“He’s Adorable”: Representations of People with Dwarfism in Family Guy

Abstract


 
 
 This paper examines how people with dwarfism1 are represented in the American animated sitcom Family Guy. Using autocritical discourse analysis, this paper reflects on my own response, as a person with dwarfism, to scenes featuring characters with dwarfism. Whilst the show has been criticised for its controversial humour, this paper argues that the show actually exposes negative social attitudes that people with dwarfism encounter from other members of the public while refraining from encouraging stereotypes of dwarfism. The paper builds upon Fink’s (2013) suggestion that animated comedies are a source of both humour and social commentary. This paper suggests that Family Guy has the potential to challenge social attitudes towards people with dwarfism and the way they are perceived in society through directing the humour towards those who mock them as opposed to those with dwarfism. However, how the scenes are interpreted depends on the audience, which can be related to Hall’s (1993) reception theory.
 
 

Beyond ‘heightism’ and ‘height premium’: An anthropology and sociology of human stature

“…In looking more explicitly at human stature and critically engaging with the idea of heightism, one productive starting point are works that look at how people live with height differences. Across 4 decades, some of these works looked at dwarfism in general (Ablon, 1981(Ablon, , 1990Pritchard, 2020Pritchard, , 2021Pritchard, , 2023; (Adelson, 2005;Lima, 2019); others focused on particular conditions such as achondroplasia (Cortinovis et al, 2011;Gollust et al, 2003), Turner syndrome (Radkowska-Walkowicz, 2019;Radkowska-Walkowicz & Maciejewska-Mroczek, 2023; Silver-Russell syndrome (Ballard et al, 2019), and spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia tarda (Ruyani et al, 2012). Shakespeare et al (2010) underscore the liminality experienced by people with these conditions, who are at once living "fairly normal lives" but also face medical problems, employment disadvantages, and stigma, as one of their informants describe (Ibid:26): I've gone through life trying to make a joke, but I can't stand being patronised, I can't stand being patted on the head, you pat children and dogs on the head.…”

“…Not me… I fight hard to be dignified and I fall flat on my face every time! While earlier scholarship tended to emphasize how shortness functioned as a "crucial symbolic difference in a society where tall stature is prized" (Ablon, 1990, p. 880), more recent works have emphasized the interrelated, embodied social and spatial barriers -from harmful cultural representations to "a built environment created for the average-sized person"-that disable individuals (Pritchard, 2021; see also Ktenidis, 2022;Harvey, 2023).…”

“…In looking more explicitly at human stature and critically engaging with the idea of heightism, one productive starting point are works that look at how people live with height differences. Across 4 decades, some of these works looked at dwarfism in general (Ablon, 1981, 1990; Pritchard, 2020, 2021, 2023); (Adelson, 2005; Lima, 2019); others focused on particular conditions such as achondroplasia (Cortinovis et al., 2011; Gollust et al., 2003), Turner syndrome (Radkowska‐Walkowicz, 2019; Radkowska‐Walkowicz & Maciejewska‐Mroczek, 2023; Silver‐Russell syndrome (Ballard et al., 2019), and spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia tarda (Ruyani et al., 2012). Shakespeare et al.…”

“…Criticizing the positivist epistemology of anthropometry, Hamraie calls for “challenging this norm through designs that include a range of bodies” in what she calls a ‘new materialist practice’ (n.p.). As the range of scholarship shows in this section shows, such efforts will have to attend to the ways in which height is simultaneously a symbolic attribute and a “socio‐spatial” experience (Pritchard, 2021).…”

“…Conversely, it is worth asking how the scholarship can contribute towards ending height discrimination. Arguably, the very act of interrogating the given‐ness of heightism can pave the way for efforts to address it, but some scholars – many of whom identify with their interlocutors in terms of their own stature – have put forward more explicit calls that can inform or inspire a more engaged scholarship, such as embracing more inclusive design (Pritchard, 2021), holding biomedical actors accountable (Cohen & Cosgrove, 2009), pursuing legal remedies (Rosenberg, 2009), or raising awareness and representation (Kimhi, 2020; Osensky, 2017).…”