Dumb: “King’s Speech” Gets R Rating
Last night I watched “Indie Sex,” a documentary on the IFC about the movie ratings system: how it came about; how the X rating, which originally went to some first-rate movies like “Midnight Cowboy;” ended up having porno associations; how studios will do anything do avoid an NC-17. In other words, how a system that is meant to protect children ends up being ridiculously applied way too often. Latest example: “The King’s Speech,” about King George VI and his struggle to overcome a stammer, has been slapped with an R rating. Why this idiocy? It’s all about a single scene in which Colin Firth’s monarch, during one of his speech-therapy sessions with Geoffrey Rush‘s Lionel Logue, experiences an emotional breakthrough of sorts as he lets go with a string of vulgarities in a Tourette’s Syndrome way. Otherwise, the movie couldn’t be more proper. But the brief in-context swearing means that “The King’s Speech” gets the same rating as run-of-the-mill torture porn. The movie’s director, Tom Hooper, responds here.
