Broadcasting the Diva of Dubbing

Media Ventriloquism ◽

10.1093/oso/9780197563625.003.0003 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 43-58

Author(s):

Jennifer Fleeger

Keyword(s):

Pacific Northwest ◽

Educational Television ◽

Growing Up ◽

Singing Voice ◽

Local Television ◽

Award Winning ◽

The Pacific ◽

Fred Rogers ◽

Maternal Voice ◽

The Voice

For children growing up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s and 1980s, Hollywood playback artist Marni Nixon was known not as the singing voice of Deborah Kerr or Audrey Hepburn, but as “Marni,” the cheerful mother of an incorrigible yellow puppet named Norbert, whose problems she solved on local television with a story and a song. The award-winning Boomerang (1975–1981) reveals how the goals of educational television were linked to expectations of the maternal voice embodied in a figure familiar to parents from the Hollywood musical. The placement of Marni Nixon in a lineage of televisual children’s ventriloquists such as Shari Lewis and Fred Rogers further destabilizes the voice that would only appear to be finally united with a body. This chapter analyzes Boomerang’s structure and style alongside parenting manuals from the period to argue that the fissures in viewers’ perception of Marni Nixon reflect a shift in the cultural understanding of how mothers should interact with their children, a change surprisingly dependent on discourses of ventriloquism.

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Bag Across the Border

American Speech ◽

10.1215/00031283-7587892 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 95 (1) ◽

pp. 46-81 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Julia Thomas Swan

Keyword(s):

Pacific Northwest ◽

Growing Up ◽

The West ◽

Age And Gender ◽

The Pacific ◽

The Social ◽

Social Motivations ◽

Social Distribution ◽

And Gender ◽

Changing Demographics

Prior research documents /æ/ raising and tensing when followed by /g/ in words like bag in the Pacific Northwest, particularly in Seattle. The present study compares /æg/ raising among speakers from Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia, and explores the social motivations for its use. The findings show that while the feature occurs in both cities, its social distribution is not identical. Different age and gender distributions and varying metalinguistic commentary raise questions about the trajectory of change in each city. Nonetheless, speakers’ realizations of raised bag are associated with similar sociocultural backgrounds and ideologies. In Seattle, bag raisers have multigenerational ties to the area, take strong ideological stances against changes in the area’s industries and economy, and oppose “gentrification.” Nonraisers have more international ties, show stronger interest in moving elsewhere, and embrace Seattle’s new industries. In Vancouver, BAG raisers describe growing up as Caucasian Canadians in majority Asian neighborhoods and emphasize the changing demographics and increased cost of living. In both cities, bag raisers are ideologically opposed to perceived encroachment and take conservative stances toward changes in their city. This highlights that the West and Canada participate in some of the same sound changes and show similar, locally contextualized motivations for their use.

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Seeing Themselves: Jean Barman’s French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest as a Resource for the Region’s People

Journal of the Canadian Historical Association ◽

10.7202/1040567ar ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 130-135

Author(s):

Stacy Nation-Knapper

Keyword(s):

Pacific Northwest ◽

Indigenous Communities ◽

Indigenous Women ◽

French Canadians ◽

Cultural Encounters ◽

The Past ◽

Award Winning ◽

The Pacific ◽

Columbia River Plateau ◽

Complicated Nature

Dr. Barman’s award-winning study is a resource to the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of the Columbia River Plateau and the Pacific Northwest, an environmentally and culturally diverse region that now encompasses two countries, two provinces, three states, and many Indigenous communities. For Indigenous communities of the region, French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest provides an important context of colonialism, global economics, and the complicated nature of cross-cultural encounters. For non-Indigenous communities, the book also encourages an appreciation for the complexities of history often overlooked by celebratory histories of colonization. French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest is a resource in which people see themselves and their families in a complicated, accessible, and inspiring story of the past.

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