Aaron Rodgers’ Jeopardy Voice
Since it was revealed that Aaron Rodgers misled people about his vaccination status, there has been a lot of discussion of the varying reactions to him and Kyrie Irving, and specifically whether there’s been a double standard, and whether that has a racial component.
We should be careful not to overstate the case here: Most people who criticized Irving have also condemned Rodgers. But it certainly hits different. Part of the difference in the reaction is likely about race, but I want to suggest another factor: Aaron Rodgers’ voice.
Rodgers has one of the more distinct voices in sports: laid back, quiet, deliberate. Part of it is his Northern California roots, but it’s more than that. Let’s call it the Jeopardy voice; when Rodgers guest-hosted the show earlier this year, his voice was a big reason why it worked. He doesn’t have a booming, rah-rah voice, like a lot of athletes, or the halting reticence of some others.
But a “Jeopardy voice” is not a typical game-show voice. It is not glitzy or bombastic. It does not grab your attention—if anything, it is easy to tune out, almost relaxing. It is comforting, the kind of voice that can turn a cutting remark into a playful insult. It’s funny without sounding jokey. Confident, but not arrogant. Smart, but not pretentious. Human, but not emotional.
To be clear, the voice is not specific to Jeopardy or Aaron Rodgers. Steve Kerr has it. Oscar Isaac has it. Pete Buttigieg has it, and basically built his whole presidential campaign on it. It’s generally a white guy thing, but not exclusively. Steph Curry has it. Michelle Obama has it. I think it’s what Elizabeth Holmes is going for, but she obviously doesn’t pull it off. The trick is: Close your eyes and imagine that voice conducting those mid-round, meet-the-contestant interviews. Does it fit?
When you hear this voice, you are hearing the performance of a certain kind of reasonable sensibility. When you hear this voice, you think “this guy sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.” So when you hear this voice tell you he consulted with Joe Rogan and is taking Ivermectin in lieu of getting vaccinated, it sounds very weird.
The lesson here is not that Aaron Rodgers is really some dumb hayseed—although that’s definitely the lesson some people want to draw. The lesson is to be deeply skeptical of things like Jeopardy voice, which are really just secret handshakes for class status. Nine times out of ten, when people say things like “he seems articulate and bright” or “she looks pleasing and attractive” or “they have a certain look,” what they are really saying is that someone seems like they are of the appropriate social class. But they cannot say that outright, so they couch it in evaluations of someone’s intelligence or appearance or demeanor. Comments like this draw criticism when they are seen in a racist or sexist light, but it would be a mistake to see them exclusively through that lens.
Indeed, to me, the Rodgers/Irving thing shows that it would be impossible and pointless to completely separate race from class. I suspect there is a lesson there too…