Heartwarming though the movie "The King's Speech" is, as someone who married a stutterer and is the mother of a stutterer, I'm not sure it does anything to put myths about stuttering to rest.
Perhaps it is enough that the movie brings out of the shadows a common problem figuring into the lives of children and adults from every culture around the world. Even now when medical miracles abound, stuttering is not generally understood and carries a stigma society should have shed long ago.
If you have not yet seen it, "The King's Speech" concerns Albert Frederick Arthur George of the House of Windsor - King George VI - the second son of King George V, a son who never was supposed to ascend to the throne. His elder brother, Edward, was heir apparent. However, Edward was fond of partying and even fonder of an American woman named Wallis Simpson, who was in the process of getting her second divorce. Determined to marry her, Edward saw no reason why his wife-to-be should keep him from being king. When it was clear he could not be both husband to Wallis Simpson and king of England, he abdicated the throne.
Thus, Albert - "Bertie" to his family and friends - became George VI, a role he did not want, in large part because of his lifelong problem of stuttering. The age demanded that the king be able to address his subjects through the technological wonder of the radio, but poor Bertie became paralyzed in front of a microphone. How could he comfort and inspire his people if he couldn't get the words out?
Critics have loved the film and panned its historical misrepresentations. The truth is that both Edward VIII and George VI were appeasers, even sympathizers, when Hitler and his Nazi party were on the rise. In fact, Neville Chamberlain - the prime minister duped by Hitler - had the complete confidence and support of both brothers.
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Stanley Baldwin, the prime minister before Chamberlain, is given short shrift in the movie, and Winston Churchill is made to look as if he all along preferred George the VI to Edward VIII. The exact opposite was true, and George VI was not pleased to have Churchill forced on him.
That said, the heart of the movie is the poignant - absolutely true - friendship that grew between George VI and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue, a man who not only was a commoner but who also was a native Australian recently moved to England.
For a therapist in that time, his methods were unusual (and in the movie, marvelously entertaining). But Logue knew he could help his special patient speak more fluently, and he did.
The movie plays up the loneliness and mistreatment Bertie suffered at the hands of a mean nanny, a cold mother, and an impatient father, who all seemed to view Bertie's stuttering as character weakness, a weakness he could overcome if only he tried hard enough. Although there's no question that their ignorance and actions made his stuttering worse, we know now that those things do not explain - as the movie suggested - why he stuttered.
In short, family and social dynamics affect stuttering, but they don't cause the problem.
The biggest marker for stuttering - certainly true for our family - is genetic. Roughly 60 percent of people who stutter have a family member who also stutters. Then, too, neurophysiology of the brain (where speech and language are processed) is different for stutterers, something not yet entirely understood. Children with other language problems or developmental delays are more likely to stutter; however, IQ is not a factor, nor do stutterers have more emotional or psychological problems than the general population.
When King George VI stuttered, people looked down or away, clearly showing their discomfort. Unfortunately, that's still the way people react to stuttering. So here's a tip the movie didn't give: Don't look away when someone stutters and don't break in to finish their words for them. Stutterers may not speak fluently, but they have lots to say.
Ahlin writes a Sunday column for The Forum.
