My Hopes for “My Beautiful Stutter”

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed during my lunch hour earlier on this week and a trailer for a film called “My Beautiful Stutter” showed up on my suggested posts. Up to know, I hadn’t heard of many films that were made to address the issue of Stuttering, apart from the odd exception such as The King’s Speech, or The Waterboy, so it is safe to safe that I was very intrigued on how they were going to go about doing it.

I have not been able to actually watch the film itself yet, but in today’s blog we are going to look at some of my hopes and aspirations as to what this film can do for the Stuttering Community and for the stigma that surrounds Stuttering as a whole.

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Today’s blog is going to look at the film “My Beautiful Stutter” and the hopes & aspirations that I have for the film, in relation to the effect that it has on how Stuttering is portrayed in the media, and the impact that a Stutter can truly have on your life. As stated in the introduction to this blog, I have not actually watched the film itself and am basing my aspirations for the project off of the trailer and the information that they available on their website.

Before we get into the blog, here is the trailer to the film, for those who may not have heard of it before today, or may not have watched it yet:

My Beautiful Stutter follows the story of five different kids, from ages 9-18 years old, who are all from the United States of America and have a stutter. We join them as they enter “an interactive arts-based program”, which has been organised by The Stuttering Association for the Young, based in New York City, and we get to see them meet some of the other children who are attending the program, and also have stutters. .

One thing that becomes apparent through the trailer and on the film’s website is that they heavily look into the mental difficulties that having a stutter can have on your life. The stigma that surrounds stuttering is one that is rarely, if ever, talked about in things such as the media, so for a film such as this to bring it in as a main theme throughout, is absolutely incredible.

When you watch the trailer you hear somebody say that they once spoke to somebody who felt suicidal because of their stutter. If you have never experienced or had a stutter before, this may seem like a very dramatized comment, but I ensure you that it is not. A common trend among people with stutters is that they feel like they have no voice, and consequently lose belief in themselves.

It can be incredibly hard to put yourself in different social situations when you have the constant fear of stuttering, which may lead to creating a very tense or awkward conversational environment. For some stutterers, they strongly feel as if they have, or at least are starting to lose their purpose in life, due to an issue that is not even their fault in the first place. It is incredibly sad to see and is why I spend as much time as I can reminding people that they all have a voice, they all have a purpose and a meaning in life.

What I hope “My Beautiful Stutter” will do is to really open the doors to the reality of living with a Stutter for everybody who watches. Stuttering is a topic that gets nowhere near the amount of attention that it truly deserves, so I hope this film will be a great start to the beginning of deconstructing the stigma which surrounds not just Stuttering, but stutterers too.

I, for one, cannot wait to watch this film. Being someone who has a Stutter myself, I feel like I will resonate heavily with the majority of the messages in the film, but also feel like it will be an incredible experience for anybody who has not heard much about Stuttering before in their lives. We are all people, we all think, feel and act differently. Having a Stutter is not something to be ashamed of, it is something to embrace and to be proud of.

As I have said numerous times in this blog, and in many of my other blogs, I have quite a bad Stutter myself, one that has been heavily damaged by the implications of all of the lockdowns, but I have not let it stop me from doing what I want to do with my life. There have been quite a few cases where people have used it against me, but that still has not stopped me from being the person that I want to be in my life.

The film is also directed by Paul Rudd, an incredible actor who has played character such as Ant Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mike Hannigan in Friends, Tim in Dinner for Schmucks and so many more. Paul Rudd is a big supporter of the Stuttering community SAY after reaching out to find out more about Stuttering, when he was playing a character with a Stutter in a play.

If you have not seen this film yet, or would like to find out more, please do visit their website. Due to COVID and the wave of disruption that has been brought with it, all of the viewings for the film are now virtual, but be sure to check it out if you are interested!

That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog, thank you all for reading! What do you think? Have you heard of “My Beautiful Stutter” before? Do you think you are going to try and find out more? Would you be interested in giving it a watch? What do you think about Stuttering and the way it is portrayed in things such as the media? Let me know your thoughts and answers, either in the comments below or through our Facebook page!

Thank you all for reading and I hope you have an amazing day!