Out of Sync

Ventriloquism in Popular Media from Vinyl to TikTok

Sarah Rebecca Kessler

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781478039198
  9781478034261
• eBook ISBN:
  9781478062837
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Pop Music

Ventriloquism, or the art of "throwing the voice," has outdated and even unsettling connotations to many, associated with vaudeville and the nefarious talking dolls of so many horror movies. Despite this, ventriloquism remains a popular performance art, filling theaters and concert venues with audiences eager to hear puppets voice what humans, in an increasingly polarized present, want to say but feel they can't. In Out of Sync, Sarah Rebecca Kessler explores ventriloquism's persistence in, and relevance to, the contemporary moment, examining performances by recent and current practitioners such as Richard Sandfield, Nina Conti, Jeff Dunham, and Terry Fator while also tracing ventriloquism's travels across media including vinyl records, documentary films, music videos, and social media platforms such as TikTok. Kessler argues that ventriloquism and its many remediations amplify a cultural politics of synchronization that positions not just sounds and images, but voices and bodies, as more and less out of sync along the lines of race, gender, and sexuality. Looking closely at the art and its outgrowths, Out of Sync gives insight into the operations of race, gender, and sexuality as distinctly audiovisual processes.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Introduction Out of Sync
• 1. Bicentenniality and Black Noise: Richard & Willie’s Vinyl Ventriloquism
• 2. Milli Vanilli and the Cultural Politics of Synchronization
• 3. Puppet Love: Documenting Ventriloquism in Nina Conti’s Her Master’s Voice
• 4. Voicing the "Silen[ced] Majority": Jeff Dunham’s and Terry Fator’s "American" Ventriloquism
• 5. Lip-Sync for Your Livelihood: TikTok’s Ventriloquial Alibis
• Epilogue Of Puppets, Parrots, and Chatbots
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index