1 files changed, 2 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/rest_framework/utils/formatting.py b/rest_framework/utils/formatting.py
index a2a5609c..4bec8387 100644
--- a/rest_framework/utils/formatting.py
+++ b/rest_framework/utils/formatting.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ from __future__ import unicode_literals
 
 from django.utils.html import escape
 from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe
-from rest_framework.compat import apply_markdown
+from rest_framework.compat import apply_markdown, smart_text
 import re
 
 
@@ -24,11 +24,6 @@ def _remove_leading_indent(content):
     Remove leading indent from a block of text.
     Used when generating descriptions from docstrings.
     """
-    try:
-        content = content.decode('utf-8')
-    except (AttributeError, UnicodeEncodeError):
-        pass  # the string should keep the default 'ascii' encoding in
-              # Python 2.x or stay a unicode string in Python 3.x
     whitespace_counts = [len(line) - len(line.lstrip(' '))
                          for line in content.splitlines()[1:] if line.lstrip()]
 
@@ -68,7 +63,7 @@ def get_view_description(cls, html=False):
     Return a description for an `APIView` class or `@api_view` function.
     """
     description = cls.__doc__ or ''
-    description = _remove_leading_indent(description)
+    description = _remove_leading_indent(smart_text(description))
     if html:
         return markup_description(description)
     return description