Archive

'The green revolution of the 1970s reduced chronic hunger from 40% to 20% of the world population while the population has doubled, but 840 million people are still chronically undernourished. Environmental stress accounts for up to an 80% loss in crop yields which translates into a massive loss of food worldwide. Since plants cannot move, they have developed a complex network of responses to stress that help them survive. Some of these strategies are not necessarily geared to crop productivity though, but rather are the product of evolutionary pressures for individual survival.

My contribution to this debate comes from two directions:First I want to give my reactions to the film based on my own experiences of stammering, and receiving speech therapy. Second, I want to talk about how this film might help to change public attitudes towards stammering. This is perhaps the first major film that has treated stammering as the frustrating and painful disability it is, rather than as a source of amusement.

The film illustrates that there’s just so far you can go with silence, before people start to feel awkward. This seems to be one of the dominant features of stammering, certainly as presented in the film. It is unlike many other disorders of communication where there is typically something going on that the listener is able to work with. In trying to understand the communication disruption of stuttering, it is probably useful to consider the experience of the listener as well as that of the person who stammers.

Art offers an insight into the soul; indeed, art is proof that we have souls.