A King's Human Speech

copyright©TWMcDermott

We've just seen The King's Speech, a film about King George VI's painful royal battle with a stammer. Sounds like a boring subject for a film? Wrong.

Strange, but we actually LISTEN to someone who has difficulty speaking. The struggle to form the words draws our rapt attention rather than repelling it. We also feel embarrassment in the face of such human difficulty, especially in someone so privileged, but we are listening.

George VI

We root for George VI (Bertie) in the film in part because, let's face it, this is Colin Firth and we like him. We like the wise-guy speech specialist too (Geoffrey Rush). We cheer because the new King is made likable vs. his cold royal parents and his imbecile brother the Duke of Windsor, the former king. Finally, we root for him because we're just tired of bad royal behavior and because we love an underdog.

Wouldn't it be fun and refreshing to have to wait to hear the words form, when all the TV gaggling heads put forth their political and commercial pre-packaged nonsense? Why pay attention to them when we already know what they are going to say? They will say something, anything that appeals to those who have chosen to tune in to that particular point of view or network. 

We're not saying that our leaders should suddenly begin to stammer exactly. But we do think it would be great if they were forced to really think about every single word carefully,  as if it will be really meaningful to us, the listeners, instead of for their own legacy, such as they imagine it to be.

Perhaps we've finally had  enough of legacies, bold action, or thoughtful inaction. Perhaps we've heard enough Fairy Tales. Maybe we've arrived at a place where we are perfectly suited to a stammering, struggling leader, who just happens to honestly take his responsibility to us more seriously than his/her legacy. Maybe we are tired of the slick, the branded, the deciders, the undecided, the ones who are obsessed with how history will see them instead of really making history.

If we can imagine such a leader, can't we find her or him? We're betting that they do not have an active Twitter account, a reality TV show, a few billion, or a dance instructor. 

We're betting that they've probably failed at something in the course of their lives, maybe something big: a business or a marriage. Maybe they've been fired, shot-at, seriously ill, seriously poor, seriously scared and overcome it somehow. In other words, they will speak in human terms, not comic book super-human terms.

And maybe then we'll really listen to what we need to hear instead of what we want to hear.
Until then, go to a theatre and watch George VI, a wealthy, royally privileged white European man, who once upon a time actually made a real difference, instead of just pretending. Let's see if we can find a our own stammering or flawed human, rather  than a perfect "brand." 

S-s-s-oon p-p-p-p-lease.