cited by Aristotle that goes by the name of The Pythagorean Table of Opposites, we find the attributes curving, dark, secret, evil, ever-moving, not self-contained and lacking its own boundaries aligned with Female and set over against straight, light, honest, good, stable, self-contained and firmly bounded on the Male side” (Carson: 124). Part of the origins of this division occurred as the result of ancient religious practices that had women as the orators of emotion in ritualistic settings. Through the female sound of the ololyga, women expressed the moments of extreme joy, grief, fear and hope within the regular and climactic moments of life. The ololyga is described as “a high-pitched piercing cry uttered at certain climactic moments in ritual practice … or at climactic moments in real life … and also a common feature of women’s festivals” (Carson: 125). However, because of the noise raised in such practices, women observing the sort of religious rituals that required this sound-making were generally required to do so on the periphery of the polis, outside of the hearing of men and thus giving credence to the concept of women as a savage creature that existed on the fringes. Because they were generally practicing religious observance, these women were also associated with the supernatural. The true context of the importance of this division cannot be understood today when society has made so much progress toward women’s equality. Therefore, an idea of how this women’s world differed from the concepts of ‘proper’ male society, even in ancient days, is necessary. Carson indicates how the proper role of man was to dissociate himself from his emotions enough to control the escape of their associated sounds. As has been illustrated, it was women’s ‘job’ to express the emotions of the entire people, thereby providing a context in which the men were supposedly able to find some relief from their feelings. However, this developed into the idea that women were incapable of controlling their emotions at the same time that the ideal person was defined as someone who expressed no emotion. Boys were taught to uphold this tradition while women had no choice but to continue to function as the emotional release for the society. Because women couldn’t control their emotion and men were capable of accomplishing this feat, it was man’s responsibility to control her sounds for her. By restricting women’s voices to the expression of raw emotion and pure sound that was constrained to the border spaces between worlds, women were easily associated with the beasts of the field, which were also capable of making sound in response to raw emotion but did not necessarily possess the cognitive abilities to express complex thought (Carson: 125). Only man, meaning the male gender of the human species, was capable of communicating complex thought in clearly articulated speech. This pattern of male control over female speech continued on through the generations to greater and lesser degrees even into the modern age, preserved through stories, legends and cultural teachings. As modern technology advanced, these ideas have been translated into the films of Hollywood, helping to continue or redefine the ideas of the female voice into the 21st century. Many of the concepts of women as presented by Carson are present within films as they have been in stories and myths throughout time complete with the attendant change that has occurred in the past century. The element of presentation, through theatre and film, emphasized many concepts of the voice as compared to the vision as is discussed by Choin. These ideas include the concept of acousmetre and the idea that the story builds in climax up to the sound of the woman’s voice, thus tacitly recognizing its unique power as compared to the voice of the man. The term ‘acousmatic’ is used to denote sounds that are heard without the source of the sound being visible. This idea was introduced in theatre with the concept of the off-stage voice, but took on greater significance with the off-film voice. Theater-acousmetre, the off-stage voice, is different from filmic acousmetre in that the off-stage voice “is clearly heard coming from another space than the stage – it’s literally located elsewhere” whereas the filmic voice “comes from the same actual place as the other sounds – a central loudspeaker” (Choin: 22). As a result, the offscreen voice “becomes invested with magical powers as soon as it is involved, however slightly in the image” (Choin: 22). The disembodied voice is automatically everywhere in the film and therefore sees everything, knows everything and has complete power over the events as they occur. As long as the source of the sound remains hidden, the voice retains this powerful, somewhat frightening quality that retains an ability to control what is happening on the screen, thus affecting the outcome of the story. This voice is most effective in instilling a sense of dread in the audience and is thus used often in the genres of horror, suspense and film noir, but it is also used to good effect in other forms of films such as gangster and fantasy films. This acousmetre is slightly different from the role of the narrator in the relationship it has with the action on the screen. He is involved in the story, a part of it and has power within it. “He must, even if only slightly, have one foot in the image, in the space of the film; he must haunt the borderlands that are neither the interior of the filmic stage nor the proscenium – a place that has no name, but which the cinema forever brings into play” (Choin: 24). Like the female voice of antiquity, the acousmetre is neither outside nor inside but somewhere in the borderlands. It is thought that the power of this voice is, at least in part, a result of the female voice as well. As Choin points out, our earliest memories are associated with the voice of the Mother, a voice we have heard since the womb, intimately experiencing the results of the emotions conveyed within that voice and thus intuitively aware of the ultimate power it has over us. As we mature and become more and more aware of the fact that the voice of the Mother is not actually ourselves and can be separated from the self, it loses some of its power over us. “In how many fantasy, thriller and gangster films do we see the acousmetre become an ordinary person when his voice is assigned a visible and circumscribed body? He then usually becomes, if not harmless, at least human and vulnerable” (Choin: 28). Also similar to the unique qualities of the female voice identified by Carson, Choin points out that the acousmetre can take the form of someone who is mistaken for someone else, someone who does not indicate where they are speaking from (as in the telephone conversation), the voice of a dead person, a prerecorded voice or the voice of a machine-being. This range of possibilities thus associates the disembodied voice with the spiritual. “Particularly in the cinema, the voice enjoys a certain proximity to the soul, the shadow, the double – these immaterial, detachable representations of the body, which survive its death and sometimes even leave it during its life … When it is not the voice of the dead, the narrative voiceover is often that of the almost-dead, of the person who has completed his or her life and is only waiting to die” (Choin: 47). This effect is brought to bear to greater effect when it is presented as an ‘I-voice’, a voice that becomes disembodied from the body to float in time and space, separate but connected, speaking in the first person singular and placed in closer proximity to the audience’s ear through close miking and lack of reverberation. “To solicit the spectator’s identification, that is, for the spectator to appropriate it to any degree, it must be framed and recorded in a certain manner. Only then can it function as a pivot of identification, resonating in us as if it were our own voice, like a voice in the first person” (Choin: 51). The presence of this voice as the voice in our own heads can be comforting, as in the connection we once shared with our mother through the close connection of mother and child, or terrifying, as the voice of the killer becomes our own and the spaces we thought were safe are exposed as the most dangerous. While many of Choin’s ideas are typically applied to the horror film, it can be seen that there are many places in which Choin’s ideas about the voice in film are connected to Carson’s ideas about the female voice in antiquity. There is yet another parallel between Carson’s ideas and those of Choin and that is the importance of the female voice in signifying the emotional climax of human interactions. Seen in context of the history of the woman’s voice, particularly the position of the scream in ancient society, Choin’s observations regarding how the entire film, regardless of genre, converges upon the moment in time where the woman screams or provides the emotional outlet for the tension developed. Everything revolves around this point in the film, building up to it and falling away from it. “I use the expression screaming point to emphasize that it’s not so much the sound quality of the scream that’s important, but its placement. And this place could be occupied by nothing, a blank, an absence. The screaming point is a point of the unthinkable inside the thought, of the indeterminate inside the spoken, of unrepresentability inside representation. It occupies a point in time, but has no duration within. It suspends the time of its possible duration; it’s a rip in the fabric of time” (77). In a patriarchal society in which most, if not all tales, are told in the context of the male experience – that is excitement, orgasm and release – the woman’s scream represents the orgasmic moment which remains a mystery as it remains outside of the normal discourse. In addition, the woman’s scream is limitless and unbounded, as it has been from antiquity, but the man’s voice is territorial, making a claim and asserting power. The man’s shout is something we are able to define, understand and avoid if we wish but the woman’s scream is unlimited and infinite, the outer limits of meaning and existence and the emotional release for the community. To understand how the female voice is constrained, controlled and acknowledged to be all-powerful at the same time, it is helpful to apply these ideas to films. While horror films are often used as examples for this sort of discussion, it is perhaps more elucidating to examine films that exist outside this genre to see how much they apply in other settings. In addition, the female voice has been changing, particularly in the past half century, as women have begun to understand and reclaim power over their own voices. Toward this end, the female voice will be examined in three seemingly completely unrelated films – The Piano, Singing in the Rain and The Diary of Bridget Jones – in terms of acousmetre, the controlled female voice, the power within the female voice and the female voice as climax. The Piano is a film set in the 1850s and thus attempts to capture conceptions of women held during this time period. However, it is made in the 1990s and also reflects concepts of women as they are held in a more modern period. A mute woman and her young daughter are sent to New Zealand to marry a man who has arranged everything through her father. The woman ‘speaks’ through the voice of her piano, but her voice is heard, in a soft Irish brogue, occasionally as a means of illustrating moments of intense emotion. “The mute character, whether mute for physical reasons or mute as a matter of choice or psychological reasons, is almost always a signifier that there is a secret to be known and instigates a general questioning of knowledge” (Choin: 55). In meeting her husband, Stewart, the mute character, Ada, immediately argues with him regarding whether her piano will go home or stay on the beach, communicating through hand signs, using her daughter as translator or writing her words on a piece of paper that is never shown. His refusal to retrieve the piano indicates his unwillingness to hear her. George Baines, the groundskeeper, who originally said he couldn’t take her, eventually provides her with access to the piano because of what he heard the first time she played for him. It is through Baines’ willingness to continue listening to her cues that he was finally able to win her heart. At the same time, Stewart, her husband, continued to avoid listening to her. By the time the piano is returned to the house, she refuses to speak with him through it, but his pounding on the piano when Flora, Ada’s daughter, plays, shows he is still unable to appreciate the sound. It is only after Stewart cuts off Ada’s finger that he finally able to ‘hear’ her, knowing the only way he can save her now is to give her away. Ada’s literal muteness illustrates the Victorian ideal conception of woman in that she is considered voiceless and therefore powerless. However, the piano becomes Ada’s voice in a greater way than any words could express because it is how she is empowered to express her tremendous passion. Thus, the piano emerges as a symbol for the essential element of Ada’s emotions and refers to the sexual element of women’s voices. According to Carson, women were seen to have two mouths, the literal mouth on the face and the vagina. Control over her sexuality was thus also seen as an important element of men’s control over women’s voices. It is with this voice that Baines fell in love with her and his appreciation for it that made her fall in love with him. The comments by the other women that Ada’s music brings forth a “mood that passes into you … to have the sound creep inside you is not at all pleasant,” indicates how inappropriate they consider it for Ada to express so much emotion and inner feeling even in just playing her music. While Stewart considered himself to be in control of Ada’s voice because he had control of her body, The Piano illustrates how he had control of neither. It was through the voice of the piano that Baines and Ada were able to carry on their love affair and it was through its silence that she expressed her dislike for her husband. The only time the piano ever spoke for her husband was when Ada was overcome with grief that Baines would be leaving. She even pulled one of the primary keys out of it to send to Baines, cutting off its voice as well, indicating that he held her heart when he held the key and making the connection between the piano and her heart unmistakable. When the piano was thrown overboard, Ada learned that her heart and voice had two homes, one in the piano and one in Baines and Flora, giving her the strength to continue living. The climax of the film comes as the piano, which has always acted as Ada’s voice, is thrown overboard off the Maori canoe and Ada begins sinking with it. Her voice becomes disembodied, allowing us to hear her words again, taking on emotional expression and becoming an entity of itself. Ada discovers the strength of the voice in herself rather than in the piano and is able to finally separate from it. This is then immediately followed up by her physical body, dry and well dressed in another place, physically practicing making the sounds necessary for verbal speech, fully acknowledging her power and reveling in her happiness. The concept of the voice as a powerful tool is also illustrated in musicals such as Singing in the Rain, produced in 1952. Unlike The Piano, this film attempts to present women as they were at approximately this time in history. Rather than focusing on the acousmetre as the perhaps otherworldly, spiritual voice of heaven talking about her life as a Victorian mail-order bride, this film plays with the idea in its exploration of the transition from the silent film to the ‘talkies’. Literally, women were gaining their voices, along with men, on the big screen, but this was not necessarily a good thing. Lina Lamont, the silent film star, has a voice that reflects her personality, raspy, coarse and unrefined. This voice will ruin her career in film. Kathy Seldon’s voice also reflects her personality, cute, lively and good-natured, but she isn’t well-known by movie-going audiences. Both are interested in Don Lockwood, the leading male silent to talk film star, but only Kathy has his interests in mind, preferring to offer her voice to save his film rather than allow him to fail and serves as the voice of Lina. Lina is physically imposing, headstrong, powerful, famous, independently wealthy and influential, demanding that her voice be heard. However, her voice remains controlled by the men of the studio and Don throughout most of the film. This is because of their knowledge that her voice will immediately alienate her public. This is compared to Kathy Seldon, who first appears in the picture as a completely respectable ‘regular’ girl, in white kid gloves and proper hat. She is intelligent and, as the film proceeds, demonstrated to be vocally talented and sacrificing when the opportunity arises for her to save a friend, “the important thing is to save ‘The Duelling Cavalier’.” She controls her own voice throughout much of the film, but offers it up as a means of saving the film. Lina demands that her voice be heard regardless of the cost to the film. In the end, Lina’s insistence on being heard forces her to reveal her speaking voice on stage before a viewing audience and then is exposed as a fraud by the same men that once protected her as Kathy sings for her from behind the curtain. Kathy, though furious at losing control over her own voice as she’s ordered to sing for Lina one more time, is also exposed by the men who control her. Kathy, ordered to sing for Lina by Don, tells him, “I’ll do it Don, but I never want to see you again, on or off the screen” and then proceeds to sing beautifully for the false star. Although she is mortally hurt and furious with Don when he orders her to sing at the grand opening of “The Dancing Cavalier”, she is rewarded for her obedience even as Lina is disgraced for her headstrong insistence. Again, the climax of the film occurs as the women’s voices are finally heard by the audience, and attributed to the correct body. Thus, a strong contrast emerges between concepts of control over the female voice in the 1950s as opposed to concepts of control over the female voice as it was understood in the 1990s and projected back into Victorian New Zealand. While Ada was demonstrated to have no control over her own voice, being sent to marry a man she didn’t know and forced to relinquish her beloved piano that had previously done all her speaking for her, the film makes it clear that Ada has always been in complete control over her voice, choosing not to speak rather than have someone else tell her what to say and allowing her piano to express her emotions. Lina insists on her voice being heard and it remains controlled by the men of the studio through a great deal of her life prior to the film’s timeframe, but becomes increasingly loud as the film progresses, to her ruin. By contrast, Kathy, in the same film, is in control of her own voice until the climax, when the voices are revealed in their proper contexts and she is now under the proper control of the men. Only now does she achieve any kind of meaningful success or happiness. Yet, once again, the story continues to revolve around the concept of the female voice rather than the male. While The Piano and Singing in the Rain illustrate the importance of male perception of control over women’s voices as compared to true control over women’s voices, newer films, set in more modern contexts tend to reflect a greater acceptance of the female voice as female voice with less emphasis on control and containment. For example, one of the chief concerns of men is the concept of sophrosyne. “Verbal continence is an essential feature of the masculine virtue of sophrosyne (prudence, soundness of mind, moderation, temperance, self-control) that organizes most patriarchal thinking on ethical or emotional matters. Woman as a species is frequently said to lack the ordering principle of sophrosyne” (Carson: 126). However, when this term is used in context with the female, it is generally considered to mean ‘shut up’ or quietly defer to the direction of her male guardians. “In general the women of classical literature are a species given to disorderly and uncontrolled outflow of sound – to shrieking, wailing, sobbing, shrill lament, loud laughter, screams of pain or of pleasure and eruptions of raw emotion in general” (Carson: 126). These ideas are put to the test in films such as Bridget Jones’ Diary. In this story, Bridget Jones is on a quest to feel fulfilled in life which can only be accomplished through one means. Despite a career, a decent apartment and some good friends, her life is not seen as complete because she does not have a male counterpart to help keep her in proper control. Her lack of a love interest is the primary concern of her mother and the dominant thought in her mind. She spends the entire movie trying to work out her life in an acceptable fashion, working to try to choose between two men that continue to enter her social sphere. All of this is portrayed through her disembodied voice as it comments upon various occurrences in her life and records them in her diary. Her voice continues to sound in an almost stream of consciousness babble that fluctuates between her physical body present and active, interacting with other characters, or her bodiless form reflecting upon what just happened and outlining dreams for the future based on present circumstances. This interaction between acousmetre and physical presence has the effect of bringing the audience completely into Bridget’s world, identifying with her on a level not anticipated. However, it is only when she is under the right male influence that she is able to achieve any kind of the stability and direction necessary to move forward in her life. Her greatest challenge, then, is to determine which man is the right one to help her move forward. All of her other accomplishments to that point have amounted to virtually nothing as a result of her flighty, feminine ways. Although one of the men in the story turns out to be just as flighty and directionless, this fact doesn’t emerge until near the end of the story, allowing both men throughout much of the movie to appear as though they are the quintessential man, strong and sturdy in their differing beliefs and goals and equally capable of providing Bridget with her needed stabilizing influence. While all of this plays back into the same old conceptions of the female voice that have been recognized throughout history, there is a subtle shift in this presentation in that there are several elements in which it is demonstrated that the female voice is as required by the male to be a stabilizing or balancing influence as the male is to the female. In Bridget Jones’ Diary, neither of the two men involved with Bridget were able to confront their own internal issues without the catalyst of Bridget herself, they needed the emotional outlet of the female voice that their male ideals had denied them. Daniel Cleaver understood that he was a womanizing cad, but was never able to determine why he behaved the way he did until he was forced to examine his continuing attraction toward Bridget, who didn’t fit his concept of the ideal woman at all. Mark Darcy, on the other hand, is unable to loosen up his aristocratic bearing long enough to enjoy life without Bridget around to lighten the air a little. For each man, it was through his relationship with Bridget, and the expression provided through the female voice, that they each learned about their insecurities, strengths and weaknesses and therefore matured as characters. Likewise, it was through her that they were each able to become stronger, healthier men who were more confident in their abilities to make decisions. This perspective demonstrates the emerging concept of feminist as a feminine and individual human being. No longer is she defined as a single concept of middle class white person struggling against the oppressive powers of the patriarchal system and the capitalist order as a means of finding her voice. Instead, she is seen as a valiant survivor, capable of combining masculine and feminine traits without worrying about which were more valuable or desirable than others, not apologizing for her means of expression but instead allowing it to work for her. Rather than allowing herself to be defined by others, Bridget is clearly and undeniably and not always completely assuredly herself. The concept that women’s voices still exist on a plane somewhat below the level of men is reflected in the climax of the film in which Bridget, desperate to keep her man, chases after him in the snow denying the importance of her own voice. The scene occurs as Mark sees Bridget’s diary in which she has written that she hates him and he is next seen from Bridget’s window down on the street and walking briskly away. Bridget races after him wearing the unlikely combination of coat, sneakers shirt and underwear (no pants), yelling that her diary is just silly thoughts that don’t mean anything. Although Mark gives her permission to keep her ‘silly thoughts’ by demonstrating that he was just out to purchase a new diary for her, there is still the tacit suggestion that the female needs the permission of the male before she can express herself. The new feminism of the contemporary age attempts to remove the constraints upon the female voice that have existed for centuries. Although the female voice is seen as strong in that it cannot be fully controlled by the man and is even necessary for the man’s health, it is also seen as something that must be contained by men if society is to work properly. The mere suggestion that the men might need the balance of the female voice as emotional release indicates that society can’t be healthy without both voices working together, but this concept remained hidden in the context of the patriarchal system for many years. With the advent of film, it can be seen how the concepts of women changed from the 1950s through to the modern day, as well as how these ideas were different in previous periods depicted in film. Feminism emerged attempting to force women to change their mode of expression to more closely approximate that of the men as a means of gaining respect and status on a more powerful level. By recognizing that the female voice already contained a power of its own, illustrating this through the unique properties of filmic presentation, women are now beginning to understand how to use their natural voice to greatest benefit outside the control of the male. Works Cited Bridget Jones’ Diary. Dir. Sharon Maguire. Perf. Renee Zellweger, Gemma Jones, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant and Felicity Montagu. Miramax, 2001. Carson, Anne. “The Gender of Sound.” Name of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, year of publication: 122-137. Choin, Michel. Name of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, year of publication. The Piano. Dir. Jane Campion. Perf. Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill and Anna Paquin. The Australian Film Commission, 1993. Singin’ in the Rain. Dir. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. Perf. Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds and Jean Hagen. Leows, 1952. Read More