Thoughts On Midgets and Small Men

The fall out from my inbox continues regarding my endorsement yesterday of the Fox program "The Littlest Groom." I suppose I can understand the reaction of most people at the premise of the show. A 4'5" bachelor gets his pick over dozens of pint sized paramours. All of whom are willing to do anything to be the special pick, and all for the amusement of us regularly sized folks. It's shock/garbage TV! Lowering our country to another level of mass consumer depravity! THIS is why they hate us!

It was my visceral reaction too (except that last part). But I chose to sample the program anyway. Why? Because I'm an open minded person. More to the point, I'm a person with a TV in my office positioned too far away to reach from my chair and the remote control is busted and this show was on right after Seinfeld, so on it played.

It did seem sick and wrong at first. But on a superficial level, watching a group of midgets in cowboy hats line dance and then play golf all in order to get laid is Must See TV. At one point Fox even made them all ascend a spiral stair case and a few of the REALLY short ones couldn't lift their legs up high enough to make it up a single step without jumping. I wonder if the Emmy committee was watching that part?

On another, more serious level (BELCH!), it must be said that seeing really short people is a curiosity and on some elemental level, you're not sure if they are the same as regular people. But this show humanized these people far beyond their typical portrayal in the media (when they’re portrayed at all). Yes it was embarrassing for the midgets to be seen dehumanizing themselves in a dating contest show. But all dating contest shows are dehumanizing to some degree. As a viewer you're embarrassed for the regular sized people that appear on them too. In fact, that's the only reason to watch a dating contest show--to laugh at the ineptitude of others. So why can’t midgets be subjected to this equal treatment. Is watching them make fools of themselves to get a date any more humiliating then reading things like this. Don't they have all the same needs, desires, and dreams as the rest of us? Of course they do, and that's the conclusion I was left with after watching the show.

"The Littlest Groom" reminded me of the much reviled by the cultural elite Howard Stern Show. He regularly brings on a menagerie of midgets, drunks, and midget-drunks (among others) ostensibly for the purpose of ridicule. And that is what they initially get. But over time, as these unfortunate characters get more and more exposure, inevitably their humanity shines through. Through the magnifying glass of egalitarian humor, you learn more about them, their conditions, and their lives. Thus true understanding is achieved and compassion results. It happens all the time, for Stern himself and for his listeners.

Compare this approach to the condescending and agenda-driven method employed by the mainstream media. For example, Nick Coleman, who's an extremely wealthy newspaper writer in town. A guy born to privilege, which he's enjoyed his whole life. And his editorial mission is to find unfortunates in the community, drape them in the veil of unqualified nobility, frame them as helpless victims of middle America, and tell the rest of us how awful we are because we don't care as much as Nick Coleman. His column today is about a homeless guy who died after setting himself on fire while camped under a highway downtown. And guess what--it's your fault:

Sam was 38 and had three strikes against him before you even consider that he was born with developmental problems: American Indian, alcoholic and gay. A triple burden in a society where it's not easy for someone with any one of those identities to fit in.

That sentence has the triple crown of calling the readers racists, homophobes, and uncaring for developmentally disabled alcoholics. That's what Nick Coleman's America looks like. But that's not the only thing that caused this poor man's death. The key reason:

Only one difference between the homeless and the rest of us is important, Nilsson said. The homeless don't have homes. "Labeling them makes the homeless seem like they are from a strange planet," she said. "But they are like everyone else. Whatever you find in 'homed' people, you will find in homeless people. The homeless are everything the 'homed' people are. Except rich."

But YOU’RE rich Nick Coleman. And you care more than us and this guy still died. How does that happen?

I think a clue is unintentionally revealed earlier in his column, while he's still establishing the nobility angle of the deceased:

...he often talked about going back to the rez and living with a sister. But that he had emotional bonds among the ranks of the homeless and that he couldn't leave his street family.

From that it sounds to me like he did have an option other than living on the public streets. He could have lived with a family member in a house (which is what most people would decide to do). But instead he CHOSE to live with his "street family" instead. And now he's dead because of it. I feel sorry for him and everything, but tell me again why this is my fault?

Alienating the readers through guilt-ridden finger pointing, selfishly inflating his own ego as a compassionate liberal, while at the same time not offering any constructive solutions to anything. Compared to reading the Star Tribune, all things considered, we'd all be better off watching competitive midget dating.