When films concern themselves with specialisations, specialists become concerned about whether they have been shown in the right light.
King?s Speech
With Oscars aplenty in the bag, this film has gotten kudos from both the US National Stuttering Association and the British Stammering Association for clearing the shadows over a speech defect that affects approximately 1% of the world?s population. While this film stresses psychological factors, studies also offer up genes and neurological events as possible causes. One study that has grabbed a lot of attention lately was conducted by Dennis Drayna at the US NIH and his colleagues, who have traced back the responsible genetic mutation of 44 Pakistani families almost 600 generations, to a common South Asian ancestor around 14,000 years ago. Others like Luc De Nil of the University of Toronto rely on brain scans to argue that speech is a high-demand fine-motor skill and stuttering is related to motor difficulties. Perhaps the distinctive brain scan patterns observed in stutterers are caused by genes, but how is one to explain that anxiety can worsen the symptoms and singing can alleviate them (as with King George VI in the film)?As a nature vs nurture debate over causes continues, there is something on the horizon that may resolve it. Drayna?s team, after identifying human stuttering mutations, has spliced the genes into mice, which have rich vocal communications. The human ear won?t be of much help here, but ultrasonic recordings will do the work. Once the cause is better understood, confusion about treatment should also clear up.
Meanwhile, those who are still undergoing different speech and drug therapies to become better may take heart in that the likes of Winston Churchill and Marilyn Monroe also stuttered. You couldn?t ask for more august company. As for helping out closer home, we must give a hands up to Kaminey. Remember Bhope Bhau cackling, ?O you lisp! So does your brother also lisp?? And Charlie replying, ?No, he stammers.?
No Smoking
China, which has the largest number of smokers in the world, has recently ordered films and TV shows to limit the amount of smoking shown on screen. This brings us to a familiar charge against popular culture, that it encourages smoking by glamourising it. Pertinent in this context are the recently published findings of Dylan Wagner and his colleagues at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, US. It seems that when scenes that included smoking were shown to smokers and non-smokers, the former showed greater activity in brain parts involved in perception and in the co-ordination of actions, acting as though they were about to light a cigarette like the star they were seeing. The latter did not exhibit similar enhancement. What?s confirmed here is that smokers are more likely to crave a cigarette after watching a film with images of smoking. Data from other countries confirms that a large proportion of smokers take up the habit in their youth. Put the two together and there is a clear case for censorship. But let?s also look at the other side.
When the US Postal Service put out a Bette Davis stamp only after excising the cigarette image, it drove famed film critic Roger Ebert mad. After making a list of similar excisions (like the producers cutting out images of Daniel Craig smoking cigars in Casino Royale), he burst out: ?Next it will be John Wayne holding a bouquet instead of a Winchester! … If by the time you?re old enough to sit through a movie, you haven?t heard that smoking is bad for you, you don?t need a movie rating, you need a foster home.? To paraphrase Karan Johar, it?s all about loving your films. Or not.