I don't know about you, but it pleases me to no end to see "The King's Speech" scooping up every award from here to Bollywood. This recognition has been long overdue.
Known as Britain's "reluctant king," George VI ("Bertie") literally had greatness thrust upon him by a self-absorbed older brother and a world headed for war. As in the movie, he knew he lacked the personal charisma of a Hitler, Mussolini, or Roosevelt. Nowadays his daughter is chief villain of any anti-monarchy chronicle, for being stodgy and hidebound to tradition. We forget that neither of their lives were slated to go this way.
Unlike that other famous second son who became king (Henry VIII), George VI was low-key and loved being a family man.
It isn't always good to be king; easier to be king when life is a bowl of cherries. Most Princess Diana champions and anti-royalists forget that when the Nazis were bombing the guts out of London, King George VI and his queen encouraged Brits to send their children into the country for safekeeping, or to leave town for the duration, but they themselves stayed on— nor did they send away their own two girls.
Colin Firth and King George have something in common and it's an aura of steadfastness. Maybe Firth was only portraying it, but George VI really had it. His post-war years weren't easy either: I'm very touched by the news footage of him waving good-bye to Elizabeth and Phillip, in that moment more a father than king, the man grown thin from throat cancer, later to pass while still in his 50s. George VI enlarged his steadfastness from home to country, helped his nation stand its ground against epic mortal enemies, and did the job. How many people do you know like that?
In an age of abdicated child support payments, abandoned spouses and families, overcompensated CEOs, malaise about work quality, and celeb-driven scandals, I'm glad this is Bertie's hour as well.
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