Much Ado About Narrators, Yet Again
Currently in the market for male narrators to narrate my upcoming book, The Glassman. The current issues I seem to be encountering is an issue that I think may be a unique thing for narrators of color: I keep getting auditions where they drop any demonstrative accent. Almost like they’re thinking “How would a White person do this audition?”
Not entirely their fault, they’re in a really White industry and usually accents are utilized for, let’s be honest, messed up stuff, such as selling stereotypical foods and products (I have encountered so many taco commercial reels when looking for Chicano and Afro-Chicano voice actors, chicken commercial reels for Black voice actors, etc) to portraying “this is the bad guy, the one with the accent of the Other – because somehow their behavior isn’t enough to sell the fact they are a Bad Person”. Because of that, they get to internalize how they’re seen by their industry and the idea that “White is Right” (meaning, “sound like White people as the standard”) and I get to hear a bunch of auditions that sound not the greatest. The vast majority of characters in The Glassman are Chicano/Afro-Chicano. The character samples say which characters need to have a Chicano SoCal accent. But still, I get dropped accents in character acting. It sucks.
Oh! And let’s throw in gender because they’re there, too.
Not only do I get dropped accents, I also get over gritty/hyper-masculinity, or, as I like to call it, “TV Masculinity”, because it’s really overdone and common on television but not real life. I have gotten auditions where main characters had the same emotive delivery of Captain Kirk, the stilted delivery. I have gotten auditions where my work sounded like all it needed was a DC Comics stamp on the top corner, it was too gritty and over the top.
I’m not going for “gritty, hyper masculine”. I’m going for “realistic masculinity”. Fun fact, not all guys are ‘roided up meat-heads that treats the concept of “emotion” as a purely effeminate trait (except for “rage”, which is an emotion they’re all too happy to have, even to the point of self-destruction). Some guys are soft and kind. Some guys are silly and derpy. Some guys are quirky and daft. I’m not a fan of the concept of There’s Only One Way To Be a Man. I already don’t believe in the gender binary (it’s more of a spectrum than a hard binary to me) so that means when I do male characters, I want them spanning the spectrum of masculinity and more often than not, in the ”realistic” realm. The average guy is not a walking Male Power Fantasy, no matter how much he may (or may not) want to be.
In the directives, I tell the narrator what vocal range I expect the characters to be (low alto, mid-bass, hyper baritone, plain bass, etc) and what I’m getting back are Batmans.
Bro.
I get my work is dark and emotive but I’m not going for Comic Book Movie Masculinity. I’m going for Everyday Guy.
Also, the narrator this time, I am looking for queer narrators. Queer, male, Chicano/Afro-Chicano narrators. Why?
Isaiah.
The narrator will be expected to play all characters in The Glassman but Isaiah’s story line gets expanded in the follow up works Glass & Dreams 1&2. As a result, I want to make sure someone can do queer characters well. Queer actors can play straight characters just fine but I am not interested in getting a straight actor to play queer characters in this rendition. Whoever is doing The Glassman, should all go well, will be asked back for the Glass & Dreams duology to play the reprisal lead roles of the characters in The Glassman. That’s the current game plan.
Finding a narrator is always a headache and a half.
Hopefully I’m near the end of it but gods, is it a headache and a half.
I will say, though, that PGM VO, which stands for “People of the Global Majority Voice Over List”, has been a massive help in finding narrators of color of any sort. I only look for narrators of color (because my works only, if not primarily, feature characters of color – and I’m a Black writer, let’s not forget that) so the PGM VO list is a massive help. I also use AAVADB (African American Voice Actor DataBase) but this time, I needed more than just Black narrators this time so PGM VO is a great companion. Neither list has every Black or PoC narrator evaaaaaaaaaar but they’re pretty expansive with hundreds of selections. They definitely helped in the search process.
