There are beautiful voices out there. But millions of people couldn't care less. Their voice is their voice. It is the thing they bring out of childhood with them. Doesn't sound great. Well, that's ok. Because it is what it is.

It is what it is? In a world obsessed with beauty? In a culture obsessed with transformation? This is puzzling. Why isn't there an industry here? Americans ought to be training their voices like topiary. 

Naysayers will insist, "there is no industry here because there is no market here. People don't want it." Sorry. American consumers used to think bathing once a week was plenty. They used to suppose they needed only one pair of pants. And those days passed. (It is now generally accepted that two pairs of pants is called for.) American beauty has always been a thing of shifting standards and feverish innovation. 

Take the case of teeth whitening. This used to be "just one of the things." Your teeth were white.  Or they weren't. There wasn't much you could or would do about it.

Then came whitening, first at the dentist, then at home. It was an industry so large even P&G got into the game. Americans now spend a fortune bleaching their teeth. Joe Biden's teeth may be visible from space. For a very long time, whitening didn't matter. Then it did. 

Some will say, "well, there is no tech here, and tech drives everything." Americans do like new tech. We have made ourselves a test bed for every piece of junk to come out of the lab. But there is no necessary relationship. New tech does not always drive new consumption. (As the 3D film industry is now discovering.) And new consumption happens even when there is no new tech driver in place.(In the case of teeth whitening, this is manifestly true. We've had bleach for centuries.)

And don't tell me that voices can't be improved. One of the things we discover about Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby is that he has been giving himself elocutionary training, so to prepare for his head snapping social ascent. Getting your accent right was one of the most important requirements for social mobility. We used to improve voices all the time.

Another objection: American speakers aren't looking for beauty, they're looking for effect. They don't want voices that are mellifluous, they want voices that are cute, funny, cutting, droll, or aggressive and they are prepared to pay for these effects with beauty. This would explain especially the Kate Dennings character. Kate is a worldly, cynical, "don't try to pull one over on me" person. Her voice is grating to a purpose. And there could be something here. 

There is one last possible barrier.Voices can't be faked. If it's true that the eyes are windows on the soul, we might also say that voices are windows on the mind. What makes voices beautiful is the way they communicate intelligence, sensibility, and feeling. If you are not smart, sensitive, or feeling, no amount of voice training is going to make you seem so. Hmm, this could be right. Nah.  America is a place where we routinely fake it till we make it. We craft impressions until these impressions become realities. 

I'm stumped. We should be transform our voices. But we don't. Why?