Stuttering in popular culture
[2] Other famous Englishmen who stammered were King George VI[3] and Prime Minister Winston Churchill,[3] both of whom led the UK through World War II.
[citation needed] In other situations, such as singing (as with country music star Mel Tillis or pop singer Gareth Gates) or speaking alone (or reading from a script, as with actor James Earl Jones and broadcast journalist John Stossel), fluency improves.
(Excerpt from Rules & Regulations) Carroll's well-known stuttering trait is subliminally referenced in Alice, which features a Dodo character in one scene.
The studio eventually agreed to grant $12,000 to the Stuttering Foundation of America and released a series of public service announcement posters speaking out against bullying, featuring Porky saying "Everyone's unique and th-th-that's good, folks!".
[5] In more recent times, films such as A Fish Called Wanda (1988) and A Family Thing (1996) have dealt with contemporary reactions to and portrayals of stuttering.
[6] The movie received acclaim for its positive portrayal of stuttering: it was presented as the heroine's distinctive trait, rather than a drawback or a source of humor.
[7] The 1983 film The Right Stuff referenced the real-life stuttering problem of John Glenn's wife Annie, and how it rendered her fearful and unwilling to do a news conference during his initial space flight.
As he reported in his autobiography, John Glenn: A Memoir, and as shown on-screen in The Right Stuff, her stuttering was never a problem between the two of them, he "just thought of it as something Annie did".
But she grew frustrated with it, and some years later put herself through intense speech therapy and was largely successful in masking the outward symptoms of stuttering.
Through the story it is revealed that it has very negatively impacted his self-esteem (even leading to a suicide attempt when he stuttered through a marriage proposal and the woman laughed at him).
In the 1992 comedy My Cousin Vinny, a public defender (played by Austin Pendleton) tries to cross-examine the first witness introduced by the prosecution, but has a pronounced stutter and is ineffective.
In the 2017 film It, as well as the 1986 book and 1990 miniseries, the character Bill Denbrough has a severe stuttering issue, which was described as having "got worse since his kid brother died".
In the 2006 film Buddy Boy, Aidan Gillen's character Francis deals with stuttering, isolation, poverty, and a verbally abusive mother.
At the end of the episode, Winchester retires to his tent and listens happily to a tape-recorded letter from his sister, who is revealed to have a pronounced stutter.
On South Park, a physically disabled character named Jimmy Valmer has a severe stutter that has been used to comic effect on the show especially when he is delivering the punchline of a joke or to make otherwise inoffensive words sound offensive which can also render him unable to get a message across until it is too late.
In the UK Channel 4 TV documentary series Educating Yorkshire, a pupil named Musharaf Asghar has a strong stutter.
"K-K-K-Katy" was published in 1918 by Geoffrey O'Hara and became a huge hit in wartime America, referred to as "The Sensational Stammering Song Success Sung by the Soldiers and Sailors".
[citation needed] Alvin Lucier's 1969 experimental piece I Am Sitting in a Room prominently features his stuttering, as well as making reference to it in the spoken lyrics: "I regard this activity ... as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have.
[8] Three songs have gone to number 1 on the Billboard charts that include stuttering in the lyrics: "Bennie and the Jets" by Elton John (1974), "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" by Bachman–Turner Overdrive (1974), and "My Sharona" by The Knack[dubious – discuss] (1979).
[citation needed] The song "For You I Will (Confidence)" by American pop singer Teddy Geiger features the line "forgive me if i st– stutter from all of the clutter in my head"[citation needed] The lead singer of indie band Bloc Party, Kele Okereke, has a very pronounced stutter when speaking, but it is not identifiable whilst singing.
4 in the UK Singles Chart with "Stutter Rap (No Sleep til Bedtime)", a style parody of The Beastie Boys.
The majority of stutterers experience or have experienced bullying, harassment, or ridicule to some degree during their school years from both peers and teachers who do not understand the condition.
A 2002 study focusing on college-age students conducted by the University of Minnesota Duluth found that a large majority viewed the cause of stuttering as either nervousness or low self-confidence, and many recommended simply "slowing down" as the best course of action for recovery.
[17] While these misconceptions are damaging and may actually worsen the symptoms of stuttering, groups and organizations are making significant progress towards a greater public awareness.
