It sounds like you think that it’s important for someone to be accurate in what they’re talking about, and that we should look askance at someone’s opinion when they’re complaining about things but they get details wrong. Is that the gist of what you’re saying?
Well, kind of, since his whole argument seems to be that character details are important. I can’t really get behind this, since to me there is a clear distinction between non-human fairy tale dwarves and real-life dwarfs.
It’s like the leader of an Arab state complaining about Disney’s Aladdin because the Jafar character is unsympathetic. It’s not about you. To be fair, I suspect Dinklage has dealt with decades of being accosted in supermarkets by children yelling “OMG a gnome!” or whatever.
Well, six normal-sized peasants and one dwarf for posterity.
I haven’t seen those movies but looking at the plot summaries, they don’t appear to be particularly bad sterotypical portrayals of little people in fact reading the wikipedia entry I would have no idea that a little person was cast in that role. In fact, little person as evil blackmailer is quite the opposite of the stereotype.
I thought “dwarf” was actually the preferred term? “Little person” seems far more insulting to me.
Of course, Dinklage is going off rather limited information:
- The original cartoon, and
- Very little else aside from the news that Disney is remaking it.
For that matter, I am not convinced we have heard everything he had to say; the quotes seem suspiciously carved up to me. It is wholly possible Dinklage also said “Now, mind you, they could be planning to really update the story and portray the dwarves, if they are in the movie at all, as real characters; I don’t know, but I hope so.” But nuance doesn’t make good clickbait, amirite?
I may be the victim of the revolving euphamism door. I know that for a while “little person” was the recommended term but that was a while ago and it may have changed.
Well, yes. Although that does not invalidate his whole argument, he seems to think that:
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Those are “little people” or whatever the current term is ???, not mythological creatures
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They live in a nasty cave, rather than a pleasant cottage in the forest.
So it is not details, it is the crux.
So, what IS his argument then? That people may confuse mythological creatures with real world “little people” as they share a common name sometime? The "dwarves’ here are stereotyped? So is the Queen, the Prince, the forest animals and Snow herself. It’s a freaken cartoon, everyone is a cartoon stereotype.
The 7 mythological creatures are not shown in a particularly bad light. They care for Snow, they fight vs evil, they are hard workers, they are not greedy.
I think it’s important to recognise what a cultural shadow the story of Snow White casts over the perception of little people. It is not just about the Disney movie and remake.
For many the first thing that springs to mind when they hear the word dwarf is ‘Snow White’, not real human beings. The roles of the dwarfs in the story epitomise the types of roles offered to little people for decades, if not centuries, where their only avenue of gainful employment was often as freaks and objects of ridicule.
OB
There is some truth to this but in the specific case of Snow White, they do seem to have real jobs. Of course, they are not “dwarfs” in the sense of a person with a genetic condition that causes them to be unusually small; they are dwarfs in the sense of German mythology, a legendary sort of person that lives underground and mines, and is usually possessed of great strength and has access to items with magical powers. (Tolkein’s dwarves are of the same origin.)
Conflation of mythical creatures with humans that happen to be described with the same word is obviously something one should be very careful of and if the Disney of 2022 rolls out insulting stereotypes that would be… well, a very shocking failure of judgment.
There’s a current TV show called Little People, Big World about the lives of a family most of whom are little people. Considering that the two stars also have Producer credits, I’d have to assume it’s their preferred term.
Sorry, I didn’t phrase that very well. I meant the ‘rôle’ of the dwarfs in an actor-y sense, not the role they play within the story.
In the UK at least, when you say ‘Snow White’, many, if not most, people will not think of the Disney film but of the story’s continuing popularity as an annual pantomime (basically a stage show, but one with particular traditions/expectations etc). For many little people, following a career as ‘entertainers’, the role of the dwarfs in Snow White the pantomime, would have been just an extension of the sorts of roles (clowns, freaks etc) available to them at other times, but in a more popular/mainstream form of entertainment.
Dinklage of course, being N American, may not have that particular experience, but it’s still hard to see how anyone can deny that Snow White, beyond Disney, is a cornerstone in the popular cultural perception of dwarfs/dwarfism.
OB
I found the podcast in question. I haven’t listened to it yet, but the host says the F word literally about five times in the first 30 seconds. “WTF” is the actual name of the show, after all.
So you have to consider the context. This is basically like Howard Stern, or something.
Does anybody know who the idiot was that first decided to name real people with a medical condition after a mythical creature? We don’t call Sammy Davis Jr. or Sandy Duncan cyclopses.
I disagree. Is it really a problem for actual real-life dwarfs that strangers assume they have ties to the mining industry? As an example, there are people who really do assume that Black people are athletic, have rhythm, like watermelon, etc. A typical story is a Black student at a White high school who is invited to join the choral group because, being Black, she must be good at singing.
I have no doubt that Peter Dinklage has been subjected to all sorts of micro aggressions, stereotyping, and prejudice because he’s a dwarf. But I find it hard to believe anyone ever asked him about copper mining, assuming he’d be knowledgeable because of his genetic condition.
As a result of this discussion, I have an image in my mind of a wonderful movie that Disney could make. It would center around @Pleonast’s idea of outcasts joining forces and would sensitively portray individuals who for a variety of reasons didn’t fit in. Maybe one of the 7 would be a literal dwarf, another would be albino, and so on, but they’d all be fully developed characters, as would Snow White. The gender stereotyping would be cast aside (maybe instead of an evil stepmom jealous of Snow White’s beauty, Snow White had to escape because her father was threatened by her intellect, and the step mother would be an ally who assisted Snow White to return to claim her rightful place as ruler).
I know, not happening. It would be a fantastic movie, though.
I expect he finds it highly amusing every time someone starts whistling ‘hi ho, hi ho’. 
It seems from over here that for most of the last millennium, in English at least, the term dwarf was used almost exclusively to mean a person (or sometimes an object) of diminutive size. The reintroduction of the term in English to mean a mythical creature is possibly all down to Tolkien. But that is precisely why many little people no longer use the term.
OB
Apparently, the word comes from the proto-Germanic word dwergaz meaning the mythological creature more than 2000 years ago. By all rights the word “dwarf” should be considered derogatory when applied to real people which I suspect is how it was meant to be taken for most of the past millennium.
Never mind, I responded to something that wasn’t actually written.
So, given his statement that they live in a cave, and your using quotation marks to quote him saying they “live in a mine,” we should look askance at your opinion, correct?
You also completely misunderstand his point, but your own petard is hoisting you up a bit here, so let’s recognize that before we get into how thoroughly you are misunderstanding the key point.
Well, I wouldn’t really say WTF is anything like Howard Stern, but yes, a lot of people are ignoring context here. They’re acting like Dinklage held a press conference or took out a full-page ad in the NYT or is suing Disney. Instead it’s a couple sentencea out of an hour long interview getting completely blown up.