Margie Clayman

Last year around this time, I read the story of Lamar Hawkins III. He was a middle school student who according to his mother was an easy target for bullying because of his “stunted growth.” He was bullied so relentlessly that they moved to an entirely different state, but the cruelty continued.

A couple of months before that, another very young man, Jonathon Short-Scaff, committed suicide for the same reason. Relentless bullying targeted at his short stature made him feel so helpless and powerless that he ended up taking his own life.

More recently, Bill Klein, whom you may know from the show The Little Couple, admitted that he has faced depression and thoughts of suicide because he was bullied so badly.

It feels like Little People are unprotected targets, especially when surrounded by other kids who are desperate to look “cool” and “normal.”

The Nomenclature

What is a Little Person? Little People of America posts this definition to their website:

Little People of America (LPA) defines dwarfism as a medical or genetic condition that usually results in an adult height of 4’10” or shorter, among both men and women, although in some cases a person with a dwarfing condition may be slightly taller than that.The average height of an adult with dwarfism is 4’0, but typical heights range from 2’8 to 4’8.

The most common type of dwarfism is called achondroplasia. Some famous people you may have heard of who have or had this kind of dwarfism are Billy Barty, Gary Coleman, Warwick Davis, and Peter Dinklage.

I do not have achondroplasia, but at 4’5, I am what they call a proportionate dwarf. Many people think that it’s ok to call me (and really any Little Person) “midget.” In fact, most people are unaware that this term is highly offensive. Why is it offensive? “Midgets” are often featured in freak shows. That is how various people of short stature are promoted. I’ll let you take it from there.

Why is awareness important?

It seems like every day and certainly every month we are encouraged to mark something new. We have National Pie Day, National Coffee Day…it’s getting kind of ridiculous. Unfortunately, that means some truly legitimate causes that need attention are going to get lost in the shuffle. Still, you might be wondering why there needs to be a Dwarfism Awareness Month. Take a gander at this video from Jon Novick. I’ll wait here for ya.

I’ve had a lot of experiences like this in my own life. I have heard people yelling, “Hey Midget, Hey Midget” as I walked down the street. I have heard kids asking their parents as I stand in line, “Why is she so short?” I have walked by people and have seen them stare.

Big Deal (No Pun Intended)

OK, but everybody gets picked on for something. People who are overweight get bullied. Super tall people get bullied. Why do we need this awareness crap about Little People?

There are a few reasons why I think this is important.

First, people are killing themselves because they are getting bullied over their height. This seems to be more common in boys, but I do not have specific numbers.

Second, people do not seem to know that making fun of Little People, asking rude questions, or otherwise bullying Little People is wrong. There is something inherently funny, for some reason, in picking on Little People. Maybe society in general does not find us threatening so it’s sort of cathartic. I don’t know. But the number of people who are unaware of how offensive some of their comments are is alarming to me.

Third, parents do not seem to know how to educate their children that staring or asking rude questions is wrong. Often, when a child asks, “Why is she so little?” the parent will say something like, “I don’t know honey.” Very seldom does the parent try to hush the child and indicate that saying such things loudly is rude.

Fourth, and based on the most recent factor, Direct TV recently ran an ad on television featuring Randy Moss. The commercial featured a “petite” Randy Moss who just had cable, and at the end of the commercial Randy Moss says, “Don’t be like that Randy Moss,” as they show the “petite” version trying to reach something on a high grocery shelf. The fact that people would a) think this ad is acceptable and b) run it with no qualms is highly disturbing to me. You can read more about that here.

I want people to get educated. I don’t want to hear about any more children taking their lives because parents aren’t teaching kids that making fun of short people and/or Little People is simply wrong.

October is Dwarfism Awareness Month. Please learn a bit more about Little People, and consider if you have ever behaved in a way that might have made someone feel truly small. If you have questions, please ask me. Let’s make this an opportunity to learn.

Image via https://lpa.memberclicks.net/dwarfism-awareness-month

This is a post I would have hoped I would not have to write. Unfortunately, it seems that insensitivity still rules the roost.

If you watch much TV you have probably seen the series of Direct TV ads that feature athletes talking about all of the games they can access with Direct TV. The lesser version of these athletes as presented in the ads just has cable. There is also a version of the ad for regular Direct TV versus cable that features Rob Lowe. Today, however, while already being offended by how putrid my Cleveland Browns were playing, I saw this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnUsScXXBAc

There are two primary issues I have with this ad. The lesser of the two issues is towards the end when “petite Randy Moss” is shown trying to reach something on a top shelf at a grocery store. This may seem funny to some folks, but as a person who has to scale the shelves for pretty much everything I want, I can tell you it is certainly not funny to me. It’s probably also not funny for people who are shorter than me, as many people with achondroplasia are. People in wheelchairs probably don’t find it funny either.

The greater concern I have, however, is the overriding sentiment of the ad. It presents the message that a “petite” version of a person is lesser than a regular-sized person or a tall person like the real Randy Moss. Super-imposing “Don’t be like this me” as they show the petite Randy Moss trying to reach something on the shelf sends the distinct message that little people are a) laughable b) inferior c) something you don’t want to be.

I do not share these concerns on my own behalf. My ultimate worry is for young people who are probably dealing with bullying at school already, just like I did. They may be dealing with self-confidence and self-image issues, just like I did. For boys especially, this ad says that it’s ok to make fun of short people, not to mention Little People, because a celebrity is participating in the joke.

That is what makes this ad unforgivable to me.

It’s easy to make fun of Little People for some reason. Somehow it does not occur to people that dwarf jokes and things like this ad are actually really offensive to people who just might be, well, little. This ad is not ok. It is insensitive, inappropriate, gratuitously foolish, and potentially harmful.

Please join me in asking Direct TV to take this commercial off the air and to apologize for the insensitivity they have shown. Imagine if another minority was portrayed as lesser in such a brazen fashion. The outcry would be palpable. This is not, or should not, be an exception.

There were a lot of reviews of Sonia Friedman’s Hamlet production floating around in the month or so preceding the moment when I would get to see it for myself. I did my best to avoid them. It’s not that I didn’t know how the play ended (spoilers – most of the characters die). It’s that I didn’t want my experience to in any way be biased one way or the other. I like to experience books, plays, movies, and music through my own personal filter, then see if I agree with other folks. Even despite my efforts to avoid the reviews, however, it was hard to avoid the sense that the production was getting dissed a little. Well, I guess that’s what happens when friends and family email you all of the reviews as they get published.

From what I gathered, there was a huge outcry because Friedman’s production actually began, initially, with the famous “to be or not to be” speech. Some Shakespearean purists of course felt this was sacrilege. There were other complaints as well, and from what I could gather they were all along the same lines. “But Shakespeare didn’t do it that way!” Well, Shakespeare also used men to play female roles. Sometimes purity can evolve into close-mindedness if you’re not careful.

Hamlet has always been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I have read or watched renditions of it over the course of my adult life, and each time I experience it I gather something new from it. I suppose this is not revolutionary where Shakespeare is concerned. He’s kind of a big deal, and for good reason. But I have to say that Sonia Friedman’s Hamlet, which I was privileged to attend at London’s Barbican Theater, drove home for me more than any other experience how alone Hamlet’s character truly is. Somehow I was able to see how much of a puppet Ophelia was made to be and why Hamlet had to try to distance himself even from her.

The Cumberbatch Factor

OK, the elephant in the room. Anyone who knows me knows that a large part of the appeal for me in seeing this play was the fact that I would be in the same building, nay the same room, as Benedict Cumberbatch, a man whom I much admire. Truth be known, I figured I would really just be focused on not acting like a teenaged girl during the production (I’m at the age where acting that way is getting increasingly unattractive and unforgivable). If Cumberbatch announced he was going to be reading a phonebook on a stage, I would probably try to go.

But, and this is a big but, his performance as Hamlet was good enough that for most of my time there, I was not enmeshed in the idol worship that I thought would be preeminent in my mind. His interactions with Sian Brooks (Ophelia), Leo Bill (Horatio), Jim Norton (Polonius), Anastasia Hille (Gertrude) and Ciarán Hinds (Claudius) were genuine, engaging, and they all felt real. Indeed, despite all of the attention I’m sure he felt on him, Cumberbatch was able to disappear into the play and into his character. No one could have been more surprised than me that I forgot at times who I was watching on the stage.

Oh, it’s not serious enough!

I suppose a lot of people have rolled their eyes at some of Friedman’s reimagined parts. A lot of people have talked about the clothing. Hamlet goes around in a hoodie for awhile, for example, and Horatio looks like he could have just stepped off the tube. There are scenes where Hamlet does quite silly things which were of course not specifically delineated by Shakespeare, and apparently some people have felt that these parts that stray away from the original perhaps do not show enough respect or are too modern.

The clothing was an interesting player in itself, it’s true. Some characters were in traditional garb while others were not. For me, I did not find it particularly distracting, but upon pondering it, I think it accentuates the timelessness of the story. Sure, not everyone is a prince of Denmark, but many of us have been in situations where we feel like we are crazy because no one seems to notice that which is rank and wrong. Many of the themes of the play are as relevant today as they were 500 years ago. Bringing the characters into the 21st century did not pose a problem for me.

As for the silly parts, sure, some of them may seem over the top to a high-browed scholar, but then these parts of the play also offered a welcome relief from the true feelings of pain and torture that predominated. It was pleasant to be able to chuckle at the exchanges between Hamlet and Polonius, which were played so well. Seeing Hamlet dress up as a toy soldier was unexpected, but Cumberbatch again pulled it off so that you truly felt like you were watching someone who had gone mad.

In short, I greatly enjoyed the production for itself, not just because an actor I admire was in the starring role. It is a testament to all of the players that the production can step over all of the modern day fanfare and draw the audience into Shakespeare’s world. If you happen to be in London between now and the end of October, I highly advise you to check out the play and let me know your review of it.