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For most adults, it isn't easy to change the apparent gender of their voices. It can be done — some are practiced enough to pull it off, and some can just pull it off by natural talent — but otherwise, the voice will just sound goofy. If the goofy voice is part of a joke in a comedy, it can still work. When done deliberately to make a manly-sounding girl or vice-versa, it's this trope.
Cross-Dressing Voices is a Sub-Trope, which is about adult women doing young boys' voices or adult men doing falsettos. Not to be confused with Vocal Dissonance, which is when a person's natural voice does not seem to fit their appearance.
Imitating a Female Voice[]
Anime and Manga[]
- The Lucky Star dub has Derek Stephen Prince play a number of female extras.
- And the original Japanese version actually subverts this, by having a female voice actor (Kujira) voicing female characters... with a male-sounding voice. (She also voices Orochimaru in Naruto, for those interested.)
- And to complete the triangle, Derek Stephen Prince voiced Ma Toad in Naruto.
- In the Golden Boy dub, one female minor character (who is seen for about 15 seconds in one episode), who is rather fat and unattractive, is voiced, rather badly and for laughs, by a man. That man, by the way, is none other than Spike Spencer.
- Shangri-La has two female-looking characters obviously voiced by males.
- Michael Bell had a few of these on Voltron. Of special note is a pretty depressing scene in episode 21 where all the Pollux captured girls save for Princess Romelle are voiced by guys, which completely ruins the emotional impact of the until-then very dramatic deals.
- On Sonic X, the maid Ella is voiced by Mike Pollock, who also plays Dr. Eggman in the same show.
- Peacemaker Kurogane's resident pretty boy Souji Okita.
- Seto no Hanayome (more prominent in the first OVA) Lunar's Papa talks alternately between his Moe Moe voice and his manly voice.
- In the Japanese version of Princess Mononoke, Moro's voice is provided by Miwa Akihiro, who has found something of a niche portraying mysterious older female charaters.
- He also did the voice of the Witch of the Waste in Howls Moving Castle
- Chimpette from the Zanpakuto arc of Bleach is voiced by a woman... who usually voices male characters, and uses a male voice for the role. Probably because the character was originally a male baboon.
- The English dub voice of Grell Sutcliffe in Black Butler, Daniel Frederick, sounds like he's trying to sound more feminine, which is quite appropriate seeing as Grell is a transwoman. Whether this is on purpose or by accident...
- Many people actually preferred Grell's voice in the English dub compared to Grell's seiyuu and found it to be one of the better decisions in the anime. Which is ironic, because it's Frederick's first big role
- The Swedish dub for Galaxy Express 999 had over half the female cast voiced by a man. And... not very discreetly either. Imagine a female android entering a train cabin, she is completely naked, and looks like she is made of crystal, with long flowing crystal like hair. Then she speaks and you hear the voice of an old man... it. is. HORRIBLE...
- In the Japanese dub of Papuwa, the character Harada Umako is done by Kouji Ishii to play up the fact that she's the manliest character in the show despite being the sole female. Subverted in the English, however, by Joanne Bonasso speaking broken English in a faux Russian accent.
- Ugly old crone Uranai Baba in Dragon Ball was initially voiced by Takiguchi Junpei, who gave her a hoarse, wizened voice.
- In the original Devil Hunter Yohko, Yohko's grandmother Madoka is voiced by Yuji Mitsuya.
Film — Animated[]
- Edna Mode of The Incredibles. She's played by the director himself because he couldn't find anyone else who could pull off the Japanese/German accent he wanted.
- Supposedly, he did talk to Lily Tomlin, who had the voice he wanted, but she ended up saying something along the lines of "Why do you need me when you can do the voice fine?"
- Interestingly, dubbed versions varied between using male and female voice actors for her.
- Larry King as Doris the Ugly Stepsister in Shrek 2 doesn't even bother with a falsetto.
- Neither does Regis Philbin in Shrek the Third, as the other stepsister.
- In the British version of Shrek 2, Larry King was replaced by a talk show host who is more well known in the UK, Jonathon Ross. While still hardly feminine, his somewhat more high pitched, lisping voice could be considered more convincing.
- Strictly speaking, Jonathan Ross has a rhotacism rather than a lisp.
- Given that the Ugly Stepsisters are traditionally played by dames (men in drag) in the pantomime of Cinderella, that was probably deliberate.
- Neither does Regis Philbin in Shrek the Third, as the other stepsister.
- Roz, the dispatcher in Monsters, Inc. is voiced by Pixar story man Bob Peterson. In this case.
Film — Live Action[]
- White Chicks. It does not work at all, because the film expects us to buy that nobody sees through their disguises. Their Miss Piggy voices combined with the "No plastic surgeon is that bad" look to completely ruin the suspension of disbelief.
- It does help that the people the Wayans are supposed to be interacting with seem mildly retarded. "You can get knee implants?!"
- Robin Williams managed an almost convincing voice in Mrs. Doubtfire. It may have helped that he played an old woman, not a young one. A British one, at that.
- Edna Turnblad in Hairspray is this trope. She's a female character who was played by drag queen Divine in the original movie. Harvey Fierstein originated the role on Broadway.
- John Travolta in the 2007 movie plays it more realistically, with a distinctly softer lilt than Fierstein's. Other stage versions have Ednas that barely try to sound feminine at all.
- Many fans of the original stage show despised Travolta's interpretation specifically because he was too believable a woman. Edna was intended to be played like a drag queen, and Travolta said there was "nothing gay about Hairspray" and somehow managed to de-gay the word "fabulous."
- In Orgazmo. One of the women the titular character has to do a porno with is nicknamed "T-Rex" because she's so rotund. She probably has the deepest voice of any character in the film. Anyone who's since seen South Park will recognize that Trey Parker is dubbing her. Apparently the overweight middle-aged actress who was such a good sport to appear in the film didn't have a scary enough voice.
- Averted: In To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, Patrick Swayze's drag voice is the second most convincing, aiming for soft and breathy rather than falsetto. The most convincing of all the drag queens, disturbingly, is John Leguizamo as Chi Chi Rodrigues, who only has to go up maybe half an octave.
- That's because he has done drag as part of his comedy routine in the past, and already had a little experience in that area as opposed to macho men Swayze and Wesley Snipes.
- Dustin Hoffman does a pretty convincing female voice in Tootsie.
- And then averts it: "..taxi......taxi.....TAXI!...."
- Liev Schreiber has done two drag roles, and he doesn't even bother to disguise his (rather deep and masculine) voice. One was Chris from Mixed Nuts, who complains "My voice doesn't suit me." The other is Vilma, who Schreiber described as a "gay man who wears women's clothing." He does, however, make his voice sound kind of gentler than normal.
- In Kung Pow! Enter the Fist, a Gag Dub kung-fu film, Steve Odekirk voices nearly everyone. This results in humorously falsetto female voices.
Live Action TV[]
- Miss Piggy is probably the most famous example of this. It still works, because part of the joke is that she isn't really that feminine.
- You're saying moi is not feminine? Hai-YAH!
- Like, Janice as well, although Richard Hunt does a more convincing female voice than Frank Oz. Fer sure.
- This one was averted in the first season, when Eren Ozker played Janice (with a completely different characterization). Pretty much everyone agrees that invoking this trope after her departure was an improvement.
- Summer Heights High, hit Australian TV-show. Chris Riley voices a girl in high school and is actually pretty good at it without making his pitch much higher, more of making it more bitchy like the average teenage girl in any country. Also voices the 'gangsta' idiot kid where he sends his voice lower and the Drama Teacher where he adds a slight lisp and says the hilarious dialogue pretty straight to comedic effect.
- Peter Sellers was able to produce scarily realistic women's voices, notably "Breathy Kensington Thing", who made several cameo appearances on The Goon Show.
- In one episode of The Friday Night Project, guest host David Tennant appeared in a Doctor Who sketch as the female companion. He doesn't look half bad, but the voice is just weird- it's like he sounds like a woman and doesn't sound like one at the same time.
- And then there's Davina...
- While Monty Python's Flying Circus specialized in screechy and goofy woman voices, The Kids in The Hall usually played women's voices dead straight, e.g. Bruce McCullough and Scott Thompson as Cathy and Kathy.
- Kevin MacDonald, in particular, worked very hard in Brain Candy at nailing the closeted gay man's aggrieved wife's pain and tone of voice.
- In Monty Python's Life of Brian, the Pythons take the logical next step by having a man imitating a woman imitating a man.
- The guys in The Whitest Kids U' Know often go with the "Monty Python" variety of female voices when they do drag roles; Darren is the only one who half sounds like a woman when he does it (though he has a high-pitched voice to begin with).
- To see how the professionals do it, watch The Maury Povich Show when he has you guess whether that's a woman or a drag queen...
- Used brilliantly by Colin Lane in an episode of Thank God You're Here. Colin, a male, was dressed up as a heavily pregnant woman. As soon as he was forced to say something, he affected the deepest voice he could, eventually culminating in this exchange (paraphrased due to a faulty memory).
Merrick Watts as an Obstetrician: Obviously you don't want to give birth as a male. |
- In Eureka, S.A.R.A.H., the AI who manages Sheriff Carter's "Smart House", has a female persona. However, Douglas Fargo, her creator and the town's resident Butt Monkey, based her voice on himself doing a female impression. (He claims he wanted to use Sarah Michelle Gellar, but she hadn't returned his calls) It's just obvious enough to Squick Carter, and even though she has no physical presence, drops her squarely in the Uncanny Valley.
- Note also that Fargo used code from B.R.A.D. as part of S.A.R.A.H.'s AI, so there's further gender issues
- Gypsy from Mystery Science Theater 3000 was voiced by men throughout the series. One used a falsetto, while another inhaled.
- In the How I Met Your Mother episode where they all try to quit smoking, Lily's smokers voice is dubbed over by Harvey Fierstein.
- In 1964 in honour of Shakespeare's 400th birthday The Beatles performed a skit on a part of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in their show "Around The Beatles". John Lennon played the role of Thisbe in a very deep male voice. Can be found on YouTube multiple times.
- Averted and subverted in the Saturday Night Live "Gap Girls At The Mall" sketch. Chris Farley, David Spade, and Adam Sandler dress in drag impersonating teenage girls at the mall. In an intentional case of They Just Didn't Care, the three simply use high-pitched versions of their own voices. This becomes a Crowning Moment of Funny for Farley, in a skit where they're eating French fries, Spade's character says to Farley's character: "I thought you were trying to lose weight?" Farley breaks character by using his normal voice and saying, "Lay off, man, I'm starving!" This has become Memetic Mutation for those familiar with Farley's career.
Music[]
- Multiple P.D.Q. Bach works call for singing by a countertenor (that is, a man singing in the vocal range of a woman). Naturally played for laughs.
- There's Truth in Television here: Contraltos (female tenors) exist; so do countertenors (male altos). Compositions are sometimes written seriously specifying these ranges.
- Both the male and female voice in this song, "Shoes by Tiga," are done by the same man (the aforementioned Tiga) with the help of audio-editing software.
- On the Pogues' album Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, Shane MacGowan does both the male and female parts in "The Gentleman Soldier". His female voice is of the screechy, Pythonesque variety.
- Eurobeat singer Davide di Marcantonio often did this, likely with the aid of pitch-shifting, especially in Rose & John — Living in America.
- White Town's "Your Woman".
- Neil Sedaka, especially in this song
- Carole Pope of Canadian band Rough Trade is a Butch Lesbian with a very deep voice. See for yourself.
- Jack White (of the White Stripes) sang the secondary lead vocal on Electric Six's "Danger! High Voltage" using a distinctly more feminine inflection. The video features a woman miming to his vocal part.
- Nick Pitera, who is capable of singing all the vocal parts of multiple Disney movies, both male and female.
- Russel Mael of Sparks, who usually has an insanely feminine voice.
- Philip Bailey of Earth Wind and Fire was usually indistinguishable from the female backing singers that the band hired when singing in his trademark falsetto.
- The song "Brighton Rock" by Queen was originally supposed to be a duet, with both a male and female vocalist. Unfortunately, the band had trouble finding an appropriate female vocalist, so Freddy Mercury ended up singing both parts himself.
Radio[]
- Ray Goulding, ironically enough the big, burly half of Bob and Ray, used the same matronly falsetto for numerous female characters. It was a lot more convincing when he was younger; in their earliest shows, he also had a breathy, right-over-the-top voice for their soap opera heroines: "Ooh, David, kiss me, my darling!"
- The Reduced Shakespeare Company Radio Show has special appearances by several female celebrities, whose voices sound a little deep. This is because they're not actually female celebrities, but Reed Martin, Professional Impressionist!
- Female Shakesperian characters are mostly played by Adam Long. This is authentic, people!
- Benjamin "Katon" Carignan's female voice, as heard on Loids are not Christmas.
- The Firesign Theatre, being all men, do both male and female characters on their albums. The eeriest is definitely Phil Austin.
- I'm Sorry Ill Read That Again had Tim Brooke-Taylor as Lady Constance and various women with a strong similarity to Lady Constance. Lady Constance made a comeback as one of the Ugly Sisters in the Radio 4 Panto Black Cinderella II Goes East, along with Graeme Garden as Moaning Minne; as Queens Victoria and Boudicca in the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue's Yet Another Christmas Carol; and as the Duchess (with Minnie as the Cook) in ISIHAC's Alice in Wonderland parody.
Real Life[]
- A staple of many stage comedians. For example, Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias.
- Also worth noting that, with the right software, one can sound like the opposite gender. Morph Vox and others are pretty convincing if you set them up right.
- This is exactly how the female voices are done in Hyadain's video game music covers, according to Word of God.
- To avert this in real life, you have to remember that doing a convincing female voice is NOT a matter of how high you can go. It's a matter of resonance--most male voices are far more resonant than female voices, so making your voice less resonant will get a much more convincing result (usually a low-voiced woman) compared to the standard comedic routine (someone on caffeine, helium, and/or crack).
- In speech (as opposed to singing) verisimilitude is not in the pitch or the timbre, as there's a fairly large overlap in both between male and female voices. For about the upper two-thirds of the tenor range and about the lower two-thirds of the alto range, speech mannerisms, subtle and less so, dominate. Skillful manipulation of these can produce a convincing voice (male, female, or genderless) in almost anyone of any sex or gender. For that matter, a person's timbre is more flexible than most people give it credit for.
- Drag Queens are a mixed bag on this. Some manage to sound like typical women, some attempt to disguise their voices, some do nothing special since their natural male voices are that high, and others...it can be a little jarring to watch a queen elegantly perform a Janet Jackson number, then turn on the microphone and say in a gravelly voice, "How fuck is everyone?!" Although drag queens can't afford to be too convincing (at least onstage). Even women who do female drag (yes, it's done) work to make themselves unconvincing.
- Transgender women go through this, and can only come out the other side after a lot of observation and hard work.
Theater[]
- Most modern performances of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, as part of the Bad Bad Acting of the play within a play, will deliberately have Flute unable to pull off a believable female voice (or appearance) for Thisbe.
Video Games[]
- Bonita Soleil from Psychonauts, though like Doctor Girlfriend below her voice actor doesn't even attempt to give her a feminine voice.
- This is used as a joke when Raz first talks to her. He finds her in her dressing room, crying in a high female voice--but the sobbing is actually a recording to help her get into character. When Bonita finally speaks, her voice is far different and the crying continues until she turns it off.
- Lady D from Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure. The game isn't voiced in the traditional sense, but when she talks, sound bites of deep, throaty coughs punctuated by VERY masculine "Yoo-Hoo"'s play.
- Stronghold uses the Monty Python variation for the game's few female characters.
- Dissidia Final Fantasy has Jason Spisak voicing Bartz, a mimic-type character who copies the attacks of other characters and mimics their tone of voice when doing so. In the original game the only female on the hero roster was Terra, and Spizak didn't even attempt to imitate her. Then the prequel came out, and Tifa, Yuna and Lightning joined the group, and Bartz's lines were re-recorded to be better imitations of the person he was copying. Thus, Jason Spisak had to imitate four very different-sounding female characters. And he pulled it off. His impressions are so good in fact, some wondered for a time if it was a distorted version of the original voice and didn't think it was actually him.
- Gruntilda and her sisters from the Banjo-Kazooie series. Grunty and Mingella have Python-esque women's voices (Speaking Simlish), while Blobelda's voice has almost no trace of femininity.
- A random male hobo in Deus Ex Human Revolution does a surprisingly good impersonation of newsreader Eliza Cassan.
- If Nightmarionne is meant to be seen as a girl like the Marionette was revealed to be, she's still got a heckuva scary deep voice (Aleks Le).
Web Original[]
- Works with most Abridged Series, since they are not supposed to be taken seriously.
- Subverted in Gantz Abridged, in which at first Kishimoto is voiced by Hbi2k (who admits his lady voices suck, as seen in Berserk Abridged), with her voice being commented on by other characters. After she clears her throat, her voice changes with an actual woman (Cassius614) voicing her from that point on.
- As mentioned above, hbi2k voiced Casca from Berserk Abridged and Lampshaded this in Gantz Abridged.
- One often-praised aspect of Naruto the Abridged Series is Masako's believable female voices, such as Ino, Haku(?), and Hinata. Meanwhile, Vegeta voices Sakura in the finest Miss Piggy tradition, and does a less exaggerated but no more convincing voice for Temari.
- Both applied and subverted in Ranma Abridged, as Akane is voiced by ZomgRuler and assorted random females by EliteslayerX, but the two admitted to not being able to do female voices and put up a casting call for the remaining important characters. All other female characters are voiced by women.
- Lita in Sailor Moon Abridged doesn't even bother, instead firmly a Jive Turkey.
- Tea and Mai in Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series. When Rebecca showed up, Little Kuriboh just brought in his (now-ex) wife to do a guest voice.
- Lampshaded in episode 50:
Joey: Nyeh, Mai Valentine, you sound like a man! That is completely normal for this series, but still, what the hell?! |
- So far averted in TeamFourStar's Dragonball Z Abridged Parody, where female voices are provided by actual females... except in the case of Princess Snake, voiced by LordQuadros, who does Metal Gear Solid The Abridged Series. Everything about her is a Shout-Out to LordQuadros' own project and its source material, the disconcertingly growly voice included.
- Truncated Power Rangers doesn't even try to disguise the guy voice for the Pink Ranger.
- In Wedding Peach Abridged, Hinagiku was originally voiced by the brother of Toku Tenshi, the Abridged Series creator. When he had to vacate the role, she assumed the voice of Hinagiku, but voiced the character as an exaggeration and affectionate parody of her brother's performance.
- Yuki Nagato, a virtually silent schoolgirl, is voiced The Abridging of Haruhi Suzumiya as a Scary Black Man.
- Katara is a major case of this in Avatar: The Abridged Series. It breaks near the end of season 1 when her new level in badass comes with a female voice actor.
- K-On!! doesn't have a single male character of note. K-On the Abridged Series is performed by a group called "Just 5 Guys." Do the math. (Some attempt falsettos with varying success, but Abridged-Mio goes for the "are we sure she's not transgender?" approach.)
- Pokémon the Bridged Series refers to this case as a medical condition called "Falsettosis". Misty suffers from this in the first episode, where she is voiced by xJerry64x, but averted in all other episodes where she is played by the female Nowacking.
- Strong Bad does a "growly" variation for his "Teen Girl Squad" toons.
- While Jonathan Sullivan on Escape Pod is still recognizably masculine, his girl-voices aren't parodies.
- Red vs. Blues PSA announcement on how the Internet is different from real life: an obvious guy in a pink suit saying "I *am* a girl. Tee hee hee".
- Linkara from Atop the Fourth Wall, when he reads dialog from any ladies in a comic.
- His girlfriend Liz too. She can do a good vocal imitation of a man, but not a woman!
- The Wiiviewer doing Princess Peach.
Western Animation[]
- Dr. Girlfriend is voiced by Doc Hammer, using the lowest and most gravelly vocal register possible. This has led many to think that she is a transsexual (both in the fandom and the show), but the in-story justification is that she smokes a lot (Jefferson Twilight asked her if she smoked cigarettes or ate them).
- In Moral Orel, Miss Censordoll is voiced by Jay Johnston.
- Joe's half-sister is also voiced by a guy, but like with Dr. Girlfriend, he doesn't try to do a woman's voice, so normally, she sounds like a man. When she talks on the phone, she pinches her noise to make her voice sound higher.
- In Superman: The Animated Series, Granny Goodness was played by Ed Asner.
- ...Who, it must be noted, was instructed not to try to hide his voice. Hearing an old granny with a man's voice can be rather Nightmare Fuel-esque, which fits right into Granny's character.
- It may be an extension of the panto tradition of evil dames like Cinderella's Stepmother and Stepsisters.
- ...Who, it must be noted, was instructed not to try to hide his voice. Hearing an old granny with a man's voice can be rather Nightmare Fuel-esque, which fits right into Granny's character.
- In Futurama, all of the member of the Waterfall family are voiced by Phil Hendrie, including Frida. It's less ridiculous than most examples, but still fairly Miss Piggy-esque.
- Sit Down, Shut Up's Sue Sezno is voiced by Kenan and Kel Thompson. Surprisingly enough, it works.
- Brendon Small's shows Home Movies and Metalocalypse frequently use male voice talent for female characters. Then there's McGuirk at the Medieval Fair reading his line "in Elizabethan".
- One episode of the Clerks the Animated Series shows that all of Randall's ex-girlfriends have become lesbians, and all of them are voiced by men.
- Including one that may have been Kevin Smith himself.
- South Park does this often, though slightly less so in recent seasons — especially when the female character in question is a real-world celebrity whom they're attempting to mock (such as Martha Stewart).
- In a Family Guy episode in which the Griffin's get superpowers Peter's power is shape-shifting; at one point he disguises himself as Britney Spears but he doesn't disguise his voice at all, and yet everyone falls for it.
- Bugs Bunny did this fairly often when tricking his enemies.
- Speaking of which, there have been cases of Mel Blanc voicing one-shot female characters when Bea Benaderet or June Foray weren't available.
- In Sonic Underground, once you realize Jaleel White (Steve Urkel from Family Matters) is also voicing Sonia, you cannot unhear it.
- On the short-lived FOX Family cartoon, Monster Farm, Cowapatra (the Egyptian queen cow) is voiced by a man named Kevin Killebrew. Come to think of it, since there aren't that many female characters on the show (except for the ones that appear for one episode only), the only female character to have a female voice actress is Zombeef (voiced by Tifany Lenheart).
- Brian Doyle-Murray played Agnes Delrooney, the escaped lady convict and Grandma-ma lookalike from Duckman. You won't soon forget Doyle-Murray's gravelly voice saying "You know what I haven't had in a long time? A man!". He also played Coach Gills, the female goldfish coach in My Gym Partner's a Monkey.
- There's Alice in Superjail, but the voice is certainly not feminine, in fact all that's feminine about "her" is her breasts and her name.
- In the Total Drama Island series, DJ's mom is voiced by Clé Bennett, who also voices her son and Chef.
- Willow the Wisp had Kenneth Williams as the voices of Mavis Cruet and Evil Edna. As well as everyone else.
- Tim Brooke-Taylor again, as the villainous Auntie in Banana Man.
- Tina the T-Rex in The Amazing World of Gumball is voiced by a male before being pitched way the hell down.
- And when the Watterson kids accidentally eat their father's hormone supplements in "The Mustache", making them hulking and hairy, Gumball and Darwin keep the same voice actors but are pitched down while Anais's voice is replaced with what's obvious an adult man's voice.
- Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time, who is basically series creator Pendleton Ward playing a Valley Girl with little change in timbre.
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Squidward's School for Grown Ups", when Squidward and Patrick attend an opera near the end of the episode, SpongeBob comes out dressed as a female Viking warrior (prompting Patrick to comment, "She's beautiful!") and sings opera in a female voice.
- Princess Pony Apehands on Spliced has a deep, obviously male voice, but the vocabulary and sentence structure of a three-year-old girl.
- Kaeloo is voiced by an adult man in every language. She usually comes off sounding like a young teenage boy, and it especially comes out when she sings.
Imitating a Male Voice[]
Anime and Manga[]
- Pulled off to varying degrees of success by Mayo Suzukaze in Rurouni Kenshin--the Battousai voice is a very convincing heroic tenor. The goofy, boyish voice Kenshin is meant to have the rest of the time drifts between believable and obviously female.
- All over the place in Simoun: there isn't a single male voice actor in the show. Justified Trope in that everyone in the world of Simoun is born female, and any men are women who either chose to be so or allowed the Spring to randomly chose for them.
- Pokémon's Maddie Blaustein is an interesting case. Besides Meowth, she mostly played males, including the ridiculously gruff Lt. Surge. Of course, Maddie is transgender, which could possibly make her an exception if that wouldn't also make her an exceptional case of Cross-Dressing Voices as she also played young, soft-voiced boys and A.J.
- The Bakuras in Yu-Gi-Oh! are very obviously played by a woman, though, even with Yami Bakura, it fits due to his/their feminine looks. Its down right amusing in the last season, however, when the much mor masculine Thief King Bakura sounds the same as Yami Bakura.
Film[]
- Disney's version of Mulan, about a young Chinese woman who secretly takes her father's place in the army, has her affecting a ridiculous deep baritone every time she speaks as a man, for comic effect. And it works. It helps that her cohorts aren't any too bright...
- You'll notice that she does the ridiculous gravelly baritone less and less as time goes on until the big battle, when she's speaking in pretty much her normal voice (or a slightly deeper version thereof). They still don't suspect anything until they see boobs.
- Potential Fridge Brilliance? They assume that when she first met them she was faking a deep voice because she was a man with a high pitched voice. Also, by the time she's speaking in her normal voice they've accepted her as a friend, so they'd be more likely to overlook a feminine voice in favour of believing that it was a high pitched man.
- To add to the above, it was pretty clear she wasn't the most masculine of people — they might have assumed it was just her age and that her voice hadn't cracked yet.
- You'll notice that she does the ridiculous gravelly baritone less and less as time goes on until the big battle, when she's speaking in pretty much her normal voice (or a slightly deeper version thereof). They still don't suspect anything until they see boobs.
Live Action TV[]
- In one of the "Gimmick of the Week" episodes of Charmed, Prudence turns into a guy. No, wait. She turns into Shannon Doherty in a bad wig and mustache. Her voice was just as unconvincing.
- In an episode of Out of This World, the main character pretends she's a guy over the phone (can't remember why). It doesn't quite work. He friend notes that the guy had a "nasally voice".
- Sabrina magically turns into a guy so people will take her more seriously in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In other words, she gets a hair cut, baggy jeans, and a jersey. She sorta puts on a voice, but it's supposed to be funny because it's bad. It works, though. Though the guys she talks to think she's weird.
Theater[]
- In Hedwig and The Angry Inch, Miriam Shor plays Yitzak, who is presenting a male gender identity throughout the movie (Yitzak's biological sex is left ambiguous in the finished version of the movie). Her distinctly feminine voice is the only giveaway underneath the fake facial hair and men's clothing, which emphasizes that Yitzak is a feminine person who is forced to act masculine.
- Traditionally, the role of adult Gary Coleman in Avenue Q is played by a woman with a deep voice.
Web Original[]
- Abridged series again. (eg: Malachite of Sailor Moon Abridged, played by the female Whip0fAlchemy)
- Several (otherwise unremarkable) attempts at abridging The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya on YouTube have had Kyon being voiced by an obvious female.
Western Animation[]
- In one episode of Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, Taffy impersonates a man during a telephone call.
- Done in the Clone High episode "A Shot in the D'Arc" when Joan of Arc poses as a boy in order to play on the basketball team. The disguise is basically a baseball cap, a fake mustache, and a terrible baritone. Somehow, her mask never seems to slip.
- In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron episode "Trading Faces", Jimmy and Cindy are accidentally body swapped, taking their voices with them. At school, they attempt to affect each other's voice in order to fool people. Since Jimmy is already voiced by a woman, he is unsurprisingly able to pull off a good fake of Cindy's voice. Cindy's attempts to sound like Jimmy, however, fall squarely into this trope.
- Dick Beals, who died May 29, 2012 at age 83, made a living voicing children in his career as his voice was buffeted by his 4' 7 body frame. He was Speedy Alka-Seltzer, and was the voice of not only Buzzer Bell on The Funny Company but he was the voice of Shrinkin' Violette (a girl) on same show.
- In The Powerpuff Girls episode "Bubble Boy," the girls capture Rowdyruff Boy Boomer and plant Bubbles disguised as him among the others. That the other Rowdyruffs could not suspect anything given Bubbles' normally higher pitched voice and baby blue eyes speaks volumes of their intelligence.
- Similarly, Bubbles is the head of a poorly-made male disguise in "I See A Funny Cartoon In Your Future," and again, the antagonist doesn't catch on to her disguised voice being abnormally high.
Real Life[]
- Transgender men can deepen their voices through hormone replacement therapy, but because the medical establishment usually requires all HRT candidates to live openly as their actual gender for a specified period of time, this trope may come into play during that period.
Can go either way[]
Literature[]
- About 97.5% of books recorded on audio have a) just one narrator and b) several characters of both genders. Even most of the very old and um, traditional books will have at least a few female characters. The upshot is a narrator having to voice characters of the other sex a great deal of the time. Success varies wildly.
- More of a "not-sounding-like-you'd-expect", but applies to several characters in the Honor Harrington series. The titular character is a 6'5" Heavyworlder Lady of War, who has a soprano voice. Thandi Palane is a genetically modified Hot Amazon who can literally punch a guy's face in, and a mezzo-soprano (one step down from soprano). The Memetic Badass (both in-verse and out) Victor Catchat is a tenor (highest male voice within the modal register).
Video Games[]
- In Rock Band, a lot of the time the on-screen singer will make for something of an incongruous contrast with the original vocals. Female characters somewhat more often, since most of the available songs are sung by men, but it's just as bizarre to see a big hulking mountain of a man singing in the voice of Alanis Morisette. Or, even worse/better, GLaDOS.
- The same goes for Guitar Hero, where you can have Lars Umlaut sing 'Stop staring at my D-cup'.
- Even better, the vocalist generally acts on stage as if their sex was based on that of their singing voice. So not only will he sing like a girl but also sway his hips.
- This wasn't a problem in the earlier games, where your character didn't do the actual singing — there were two separate vocalists, one of either gender.
- Of course, making your lead singer of ambiguous gender can account for songs sung by either gender. For example, Poison.
- While Guitar Hero: Van Halen exclusively has male lead singers because all the songs are sung by males, the backing vocals (sung by the guitarist and bassist in the game) can be either gender depending on the song, and anyone can be assigned to them. Try assigning Lars Umlaut or even Eddie Van Halen to those roles when performing "Pretty Fly for a White Guy", or any female to the same role when performing "Master Exploder".
- The same goes for Guitar Hero, where you can have Lars Umlaut sing 'Stop staring at my D-cup'.