Caroline, I couldn't agree more with the view of film as one the most important artforms reflecting British (or any nation's) culture. I've never been in any doubt about film's impact on culture nor its potential to refine and define, for better and worse. To pick up on your reference to 'The King's Speech', I'd respectfully suggest that, aside from raising interest in stammering, a more discrete significance in the film (and the crux of why this debate is so very important), is revealed in a brief aside commenting on Hitler's mastery of words. From the Cultural Impact Report, quoting Clifford Geertz: Culture is ‘a system of meanings embodied in symbols, which provides people with a frame of reference to understand reality and animate their behaviour’. I'd question the notion of Culture being a system to understand reality by proposing that: Culture is the system of meanings embodied in symbols by which bodies of authority define and maintain a localised perception of reality... replete with a frame of reference devised to animate (and control) behaviour. The most potent of those embodying symbols are words, especially the carefully ordered and persuasively delivered collection of words we call stories... and speeches. In the beginning was the word – anyone (church, crown, state, corporation) desiring to define and control 'reality' will insist on controlling the 'words' we're allowed to share, including those words that become stories and are told on screen in sound and image. The history of control of words and story is as well known as the fight to free them. A fight we've come so far in winning. Today, we quite rightly take enormous pride in the freedom of expression our Culture has achieved. We can take just as much pride in the skill with which we express that freedom. However, I do fear that pride has led to a dangerous complacency about the power of story and storytelling. A complacency that fails to remember the established and innate power of words (and image) to define our perception of reality. A complacency about film and its place in the mass of media. Today, in a privileged and 'successful' Culture (such as ours), it's all too easy to forget the significance of the stories we tell and the active purpose those stories serve. It's all too easy to dismiss the power that underlies even the most mundane or inane stories we indulge for entertainment. It's easy and potentially destructive to forget that stories are never just entertainment. Stories are the symbolic means by which we define the reality our behaviour will create. It's even easier to forget that the world of glamour from where most stories emerge is a story as well. Today the hands in control of our stories are (primarily) those of the market. As a result, our system of meaning is now (primarily) defined by the market's perception of reality. The behavioural framework this offers, the sense of reality we work to create, is now (primarily) devised to suit the needs and the ends of the market. Whether this happened by chance or design, whether or not such a situation was intended or is wanted, the market must recognise the full responsibility it has... acquired. I, as I'm sure many others, would like to think and hope that recognising the cultural impact of film and media in general will lead to a new approach, and responsibility, taken by the gatekeepers towards the stories we're allowed to tell and perhaps also, the world from which they're predominantly told. The cultural impact of story and story ownership, past and present, is a key theme in a (very entertaining) script I recently submitted for development funding. Without knowing of Geertz at the time of drafting, the script (in part) addresses the earlier Geertz quote along the lines of my earlier amendment. The aim of the script also reflects my feeling that film will remain overwhelmingly subject to 'safe' economic dictates. The development funding would cover a re-write to ensure commercial viability. In such a climate, rather than expecting the gatekeepers to address the responsibilities of story, the film sets out to raise thought provoking audience debate about the power, purpose and consequences of the stories they support. Sincerely John Le Brocq