Sunday, February 20, 2011

    Move away your left foot, Daniel Day Lewis. Keep your chocolates, Forrest Gump. There's finally a new handicap in town. Stuttering is taking the Oscars by storm. Colin Firth is stuttering his way to an Academy Award. The handicap that is most scared of speaking up has spoken. Come out, come out wherever you are, my fellow stutterers. It is our time to bask in the light. The King's Speech has brought stuttering (or 'stammering' as the English say) to the forefront. The film tells the story of King George VI, who was  forced by circumstances of chance, or some say fate, to become King of England as World War Two was beginning.  Being a stutterer, becoming King was at first more of a dreaded punishment rather than an answered prayer.  The King would have to go head to head against Hitler with his stutter representing an entire nation and the free world. It's exactly my life story, well, minus the King thing, World War 2, the palaces, the money, the crown jewels, and the fame. It is actually the story of every stutterer, or at least every stutterer's fear. A King is as fearful as a commoner when it comes to stuttering. If there was one thing more menacing than Hitler it was the radio microphone that King George had to speak into to address the millions of people hanging on his every word. To help get through this most trying of times, he kept by his side his own personal speech therapist, which isn't in the budget of most other stutterers.  The relationship these two men formed was one of the most enduring and historically significant of the twentieth century yet before this movie, little has ever been made public. The whole matter of The Stuttering King  seemed to be  buried in history books, overshadowed  by the scandal of his brother abdicating the thrown to marry an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson, better known as the  title reluctantly bestowed on her, the Duchess of Windsor. Why was there so much written about The Duke and Duchess of Windsor and so little about King George V!? Growing up stuttering, I could have used a kingly role model. He could have been to me what Helen Keller was to the blind and deaf. 
        I didn't know what to expect going in to the movie. My dear friends Graham, Lizzy and Ron came with me for moral support just incase it, like  a regressive therapy session, triggered deep-seeded, untapped emotions that would leave me curled up in a fetal position in my movie seat or running naked out of the  theater screaming. Was I going to be disappointed, uplifted, angry, thrilled, frustrated, inspired? Fortunately for everyone, what I felt most was pride. Colin Firth as The King gave such dignity and gravitas to stuttering that for the first time I wasn't embarrassed seeing someone stutter on a movie screen. It reminded me of the pride I felt way back when as a young gay man I watched Harry Hamlin French kiss Michael Ontkean in "Making Love". That was 1982, when me and my first boyfriend Scott stood up in our seats at the end of the movie and in an act of pride and solidarity French kissed each other for what seemed an eternity but was actually only around five seconds before we panicked and ran out the emergency fire exit.
         At the  end of the "Kings Speech" I wanted to stand up again and announce to the audience that I too am a stutterer and get the applause that Scott and I were robbed of 29 years ago. I couldn't help but feel special coming out of "The King's Speech", almost like a celebrity of sorts. I could tell even my friends were feeling kind of special, proud of themselves for having a real-life stutterer in their lives.
        Graham, who just got his duel citizenship and became a US citizen last year, was feeling  a touch of extra pride in his British roots after seeing a royal actually depicted in an admirable light. He wanted people to hear his English accent coming out of the theater as much as I wanted everyone to hear my stutter. "Did you think his stutter was authentic? It sounded spot-on,” Graham asked me.
         "More authentic than your English accent right now."
         "It always gets stronger after I see a British movie, especially a good one. And don't go ragging on how other people speak. You should be proud of how I talk, just like I'm proud of you," he put his hand around my shoulder and gave me a kiss on the forehead, his version of knighting me. "Sir Puss of the Stutter."
        Lizzy was still dabbing the tears in her eyes. She is so compassionate and giving of her emotions that she did me the favor of crying through half the film for me so I didn't have to. She experienced all my emotions with me during the film, and even some that weren't mine. "I don't know how you made it through the whole film," she said, hugging me.  "Liz I don't know how I made it through my whole life so far." Ron interrupted and broke up our hug. " Liz, don’t feel bad for him. He's the height of hip now. It’s StutterChic. Now Madonna is going to be speaking with an English accent and stuttering too. Everyone is going to want to stutter. A dinner party won't be complete without one." With that said Ron declared he would be stuttering from now on too.  He did his best impersonation of me and asked me if it sounded real. " It needs work," I waved him off. " You have to do the  head bob, and  the flickering eyelids and contorted mouth. And some foot stomping and thigh punching is good too." Ron loved me too much to do a more accurate stutter. The only ones who would imitate my  stutter full-on in all its horrifying glory in front of me( God knows what goes on behind my back)  is a nurse I work with named Brendan, one of the funniest guys I've ever met, and a straight Chinese co-worker named Eddy Lu who works as an O.T. in our department, who is never uneasy about the gayness around him, and loves to play along with us. They actually have contests right in front of me and  I get to judge whose is the best after one practice round  and then a second round that counts.
    I'm gearing up for all the attention stuttering is bound to get in just a week from now when the Academy Awards airs on Sunday the 27th.  The odds-makers are predicting Colin Firth and of course I am rooting  for him. I'm even more excited about this then I was about "Brokeback Mountain " being nominated for Best Picture a few years ago and late, great Heath Ledger almost winning. Up to now, I always identified myself as  gay first, Jewish second, and white third.  But if I really think about it, I have to say I am a stutterer first and foremost. If Colin does win, what will it mean for  stutters all over the world. Will there be a national dialog over it, specials on CNN,  and medical programs with the latest breakthroughs and treatments. I just hope there won't be the interviews with  "reformed" stutters, which is as annoying to me as seeing "reformed" homosexuals interviewed. There was nothing more humiliating and annoying as hearing Vice President  Biden  explain in a T.V. interview how he overcame stuttering in young adulthood with will-power and determination because he was too ambitious to let it get in his way. I guess my total lack of will-power, determination and ambition must be why I still stutter and he doesn't. My fantasy would be for him to start stuttering during the next major speech he makes and for all the "reformed" homosexuals to start blowing each other during the panel discussion on  live T.V. Then I will be redeemed.
    If Colin does win, I will be listening closely to what he says. I would like him to personally mention me, but I would settle for him mentioning stuttering in general He better not forget that without our handicap, he would have played just another old, stuffy, British King.

1 comment:

  1. I never understood why they didn't just put earphones on him so he couldn't hear himself like on the first record he made for him. I guess I'm just lazy because why work so hard on getting rid of a stutter when you can just put on music. It was radio, no one would have known. Although I guess it's a good thing, I say embrace instead of hide.

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