This past summer the average-size mother of a dwarf friend said to me, “This is an exciting time to be a dwarf.” She may have never had a stranger throw a coin into her coffee cup, but she was right. Many dwarfs, including me, were anxiously anticipating a minor trend of pop-cultural dwarf-positiveness.
Then in December hundreds of dwarfs received an invitation to audition for a new reality series: The Littlest Groom, an Average Joe-type show from the Fox brain trust in which one male dwarf would look for love among 12 dwarf women and 3 of average size. A friend of mine was horrified that I might consider auditioning. Another friend, whose pastimes include voice impersonation, advised me in his best Don Juan DeMarco to introduce myself to the audition committee this way: “Hello, my name is Gaaaareeee, the waaarld’s greaaaatest dwaaaarf laahhver.”
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What’s wrong with golfing? The men of the first Average Joe went golfing. I’ve been known to play golf myself–for fun, not comic relief. Many of the bachelors, bachelorettes, and blind-daters of reality television have danced in front of the camera at one time or another. Like The Littlest Groom, their shows have all been ridiculed, but no one cried exploitation then. People like Richmond may feel more uncomfortable about The Littlest Groom than they do about, say, Big Brother because watching the Fox show forces them to stare at dwarfs, and everyone knows that staring at a dwarf in public is wrong.
I say let them stay: it would do average-size people good to get used to the idea of dwarfs. They’re so much more scared of dwarf exploitation than I am. I’m thankful for The Littlest Groom. I’m glad the folks at Fox saw fit to give dwarfs the same right to look like idiots and bimbos that people on other reality shows get. And maybe now people on the street will stop mistaking me for one of Jerry Springer’s frequent dwarf guests and start mistaking me for Glen, who, like I said, is much better looking.
