Christopher Hitchens and "The King's Speech"
Hitchens has decided to get very upset about the portrayal of history in "The King's Speech". Now complaining about bad history in a movie is pretty common. Goodness knows that Oscar-winners " Gladiator" and " Braveheart" didn't worry one bit about their complete lack of historical accuracy. Oscar nominee " Elizabeth" was another one that made some big mistakes (with Elizabeth's love interest being randomly turned into a Catholic traitor).
Christopher Hitchens argues that this is serious business because it's propaganda. Propaganda for what though?
What follows might be spoilery for people who haven't yet seen "The King's Speech" so you've been warned. Anyway....
To quickly go through Hitchens' issues here (and then discuss them later):
1 - Kind Edward ("Bertie's brother") was a Hitler supporter. (Everyone and their dog knew this already.)
2 - Bertie (eventually King George) and wife were actually big supporters of Neville Chamberlaine's appeasing Munich agreement with Hitler.
3 - Churchill was not a big supporter of Bertie as King from the very beginning, but actually stood up for King Edward (much to the confusion of everyone else).
The last point is naturally the major one here, which is odd really since Churchill is a pretty small part. I'm not even convinced that it's really a big mistake in the movie. The point where Churchill appears to be asking Bertie to get ready to be King is the point where Bertie is already being told by everyone that his brother is not up to the task. Even Churchill, as supportive as he was for King Edward to remain on the throne, would recognise the likelihood that Bertie might well have to take the reins.
If Churchill is supporting a Hitler supporter, then he wouldn't really have much ground to criticise Bertie as a Hitler appeaser. Whatever the situation, Churchill would be in a bad position to upset royalty since he'd be expected to work with them in the future.
The only point here that really seems to have merti is not about Churchill at all. However, it seems to be part of a wider issue. I didn't feel confident about saying this before because history isn't my strong suit, but in the light of reading around these criticisms it seems hard to dismiss. The biggest issue with the history is that very early on in the movie, before Chamberlaine ever turns up on the scene, Hitler is mentioned as if he's a monster. From the perspective of Britain at this pre-war period, Hitler is not yet a monster. From the perspective of King Edward he's an inspiration, while for others his actions in Europe are a cause for concern. However, though many were very worried about another war (hence the support for appeasement), no one was expecting to hear about Nazi genocide at this early stage.
In the light of this, King Edward's very wishy-washy statement that Hitler isn't all that bad was part of a far more wide-ranging anachronism that people actually thought Hitler was the monstrous figure we know now, rather than a (admittedly frightening) foreign despot making a fuss on the continent.
In the end though, the reason why it's not all about whether people did or did not support Hitler is because that's not the focus of the movie. Interestingly another criticism of "The King's Speech" which Pharyngula points out is actually generally in favour of the movie. They praise Colin Firth for portraying stuttering in a realistic way rather than in a Porky Pig style. While they worry that the movie might be suggesting that Freudian psychoanalysis works, they admit by the end that the "cure" is not unrealistic at all. King George (Bertie) is still stuttering by the end, but he has gained the confidence to carry on and overcome his difficulties just enough to get the job done. While it would be wrong to suggest that stuttering is a mental issue as the Freudian approach used by Lionel would seem to suggest, this was the more realistic viewpoint of a figure like Lionel at that time in history. Meanwhile the movie makes clear that the real triumph was building up the Prince/King's confidence, even while it appears to blame his stuttering on childhood abuse.
To put things more into perspective, on a forum somewhere someone claimed that Bertie had expressed concern about refugees being allowed over from Germany. They suggest, quite rightly, that many of these would be Jewish and suggests that this betrays anti-semitic sentiment. Certainly anti-semitic sentiment in Britain within the upper classes would not be surprising at all. However, when looking up more details about this issue I discovered that, upon the takeover of the outskirts of Czechoslovakia after the Munich agreement, many Czechs who opposed Hitler were refused visas by Britain and France (and then had no choice to wait for Gestapo, who did not wait long apparently). Tolerance for immigrants has never been a strong virtue in Britain and it seems that sympathy for those running from the Nazis was hard to find amongst Britain's ruling elite of the time.
Christopher Hitchens wants to argue that The King's Speech is pro-monarchist propaganda. But is it really so hard to imagine the timid and gentle Bertie as an appeaser? Not for me. Would making his brother's support for Hitler clearer have added anything to the film? I think it would probably have detracted from the focus on Bertie's struggle with his stammer. And through all Bertie's negative points, he was still the same man who struggled with a stammer and he was still the same man who broadcast that speech at the film's climax.