Gay Speech In South Park

The concept of distinction in the way homosexual males speak is a fairly new notion in the study of sociolinguistics (Podesva, 2002) and the fact that gay speech is often parodied in the media makes it an interesting topic to discuss. I will be investigating examples of gay speech in the popular television show South Park and compare the way they portray gay speech to the way gay CNN journalist Anderson Cooper speaks. Anderson Cooper has his own show called Anderson Cooper 360 which I will use to listen to his speech patterns. I want to prove a claim coined by Podesva (2002) that not all homosexual males speak with the stereotypical, gay speech. It really all depends on particular individuals which are often represented in the media such as
in the examples soon to be demonstrated from South Park. These findings have important implications because it allows us to avoid stereotyping an entire community of individuals.
It is often stereotyped that homosexual males only have one way of speaking, but Podesva (2002) demonstrates that this is false by studying several examples of gay speech.
He mentions that an elongated L and higher pitch when speaking show the stereotypical homosexual speech (2007), however, it is only one representation of how gays actually speak. To further prove this point I will compare the speech of two gay individuals from the media: CNN journalist Anderson Cooper and Big Gay Al from South Park. Big Gay Al was first introduced in an episode about homosexual pets. He was running an animal shelter called Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Animal Sanctuary. He also happens to be the stereotypical gay man not only with what he wears but with how he speaks as well. He demonstrates the phonetic features of the stereotype. Anderson Cooper does not happen to fall under this stereotype. He does not wear anything that shows that he is gay nor does he speak like Big Gay Al. What I am going to do now is compare his way of speaking to Big Gay Al’s
way.
First I want to talk about the shows in which both of my examples are from. South Park is not a show for children. It actually seems to be a show about things going on that are somewhat relevant and making fun of them. It takes place in a fictional town in Colorado. It is aimed at offending people in a comedic way. The show is purely satire. Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman are the main characters. The show mentions politicians, terrorists, celebrities, and more types of people.
Anderson Cooper 360, often shortened to AC-360, is basically about Anderson Cooper covering current events.
He brings in his perspective of those events. He often has guests that have to do with politics. Both South Park and Anderson Cooper 360 have in common the fact that they bring in current events but South Park brings them up in a comedic way while Anderson Cooper 360 brings them up in an informative way.
The particular episode I decided to pick out from South Park is Episode 4 from Season 1. That happens to be the first episode in which Big Gay Al comes out. I had to re-watch the episode a few times but I eventually got down every instance in which he demonstrates the stereotypical gay speech. I then watched Anderson Cooper 360 at around an equal amount of time to compare and contrast how they both speak.
The episode I was watching included a scene that had an about two and a half minute conversation between Big Gay Al and another character named Stan. What I noticed the most was that Big Gay Al would elongate every S sound so, for example, he would say “Ssstanley” and he did it in every instant possible during this episode. According to Podesva (2002) that is exactly something that portrays the stereotypical gay male speech. Big Gay Al is an extreme case but it is still a demonstration of the stereotype. I added a conversation between Big Gay Al and Stan below. This is when the two characters first meet each other. Notice how Big Gay Al elongates his S sound in every instance.
Not only does he elongate his S but he also shows somewhat of a lisp called the “gay lisp” and he elongates some syllables which make him sound feminine.
Al: Hi little fella, how are you doing today? Stan: I’m fine, how are you? Al: I’m super, thanks for asking. Stan: My gay dog ran away and I was wondering if maybe he came here. Al: Well let’s see. Come on in.

Something else I want to point out is Big Gay Al’s high pitched voice. Podesva (2007) mentions that the higher pitched voice adds to the more feminine persona of the stereotypical gay male. He acts like such a
I chose to view a video of Anderson Cooper’s Anderson Cooper 360 show for about the same length as the conversation between Big Gay Al and Stan which is two and a half minutes. The most obvious difference is that Anderson Cooper does not have the elongated S and does not have a high pitched voice. It is important to note that Anderson Cooper and Big Gay Al have two very different roles. Anderson Cooper is a journalist for CNN and has to be really professional. He has no reason to demonstrate that he is gay because he is not in some comedy like Big Gay Al.
Lakoff (1973) claims that “empty adjectives” are more common with females. Big Gay Al uses these throughout the episodes he comes out in. He uses words such as “silly” and “super”. Anderson Cooper never uses these “empty adjectives”. As a matter of fact, he rarely uses adjectives. “Empty adjectives” would just make him sound unprofessional.
Knowing this, we take a look at Podesva’s (2007) knowledge of gay speech and how it creates several homosexual male identities. He says that while elongated S and high pitched voices portray a gay male identity, they do not fully define how all gay males speak. The creators of South Park purposely made Big Gay Al into the stereotypical gay male with an exaggerated gay lisp for comedic purposes. He speaks in a really exaggerated way. Based on his show, Anderson Cooper does not display any signs of gay speech. He actually proves that there are many gay identities that are out there and that one stereotype is not a correct representation of the gay community.
Some limitations I would like to mention are that I did not measure the exact length of each of the elongated S which I do not think would change much of the outcome. Also, the two examples I used, Big Gay Al and Anderson Cooper, are from different media genres. Big Gay Al comes from a show that uses comedic satire and Anderson Cooper comes from a news station. Anderson Cooper’s purpose is to tell us the news while Big Gay Al is a form of entertainment for us.
Although I did not make any extraordinary discoveries with this paper, I did prove what Podesva had said in his research about several gay male identities. With extensive study on the sociolinguistic aspect of gay speech one can understand that these identities stem from the multiple communities in which each gay male comes from. With this newfound knowledge, we now know that several gay identities exist and just because one is particularly shown often in the media does not mean it represents all gay males. For better results, a wide study on several gay males from different communities would demonstrate the different identities each portray.