As a professional actor living with dwarfism, all I could do when I read Peter Dinklage’s critical comments about Disney’s forthcoming live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was nod in agreement. Peter is a much more famous actor than I am, but my disability politics are very similar to his. I am very aware of the importance of representation, and of how few genuine and humanising representations there are of people with dwarfism on our screens and on our stages.
I am so careful about the roles I pick because I know that, if I get it wrong, there will be repercussions for some innocent person with dwarfism just minding their own business. I don’t want what I create as an artist to be used to bring a random person down in the middle of their day. I had “Mini-Me” yelled at me by strangers for years after Austin Powers came out. “Hi-ho, hi-ho,” is regularly hummed or sung at me by passersby. I am filmed and photographed by strangers for who knows what on social media. Most insults are simply regurgitated rubbish that people have picked up from somewhere in the social repertoire of negative and dehumanising media portrayals.
