Weird How Katie Britt Turns Off Her Fundie Baby Voice When She's Just Blabbing On Ted Cruz's Podcast
Or maybe not so weird.
Famous podcaster Ted Cruz scored a real senator for his show this week, Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, AKA the creepy weirdo who terrorized America after Joe Biden’s State of the Union.
THIS CREEPY WEIRDO!
After that bizarre performance, everyone knew Britt would be the cold open on this past weekend’s “Saturday Night Live,” and guest Scarlett Johansson did a great job capturing some of what horrifies normal people about Britt. (But really, Republicans, please, keep using your instincts to try to appeal to regular folks. You’re nailing it.)
To Britt’s credit, she’s taking it in stride, telling Cruz she was “pretty pumped” about it:
“I’ve got to be honest with you, a bingo card for 2024 for Katie Britt. I did not have this on it, right?” Britt told Cruz. “It certainly didn’t have Scarlett Johansson playing me … We were talking to the kids about all of it and they were like, ‘oh my gosh, mom … and I said, you know, look. It could have been worse. You have Black Widow. They bring in someone from the Avengers to play me in the cold open. I’m here for it.”
That is actually a pretty normal reaction. We’ll scratch her off the veep list for Donald Trump, though, because A) he’s too weak to handle a woman VP with thicker skin than him, and B) it remains that Britt’s SOTU response was icky and made people want to hide under the covers . Also C) doing the SOTU response ruins people’s careers, it’s kind of a thing.
But yes, cool, we are glad she thought it was funny.
And so did noted cool guy Ted Cruz, although he was VERY JEALOUS, because:
CRUZ: Scarlett Johansson is hot! And and and all right, I am genuinely jealous because look, ‘SNL’ has come after me a bunch of times, they don’t ever have Tom Cruise play me! How come you get a gorgeous movie star?!
Well, Ted. Well.
He continued later:
CRUZ: At least you were played by a woman! […] So look, they cast Aidy Bryant as me, and she’s really funny, and coming off the whole Cancun thing, they had her in like cornrows and sipping a margarita and it was hysterical,” Cruz recalled. “I laughed. I thought it was awesome. And by the way, Aidy looks pretty good in the beard.”
Never thought we’d say this, but even Ted Cruz is having a generally chill reaction to known woman Aidy Bryant playing him. Good human moment, man!
Here is the clip, which you really should listen to, not because these people are so jolly or interesting, but because of what we said in the headline:
Wow, Katie Britt sounds different when she’s shooting the shit with silly guy Ted Cruz on the Silly Guy Ted Cruz Podcast, doesn’t she? There’s almost a smoky quality to her voice. Her real voice, we mean. She’s an attorney, and she sounds like one.
So where was the Fundie Baby Voice she used to deliver the State of the Union response? And do you know what we’re talking about?
What is Fundie Baby Voice?
You’ve heard it, whether or not you grew up in conservative Christian weirdoland. It’s the voice Michelle Duggar speaks in, which she teaches her daughters to use. It’s meek and mild and submissive to husbands and all other men, and all the other things extreme right-wing Christians believe women should be.
Some women are taught the voice — have it ingrained in them — but they don’t become evil people. But many do.
If you grew up in the conservative Christian world, this is the voice a woman who works with your youth group used to tell you how disappointed she was that you’re on this path of homosexuality, but that she’ll always be praying for you, not that you’re invited to their house anymore. You’ve heard it from Sunday school teachers and friends’ moms and pastors’ wives, certain peers. You have been shamed with this voice.
You also might have heard them turn it the fuck off when it’s not needed. (These may be the evil ones.)
Missouri Democratic activist Jess Piper posted a fantastic explanation on her Substack after Britt’s address:
I recognized the voice. It was so many voices from my childhood. It was so many Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. It was potlucks, and baby showers, and graduations, and birthday parties.
It was Senator Katie Britt using her well-practiced fundie baby voice.
I threw so many folks for a loop last year when I discussed the voice in a video. I used my “training” as a former Evangelical, a Southern Baptist, to describe the breathy cadence and the soft, child-like high pitch. Folks outside of Fundamentalist culture had never heard the term—they just knew the voice made them uncomfortable.
I know that voice well…in fact I can’t shake it myself. It was engrained in every woman I knew from church and every time I speak about it, folks will point out that I sound that way myself. Yes, friends. That’s the point.
Be sweet. Obey. Prove it by speaking in muted tones.
But you can also use it as a shiv, if you feel God is calling you to do that!
Piper notes in her post and in the video she referenced that psycho cult Christian House Speaker Mike Johnson’s psycho cult Christian wife uses the voice. Yes, the person with the Christian counseling service that compares being gay to bestiality, or did until people started digging into who she was and they deleted that from the website. She, like Katie Britt, is a serious professional! But yet, there is that baby voice when she’s being interviewed with her husband.
Here’s that video:
The fundie baby voice is one of the many abusive, manipulative things in conservative Christian culture, and once you’ve heard it and identified it as such, you’ll never unhear it.
Now back to Katie Britt gabbin’ it up with Ted Cruz. Funny how that voice was nowhere to be found there! No reason to deploy it when she’s just shootin’ the shit with her old colleague Ted on the podcast, we guess. We doubt she ever used it when she was working as a lawyer either.
A lot of people assumed Britt’s performance in her SOTU response was aimed at suburban women, particularly since she continually said that’s who she was talking to, in her fake kitchen, talking kitchen table issues with all the moms out there.
Weird, then, how in the immediate aftermath, the only people we saw who were really into it were creepy conservative white men. Or maybe that’s not weird, when you think about it for four seconds.
Love how Clay Travis conservative dude-splains how Britt’s presentation wasn’t for dudes, even as he’s the one leaving dude-stains on his pantleg.
Because if there’s one thing conservative white MAGA guys understand, it’s what appeals to women voters.
Here’s another really great article on the Fundie Baby Voice, should you want to dig deeper. And if you hear it from somebody in a position of authority, get the fuck out of there.
[Deadline / video via The Recount]
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
If you're shopping on Amazon anyway, this portal gives us a small commission.
Psst, Katie… ScarJo’s skit was not meant as a compliment, you dishonest hack.
I'll have you all know I am writing all noncomments today in Fundie Baby Voice. Feel judged, sinners.