The King's Speech and the Ability Privilege

Many of us see Hollywood as a promise land filled with people the are given all the privileges in the world. But what about when Hollywood tackles the privileged in history and we find out they may not have been the most privileged after all.

The Oscar winning movie, "The King's Speech" follows Prince Albert, portrayed by Colin Firth, of England on his unexpected journey to becoming King George VI. All of his life Albert struggled with a stutter that held him back from speaking in public often. This gave him the lack of an ability privilege.

Before we dig deeper into the affects of the ability privilege, lets first determine what privilege really means.
Privilege: A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste. Often times a privilege is exercised in detriment of others.

I have been very lucky in my life to have the ability to speak affluently, and while I may not love speaking in public, I know that my ability to do so is there. Therefore I have been given a privilege of this ability. But not everyone is given this privilege, and this idea is explored in the movie "The King's Speech".

Prince Albert works with speech therapist Lionel Logue, portrayed by Geoffrey Rush, to help get rid of his stutter so that he is able to speak over the radio to his country. This is something that is key for someone that will run a country.

While we can see in this film that Prince Alberts inability to speak affluently can be helped, but in extreme cases such as his there is always some residual left over. We can see in the clip below that the Prince delivers an eloquent speech but still stutters during one line.

Now that we know the back story of this movie and the struggles that Prince Albert dealt with we can explore how this lack of ability effected him and made his journey to the thrown harder.

Throughout the movie there are cases that show that because of his stutter, he will not be able to be king because know one would follow a king that cannot speak.

I think that this is a stereotype that we give those without certain disabilities, the idea that they cannot be something because they do not have all of the same abilities as us.

Fortunately for the history books, Prince Albert was able to overcome his lack of ability and become King, but it makes me wonder how many people are becoming discouraged because of their lack of ability. I think it is important for people to know that just because someone is lacking an ability does not mean they are incapable of doing something.