Like the number of feminists needed to screw in a light bulb, gender-based assumptions are NOT FUNNY!
Gender-based sound effects prove to be the exception in Bleep Blap Bloop, a very funny short film featuring real people attempting to impersonate various machines, primarily vehicles and weapons of the sort one rarely encounters in every day use. They’re not the most diverse bunch with regard to age or ethnicity, but as far as white people in their 20’s go, Bleep Blap Bloop‘s findings are pretty airtight. The Y chromosomes are the clear winners.
“Couldn’t you have done, like, a duck?” one of the female contestants asks as the credits roll.
What about you? Is this a case where you fit the mold? Please share your most triumphal (or least humilating) sound effect below. Transpeople heartily encouraged to expand the conversation!
– Ayun Halliday is a proud feminist who changes lightbulbs solo and couldn’t make a machine gun noise even if she had an actual machine gun.
I agree with the contestant asking about the duck. Why not ask all the contestants to simulate other things besides weapons: a baby crying, a teapot boiling, rain on the roof, computers starting up, and so forth. Why all these weapons? The contest is stacked against girly girls.
Some years back, Car Talk remarked that they get far more accurate reporting of odd car noises from women than from men.
My take on this is that most men feel that they should know what the sound means, and therefore don’t want to go into the slightly humiliating gesture of saying “It was kind of a crunching noise, Ray…” or “As well as I can describe, it went ta-potta, ta-potta, ta-potta…” or “It sounded like a dog barking.”which would make any further comments into a study in Lower Bostonian vowels: “Yah, mean yah Dahge Daht makes the sound of a dahg bahkin’ every time yah try to pahk the cah?”
I only report ’em I don’t make ’em up.
I agree. The subject matter did seem slightly unbalanced in favor of male subject matter. I’m sure the guys would tank on kitten noises, for example. Certain sounds definitely sound better coming from higher registers, and the ladies got that on lock.
pretty bias sound effects…