mmcirvin | I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.

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Something I've wondered about before:

From whence came the movie and TV science-fiction cliché of giving robots and computers effeminate male voices (sometimes to the extent of making them outrageous gay stereotypes)? Did it start with Douglas Rain in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Up to the late sixties there seems to be a marked tendency to give robots manly, Stentorian voices (Dick Tufeld on Lost in Space, say-- Dr. Smith was the robot's comic foil, not the robot). But androgynous computer voices in written science fiction certainly go back further than that, and "androgynous" might have turned into "effeminate male" in somebody's head (or "butch or schoolmarmish female," like the voice Majel Barrett was doing on Star Trek).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

I thought the sort of breathy, slightly metallic female voice was de rigeur in future societies. We agreed that this voice was ideal because people would always be half-expecting the voice to start singing "Do You Believe In Life After Love?" like Cher. I thought this had been agreed upon a long time ago, at the same meeting where we decided that THE fashion statement from 2030 until eternity was the monochrome jumpsuit. Why are we bringing up old business again?

Andrew Northrup

From:

mmcirvin.livejournal.com

You're thinking of the OTHER computer-voice cliché, which has the advantage of being much more realistic. Synthetic voices in real commercial products tend, in my experience, to be hyper-gendered, either pro-wrestler-manly or sexy female.

From:

lots42.livejournal.com

Maybe the concept was that you couldn't have the ship's computer be more manly then the ship's captain.

From:

mmcirvin.livejournal.com

I should have mentioned that the effeminate computer is somewhat played out these days; this despite the fact that the stereotypical gay guy is if anything a more common stock comic character. Maybe it's that, with modern changes in attitudes, even the flaming stereotype portrayals are more affectionate than they used to be; it's no longer a joke just to have someone be kind of swishy, and it certainly isn't considered menacing or disorienting.

The remaining holdout is old standby C-3PO in the Star Wars prequels. I suppose you could count Mr. Data as a borderline case, but something tells me we won't be seeing any more of him.

The heyday was about 1968-1985: you had HAL 9000, Barbarella's computer (which might have been too early to be HAL-inspired), C-3PO, VINCENT from "The Black Hole", KITT, Automan (less effeminate but more outright homoerotic than the rest), and the all-time champion, "Dr. Theophilus" on the "Buck Rogers" TV show.

From:

astrange.livejournal.com

I will not rest until a movie is made where the computer speaks using the Mac OS "Cellos" voice.

(How many of you think that it's singing the Inspector Gadget theme? OWN UP!)

From: (Anonymous)

Maybe it's just because it's less threatening to be given advice from someone with a soothing female voice. We live in a men's world, and females have always been thought of as inferior, even in mental capabilities. As a male captain I guess you'd feel less threatened when you get your advice from something that by the sheer sound of it's voice immediately classifies as "dumber than me". The computer gives advice, but you, the MAN, have the final decision. Your position is in no way under attack.

On a sidenote: anyone who ever played a flightsim knows the female voice of the onboard computer on an F-16 that warns you to pull up when you're about to hit the ground... If you would fly into the ground it would start bitching: "pull up... pull up... pull up...", hence the name given to it by pilots: "Bitching Betty". ;)