What the Freud?

One thing that grabbed my attention when reading The Acoustic Mirror was the mention that female voices are hardly ever used for narrative voice-overs in film. Thinking back, I could swear I've seen (well, heard) a few (most likely more recent than the book), but I agree with Silverman that female voice-over narration is never quite used in the same way as its male counterpart. The unmarkedness of the male voice becomes really apparent. It seems like movie producers are saying: "Everyone can identify with a male voice!" It's just a generic voice.... almost as if it was everyone's voice in their heads. Well, the voice in my head certainly isn't a guy. In the movie Silverman mentions, Letter to Three Wives, the narrator "occupies the same temporal register as the other characters" and "is a frequent topic of conversation." I haven't seen the movie, but even though she doesn't say this explicitly, I got the feeling that female voice-overs are usually much more... chatty and gossipy. I'm not surprised that Hollywood this is how Hollywood works, but it's one more point to be annoyed at, heh. However, my question would be: are we anywhere closer today to actually being able to have an unmarked female voice-over? Surely we have come a little way from giggling, nosy housewives that chat about clothes and dinner. Things are still far from ideal today, but... would the average male theater-goer watch a movie with a female narrator and not immediately feel like he's in a chick flick? I wish I could think of an example. I should try to go find one, really.

Also, while I certainly found the book generally interesting, it was a little heavy on the Freud for me. I was always a little relieved when Lacan (the better Freud) got to take over. And while I appreciate that she turns Freud (patriarchal as he is) around and uses psychoanalysis to her own end, It does make me wonder whether there isn't a better way to go about it. The use of Freud alone makes the whole effort seem a bit like... I don't know, a reactive effort rather than an active one. I"m surprised someone so concerned with the audibility of the female voice would even consider using Freud's theory. But then again, she does seem to want to fight fire with fire. Not sure how much that works for me... her goal seems to be to castrate as many men as possible, and I'm not sure that's the best way to get rid of sexism. But then again, I understand that it's been a while since this has been published.