The Weinstein Co. censors “The King’s Speech”

The Weinstein Company will release a PG-13 version of the 2011 Academy Award winner for Best Picture "The King's Speech." The original is still playing in over 1,200 theaters around the country, but it will be pulled from theatres on April 1, when the tamer version is released. The new version will replace the old in around 1,000 cinemas across the country. This rerelease is unnecessary and an offense to the film as a piece of art.

The Motion Picture Association of America gave the original version of "The King's Speech" (which won a total of four Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay) an R rating for language. The Weinstein Company toned the film down to a PG-13 level by silencing the audio track when the main character, the Duke of York (Colin Firth) uses the F-word. The most conspicuous silence is in the comic scene in which the Duke's speech therapist encourages him to swear, urging him to use offensive words.

The change seems negligible; the film has not even been cut. But the director, producers and editors must have considered the rating before the initial release of the film and deemed those lines to be an integral part of the film to risk the potential lost revenue that would result from restricting the customer pool. The "Los Angeles Times" reports that Firth, the film's star, opposes the release of the new PG-13 version, stating, "I don't take this stuff [swearing] lightly, but in the context of this film, it could not be more edifying, more appropriate. It's not vicious, it's not an insult and it's not in any of the contexts which might offend people."

The release of a PG-13 version would be less irksome if it did not necessitate pulling the R-rated version from theaters. It's natural that theaters that choose to show the new version do not run both concurrently, since they are so similar, but not allowing the R-rated version to play anywhere once the PG-13 version is released makes the re-release problematic because it prevents movie-goers from seeing the award-winning version of the film that the studio originally chose to release.

According to "The New York Times," the Weinstein Company pushed for the re-release in order to make the film available to young people who are experiencing the same troubles as Firth's character—stuttering, bullying, etc. This is an admirable goal, however, releasing a cleaner version is unnecessary. An R rating does not prevent 13 to 16 year-olds from seeing the film in its entirety; it requires them to be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian. Because "The King's Speech" is rated R for language (the likes of which 13-year-olds probably hear at school on a daily basis), not sexual content or violence, most parents should not have very strong objections to their children seeing the film. Even if the parents don't have time to take their children or don't want them to see it, there is nothing stopping the children from seeing the film once it is released on DVD—or becomes available for downloading on the Internet. Despite The Weinstein Co.'s good intentions, its censorship of language in "The King's Speech" is needless and, moreover, disrespectful of the original version's artistic choices.