Ok, let’s talk Little Women: Dallas for a moment. When I first heard of the Little Women series, I instantly thought exploitation and dehumanization and acquitted the show to a subtype of reality television I attempt to avoid like the plague – ones that target and objectify a minority culture for a sport like spectator viewership.
A friend watched the first couple episodes and had told me about a hierarchy of dwarfism in the little people community and my internal voyeuristic curiosity had peaked. So far, we really only see little people in Hollywood media playing roles of borderline demeaning humility in satirized comedic capacities. Roles such as; Verne Troyer who played “Mini Me” in Austin Powers, Tony Cox “Marcus” from Bad Santa, Jason Acuña in Jackass and Martin Klebba in Pirates of the Caribbean and Scrubs.
I started to consider that maybe I had been viewing little people’s roles in film and television the wrong way – perhaps because I was foreign to this community I had internalized and perceived their roles as such because I was simply ignorant to this group of people. What if reality television based around an oppressed and relatively ignored community could have positive benefits such as bringing about awareness and normalizing a community that has unique qualities to offer that thus far have been overlooked and pushed to borders of the page?
Long story short: I watched the entire two seasons over a course of a few weeks (I have that terrible habit of letting the television run while I do homework) and ultimately think that the show was partly disgraceful and majorly predatory considering a multitude of layers including; the age of the girls (all barely under 21 and some under) and the sensitive content that comes along with this age, the sexualized and racialized undertones which at times were at the forefront of the episodes there to purely stimulate drama and chaos and the disrespectful portrayal of those in the little people community. Hollis Andrews, who was going to be one of the first in Little People: LA and eventually walked away from the series due to her belief in the mistreatment of little people in Hollywood, and I have to say I 100% agree with her stance.
Maybe I’m not the only one tired of seeing one person of color in an entire series of white people who in her first appearance in episode 4 starts an all-out brawl of little and average size people and isn’t even in the opening sequence, credits or thumbnails and happens to be at a much significantly older age then the others. Plus, isn’t this show in Dallas? I find it highly unrealistic to have to an entire show based in Dallas sans of color in the cast. Throughout the rest of the episodes, Brichelle Humphrey makes appearances usually to start and create drama and even at times appears “uninvited” to events with the others and it just screams, “Producers, we need more views – where’s the angry black women?” Way too racially stereo-typed for my preference and again, obviously staged for drama.
One last major bone to pick with this series – the sexualization of young women with dwarfism in the sensitive and difficult “coming of age” stage of their lives. You have Bri and Emily who are known as “Left Cheek” and “Right Cheek” who make their living twerking at clubs because as a society, we clearly have a fetish for twerking and what’s more enticing than twerking – little people with big butts doing it. Now, don’t get me wrong – I love the idea that these women love their bodies and want to show it, I completely support that. However, I don’t like that throughout this show these women were pigeon hold to the idea that that’s their only talent or their only way to make money. I would have loved to see self-discovery encouraged more throughout this and can imagine how difficult that is when you have a nation encouraging you to shake your ass in out of a perverse interest.
Another concept of overt sexualization throughout this series is Caylea (who is the youngest and only 20 during the first episode) and her struggles with relationships and love. Her dad, which I can see as only his love for her, has clearly implanted the idea that little people are fetishized in the average sized world and that the average size men romantically interested in her are only interested in her because of that. I can relate to an extent because I am 5’1” and have experienced this nature of the male species to be obsessed with petite women so I can only imagine that she experiences that as well, only tenfold.
However, I would have loved to see her friends step in and support her more throughout this difficult phase, or see the internet step up and bring awareness and support to those who experience this unfortunate yet true phenomenon of the heterosexual male and his obsession with tiny and the fear that is culturally engrained in small women’s’ minds that men prey on them and only want them to fulfill some fantasy of theirs. Caylea wasn’t the only example of this throughout the series. Our cultural fascination, obsession even, with tiny was in the backdrop of all these women’s experiences and was hardly even touched upon.
My guess is that I’m not the only that agrees to these concepts as investors have opted out of investing in another season and Little People: Dallas had a short-winded fame of two seasons, which was really one season broken into two. I wish these young women the best in the rest of their endeavors.
Desiree Lindsay 