Dwarfism and the ethics of humour
Disability Arts Cymru event Friday 24th July 2020
I was asked to speak at an event, along with Dr Erin Pritchard, who I believe instigated it, and Tammy Reynolds. There are two paragraphs explaining the topic below and then my response.
Please note - there are references to depression and suicide in this piece.
Dwarfism and the ethics of humour
"Why is it that people who are shorter than the ‘average’ person, people born with a variety of conditions under the medical banner of ‘dwarfism’ are so often seen as the butt of the joke, an easy target to make fun of. As children many will experience bullying, some to such an extent that they become suicidal.
Yet, there is an industry that exploits people with dwarfism to act in shows such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, once being doubly exploited as they were filmed for a TV show about the seven cast members living in a house together as if that’s especially interesting to watch people go up and down stairs, open fridges and even cook their own dinner. It’s a strange phenomenon, no other group of disabled people are treated in quite this way, as the accepted objects of comedy and derision."
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Simon's response
Thank you to Tammy Reynolds and Dr Erin Pritchard
Hello my name is Simon Minty, I too have dwarfism. I wear several hats - I run training courses on employment. I co-host two podcasts BBC Ouch and The Way We Roll with Phil Friend. I sit on a a number of artistic and business boards.
Most relevant today, I am a comedy producer of Abnormally Funny People, a collective of comedians with disabilities. I have done stand up but not so much now. I set up Abnormally Funny People with a comedian friend Steve Best in 2005 as I felt disability and comedy was under represented.
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| A screenshot of me with the Disability Arts Cymru logo behind, mic muted. |
Back then, there were a few comedians who were disabled but not loads. Plus disability and comedy was an area that in the 80s and 90s comedians shied away from as just too delicate or could be seen as ‘punching down’.
Fifteen years later, if you go to Edinburgh for the festival you can see 20 comedians doing their own shows, all with different disabilities. It’s not exactly a genre but there’s representation on the live circuit. And for some reason a lot of people with cerebral palsy do stand up!
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I do think when it comes to humour and dwarfism there is an extra element. On Family Guy they did a joke close to saying ‘little people are gods comedy gift to us’. The Simpsons had a gag about a reality game show called ‘midget or dwarf, you decide'. Ricky Gervais was progressive but slowly forgot to let the butt of his jokes get their own back at some point. I love these shows and comedians but I wince when I see these jokes at the expensive of people like me.
I’m a middle-aged, relatively confident in my own skin and reasonably happy human yet being on the end of such jokes makes me feel uncomfortable. I *think* and I have no evidence for this, the public can still feel sorry for, or have pity, for some disabled people. They assume it's difficult for them or they associate disability with tragedy and so on.
But they don’t feel sorry for people with dwarfism. It’s something else, it’s funny, or strange or other. They can relate to being deaf, using a wheelchair, having depression. But not to dwarfism. Maybe Tourettes is another that falls in to this category?
I hope that’s not too clumsy, it’s a personal observation and needs research.
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Abnormally Funny People are part of the comedy landscape. One of the comedians is Tanyalee Davis. She is short too and uses her physicality in her comedy. She is an absolute barn stormer of a comedian, professional and top notch. She can take the roof off a venue. She will make a soldier blush, which feels like a common phrase but I might have just made it up. She is also the only comedian in my time as producer that I have had to speak to about her material.
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| Some of Abnormally Funny People 2015, pic Steve Best |
As producer, I have a philosophy that the comedians do whatever material they want, so long as it works and is funny. Talk about disability if you want, don’t if you don’t want to. Just be as funny as you can be. However, Tanyalee used the M word which is offensive to me and many other people with dwarfism. I sat down with Tanyalee and said when she’s with Abnormally Funny People she can’t use that word.
She rightly pushed back explaining she too is affected by dwarfism plus it’s a funnier word. It gets a bigger reaction. She’s right in the comedic sense but I said with us, it’s not negotiable. She’s been great and not said it with us. Reclaiming a word is cool, but it can confuse
and infer that it’s acceptable. I don’t want people to think it’s ok to say.
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I have some control with Abnormally Funny People. But not over everyone. Nor should I.
And truth is I start to feel awkward about this topic because we start to venture in to judging people’s lives, people’s work, what people chose to do. And in recent years, it is a choice as no one with dwarfism is forced in to entertainment. There are many other jobs we can do and many other jobs we do do. I feel uncomfortable as we’re venturing in to measures to restrict individual freedom. I don’t like censoring people. Even people who do performances which I don’t like, they can still be nice people, they have families and they have goodness and kindness.
At the same time, there are people who make a living in a way that can demean me. They make my life practically more difficult every day when I step out of my house. I wish they wouldn’t do it. I am fundamentally a liberal so this makes it awkward for me.
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My hesitation comes from experience. Many years ago I made a television documentary about a male stripping group called The Half Monty. I’ll admit it’s a cracking name but that was the best bit about them in my eyes. I wanted to explore what the public felt when watching short men (not buff men by the way) taking their clothes off and as I saw, being laughed at, picked up, patted on the head. I wanted to ask if this was an acceptable piece of entertainment in modern society? Despite it being my idea the production ran away from me. It flipped and started to ask if I was being a misery.
“Why can’t people live and let live.”
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| Simon, leaning forward on a stage, with Abnormally Funny People logo behind |
I recall being interviewed straight after being asked to watch a live performance of The Half Monty. I knew some of the performers. I got very upset as the director abandoned the premise of the doc, suggesting the show wasn’t the problem, I had the problem. The final documentary had 24 minutes of the strippers laughing, being patronised and one minute of me, darkly lit, saying this doesn’t feel great and to recognise there are consequences.
Thankfully, amazingly, television reviewers at the time supported me. Normally tough critics like Victor Lewis Smith and AA Gill saw my point and were critical of the documentary being biased.
They too asked why this was considered acceptable entertainment?
But I decided from then on, rather than take pot shots at people doing something that I didn’t like, I would work with people who I thought were doing interesting, progressive work.
I wanted the good stuff to be become greater, more prevalent than the stuff that demeaned people like me. Eventually the good would 'dwarf' the demeaning.
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When I saw the introduction for today’s talk I winced when it said about the impact of negative and mocking portrayal leading to mental ill health or even suicide.
I’m one of those people who plays things down. I look at facts, at evidence, not screaming or attention grabbing. Despite my wincing, I paused and thought harder and recognised something I didn't want to.I do know of a young man with dwarfism who recently took his own life. I can’t say it was because of one show or one joke but I do know he must have felt it really tough to be who he was in this world. In fact I can give you half a dozen without thinking too hard. And that is the worst case, the end game. It doesn't include a lot of people who face a mental struggle with the level of inappropriate attention. This can be hugely impactful on people’s lives.
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| Screenshot of 17 of around 50 who attended. |
Should it be a free for all? Anything goes?
Should there be better support in childhood and adulthood for those with dwarfism?
Should the focus, as I have chosen, be to create better balanced entertainment?
How do we make the world understand some treatment of people with dwarfism is horrific and damaging?
How do we make the world understand that we have a disability like someone who is deaf or uses a wheelchair who you would not dream of demeaning in that way?
I don’t want pity, I want respect.
A friend has recently adopted a baby who has achondroplasia. I want to know that this child’s life will be full and interesting. The child will have some difficult moments but everyone does. But they shouldn’t have to turn on the television or watch a theatre show or be in their local pub, and flinch because someone like them is being ridiculed based purely on their physical height.
END
Disability Arts Cymru, the organisers, are hoping to allow you to re-watch the event on demand. If you're a good editor, do offer them your help! It's not ready yet (date of posting the blog) so please be patient. In the meantime, you have my talk above although I would add, it's different as I ad-libbed and adapted when live plus I've adjusted the text for this blog.
