This is the second time I’ve had to write about Peter Dinklage and his cry baby histrionics. Now that the man isn’t working on Game of Thrones, he’s become absolutely insufferable. He already was, we just didn’t have to hear about it all the time. Last time he was written about, he was calling fans of Game of Thrones racists for not liking the show’s final season, especially the final episode.
“[Fans] wanted the pretty white people to ride off into the sunset together. By the way, it’s fiction. There’s dragons in it. Move on!” He proclaimed.
Well, how ironic is it that Dinklage is now crying about dwarves being used in a reboot of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Aren’t we supposed to be going for inclusivity, Peter? Is there something wrong with portraying “little people” in a film? Especially if that film is based off an old fairy tale? Dinklage thinks it’s backwards, but really, it makes me wonder if he’s not just miffed that they didn’t ask him to play Grumpy.
“You’re still making that f—ing backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together? What the f— are you doing, man? Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough,” Dinklage said on podcast.
According to CNET, Disney responded to Dinklage’s comments. “We are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community,” a Disney spokesperson told CNET in an emailed statement. “We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period.”
This is not the first attempt by Disney to remake the film that served as the world’s first, full-length animated movie. They did something of a remake in the TV series Once Upon A Time, and 2012’s Mirror, Mirror, which starred Lilly Collins (Phil Collins’ daughter) as Snow White and Julia Roberts as The Evil Queen. The movie was panned, which it should have been because it was pretty awful, but it should be noted that all 7 dwarfs were acted by men with actual “growth restrictions”.
Peter Dinklage wasn’t in that rendition either.
Other movies and television shows have simply used actors of “normal” heights to play the dwarfs, like in 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman. They simply made the characters appear smaller with the same camera tricks used in The Lord of The Rings trilogy, as well as The Hobbit trilogy.
Regardless of whether or not Dinklage is just being a whiny little baby, I have always wondered if the dwarfs in Snow White are truly little people or rather the fantasy species depicted in thousands of fictional stories the world over! After all, they do all live together and seem to be brothers. They work in mines, which was pretty common in Tolkien’s stories. Not to mention, there are probably a dozen different species in the world of fiction that have height or growth disabilities.
Gnomes, Halflings, Trolls, Elfs, and countless more have all been depicted as “little people”, both in the mythologies of Scandinavian and Nordic peoples, as well as in fictional worlds. Should the movie Legend never be remade? What about Labyrinth? Is it time to throw out all depictions of short statured people and just pretend that they don’t exist? Are we getting back to that theory of lets erase all people of a specific type in the name of inclusivity?
That’s what Peter sounds like he’s advocating, which is utterly ridiculous. Erasing Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, or the native American girl on the Land O Lake’s butter didn’t help represent the cultures they came from. It erased them. The act of removing people of color or of various disabilities from products is an act of racism.
Not everyone likes the way “their people” are portrayed in film. Dinklage does not have to like the Grimm Brother’s story of Snow White or her seven short companions. He doesn’t have to like that people hated his television series, and he doesn’t have to be in a show just because it includes a Dwarf in a stereotypical fashion. I will point out his roles in Elf and Marvel’s Infinity War, which both mocked and celebrated those who have a form of dwarfism as completely hypocritical, though.
Is it only okay when he’s been cast to play a short person?
Either way, get off your soap box, Dinklage. This can’t possibly be good for your career.
This story syndicated with permission from For the Love of News
"*" indicates required fields
