'The King's Speech' Scrubbed Squeaky Clean, Earns a New 'PG-13' Rating

As a dedicated film lover, the dirtiest expressions I have ever seen are "edited for television" and "edited for content". Those dirty words mean that some misguided fool has been mucking around with a great piece of cinema simply because of language, violence or the so-called 'adult content'. The same fate has now befallen "The King's Speech," the recent Academy Award-winner for Best Picture.

Recently, I went to the theater to watch the amazing performances of Oscar winner Colin Firth and well-deserving nominee Geoffrey Rush a second time. I also carefully looked for the sequences in which profanity is used, the same swear words that have been scrubbed from the film for an upcoming PG-13 re-release .

Quite frankly, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) overreacted in the first place, giving "The King's Speech" an 'R' rating for 'some language.' The language in question appears in just a few key scenes where speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) encourages King George VI to unleash a torrent of profanities, including variations on the 'F-bomb'. Logue noticed that the king did not stammer while cursing and let him cut loose.

Near the end of the film, Logue's therapy comes into play during the speech that gives the film its title. These are wonderful sequences and deserve to be preserved as they were filmed by Academy Award-winning director Tom Hooper. The profanity is not gratuitous and fits beautifully into the context of the film. David Seidler, whose "King's Speech" screenplay also won an Oscar, even said that swearing helped him overcome his own stammer in his teens .

To be fair, this isn't the first time in cinematic history that a hot film has been reedited to make it 'accessible' to a wider audience. In 1977, John Travolta ignited a nationwide craze for white suits and disco dancing in " Saturday Night Fever ," a film heavy with profanity and sexual promiscuity. At a time when VCR's and satellite television were not quite commonplace, the studio reissued the film minus the offensive language and activity, which earned it a 'PG' rating from the MPAA.

Chopping "Saturday Night Fever" off at the knees did not take away from the core elements of the film, but to edit a few minutes of what I consider necessary footage from "The King's Speech" is a crime. A 'PG-13' reedit that changes any interaction between Lionel Logue and King George VI is like reading "Lord of the Rings" with the occasional page ripped out by an angry librarian.

The MPAA also underestimates the kids of today. I recently went to a Saturday afternoon showing of "Drive Angry," a hilarious grindhouse throwback featuring an overload of sex, drugs and gratuitous violence. Sitting near me in the audience were a father and his grade school age son, who seemed to have no problem with what Roger Ebert calls "garden variety soft-core porn."

Reflecting on "The King's Speech" and it's sad, pre-DVD fate, a few other F-words come to mind: foolish, futile and fumbling. Instead of wasting my money on a hacked-up version, I'll save my shillings for the Blu-ray release.