When I was a kid, I thought Edna from the Incredibles was a man. Despite her short stature, Anna Wintour-esque bob, and excessive use of the term darling, something about her had made me initially perceive her as a man. And it wasn’t until recently when I was able to pinpoint the cause of this misperception.
Around 2021, a line from the Incredibles trended on TikTok in the sound: “You are Elastigirl! My God! Pull yourself together!” Having forgotten most details of the movie, I didn’t recognize Edna’s line and initially thought the voice belonged to a man. After searching up the sound and realizing the voice belonged to Edna, I researched further to learn that Edna’s character had been voiced by a man. It suddenly made sense why I had misperceived Edna’s gender.
But, it also led to questions. Despite Edna’s feminine features (or lack of distinctly masculine features), why did her voice have a stronger effect than visual cues on my perception of gender?
According to Google, the average adult woman’s voice ranges from 165 to 255 Hz, while the average adult male’s voice ranges from 85 to 155 Hz. Men’s voices are generally deeper because testosterone released during puberty causes the elongation and thickening of the vocal cords. Based on this information, it seems that voices are naturally engineered to reflect sex and innate characteristics that can be reliably used for gender categorization. On the contrary, visual cues such as hairstyles and clothes are more fluid characteristics that are less reliable in categorizing gender. So perhaps Edna’s feminine visual cues were not strong enough to override my perception of more inherent biological traits when categorizing gender.
But at the same time, biology really only accounts for the pitch of voices. This made me wonder if there are other elements in a voice, such as intonation or use of specific terms (which might point to more social contexts), also have a significant role in gender categorization. In other words, if pitch was not differentiable, could other elements of a voice still play a significant role in gender categorization?
Interestingly enough, I came across a Youtube video made by Jubilee that experimented with this idea of gender and voice in similar pitches.
In the video, six women and a man named Natt are blindfolded and instructed to speak to one another. The purpose of the video is for the six girls to find out who is not the girl, as the title suggests. What surprised me most about the video was how similar Natt’s voice was to a female voice. Because of the blindfolds, I was unsure if they would be able to single out Natt as the man.
Surprisingly enough, though, Natt is the first to be eliminated. Although the video does not include any clips of the girls explaining their choice to eliminate Natt, the video suggests that maybe gender is still distinguishable in conversation due to elements other than pitch. For example, when discussing periods, Natt offers a vague story of his ‘first period.’ Because he lacked the experience, Natt produced an awkward delivery that might have led to his elimination.
If this is the case, this is an instance of how gender is understood though interaction (or by doing) rather than biology — the main argument from our reading by Candace West and Don Zimmerman. Although Natt sounds feminine, his male gender is revealed through interaction. As much as he attempts to hide his gender identity in the video as part of the game, he identifies as male and is likely used to expressing his male gender and being addressed as a male in most social situations. Thus he is limited in his ability to express a different gender.
After reading West and Zimmerman’s argument and its implications in the Jubilee video, I then wondered if someone could be identified as more than one gender if they possessed the ability to express and were also addressed by more than one gender. For example if in certain social situations, a person is understood as a woman and in others is understood as a male, how do people reconcile?
This made me think of the TikTok star Terri Joe.
Terri Joe is a female TikToker portrayed by Kelon Campbell, a male, who rose to fame with her obscurely funny personality and offensive comments towards other TikTokers during joint livestreams. In her content, Terri Joe is usually wearing a dress and a wig and speaks in a female voice. She also interacts with other TikTokers as the female character. (She refers to herself as female and is referred to as a female) However, the fictional aspect of Terri Joe is no secret, as her character is (hopefully) to be seen as sarcastic. Kelon has openly talked about his character Terri Joe and there are moments when he breaks character during the livestreams.
Since most people know that Terri Joe is a female character portrayed by a man, I became curious to see how Terri Joe/Kelon is identified in various contexts. Whenever he is in character, I noticed that viewers refer to Terri Joe as a woman, using she/her pronouns. Even when she slightly breaks character to sing in an extremely low voice (a more masculine characteristic) in this clip, comments treat Terri Joe/Kelon as a woman. For example, one user writes, “Her vocal range is insaine.”
Meanwhile, when he is out of character, viewers refer to Kelon as a male, using he/him pronouns, as seen in the comments of this interview. I myself do this throughout this post as well. When referring to Kelon separate from the Terri Joe character, I use he/him pronouns. And when describing Terri Joe, I use she/her pronouns.
Like the Jubilee video, the use of different pronouns for Terri Joe/Kelon suggests the necessity of socialization and context in understanding gender, regardless of biology. One individual can actually be identified as multiple genders if they express and are adressed with as different genders in different situations.
Through an examination of Edna, Natt, and Terri Joe/Kelon Campbell’s voices, it becomes clear that gender can be categorized and understood in different ways. My first impressions of Edna’s voice based on pitch revealed my early understanding of gender through biological phenomena. On the other hand, Natt and Terri Joe’s imitations of female pitch demonstrate that gender is understood in categories beyond biology and that gender is able to be fluid depending on how an individual socializes and interacts with others.
I’ve seen clips of that Jubilee video with 6 girls vis 1 boy on Instagram and the first time I heard Natt’s voice, I did think he sounded like a girl, like I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I also think he was doing pretty well with all the general questions of like appearance, look, and style, but when it came down to the experiences that specific genders have or gender roles play, that’s when he was singled out. I wonder if the same phenomenon would happen if there was 6 guys and 1 girl and if the girl would be able to replicate a man’s gender experience equally. (There is a Jubilee video for it but I think it was filmed during Covid so instead of all of them talking to each other, they are in a chatroom instead).
I enjoyed reading your blog and found the cases of Edna and Terri Joe particularly intriguing. Terri Joe’s example reminded me of renowned Chinese traditional opera performers who portray female roles. During a performance, the audience perceives these actors as female characters. However, offstage, they are recognized as males. Interestingly, embodying female characters does not diminish the public’s perception of these actors’ masculinity compared to those who play male roles.
I agree with your insight that individuals can have different perceived gender in varying social contexts. This leads me to wonder: is it possible for a person to have multiple real genders simultaneously but in distinct social settings? Furthermore, can one hold multiple real gender within the same social context?
This was a cool read with so many connections across pop culture! I had seen the Jubilee video earlier this summer and I’ve also watched both Incredibles but didn’t really think too deeply about either of them at the time. Honestly I didn’t even know Edna had a male voice actor until reading this piece.
The discussion of gender fluidity through Terri Joe as a case study is also intriguing to me. We had early conceptualizations of gender as performance or achievement from the West and Zimmerman reading. It seems applicable in this case when Terri is presented as a “character” on a social media platform. But I’m also sure that this can be fit into the framework of the interactional “doing” of gender as well (e.g. interaction between performer and audience).
The questions I ended up think about are then very similar to those that Yanzhu had. One example that comes to mind are my friends with who use any pronouns. I’ve seen instances where within the same social context people have use different pronouns to address the same person. I’m interested to hear what others think as well.
I found this journey of analyzing where this idea of Edna being a guy so enthralling! It was interesting to see the path you took in your research to figure out how this presentation of genders, or “doing” genders, can vary from person to person.
I really enjoyed the analysis of Natt in the Jubilee video, and the use of Terri Joe as an example for someone who can express multiple genders through their social interaction. The analysis on Terri Joe makes me wonder how much the dynamic of Terri being a sarcastic and comedic character adds to the legitimacy of Terri being seen as a woman. Gender is definitely something that is defined through interaction and other factors than biology, like you said, but I wonder if people would give into the character of Terri if Kelon didn’t break character as often.
Possibly a pointless question, but I think it’s interesting.