I love BBC Four documentaries about paintings, although I realise they are my equivalent of Slow Television, the genre that emerged briefly when Norwegian state TV broadcast a train journey in real time for hours and hours, and “watching paint dry” was useless as a metaphor. You would be forgiven, then, for glazing over at the prospect of yet another genteel tour of oil paintings and country houses, but to miss Dwarfs In Art: A New Perspective because of preconceptions would be a shame, as it offers much more than dry academia and nice scenery.
Richard Butchins’ documentary takes as its starting point representations of dwarfism in art and culture, and uses examples throughout history to challenge prevailing attitudes towards not only dwarves, but people with disabilities across the board. Butchins is not a dwarf, although he is disabled (as a result of childhood polio) and he has mental health issues, he explains, doing a loop around his temples with his finger.
Dwarfism interests him for many reasons; he calls it “a hidden chapter in both the history of art and the history of disability”. He also says that, unlike some disabilities, dwarfism can’t be hidden, and he uses the spectacle of difference to lead him into some fascinating discussions about othering, exploitation and the importance of representation.
Butchins starts in ancient Greece and Rome, examining manuscripts and icons that indicate how dwarves were seen as caricatures, figures of fun, as “a tool for entertainment”. This has, he posits, set a precedent for how people with dwarfism are seen today. He leaps forward to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, then talks to people with dwarfism about how they deal with being called “Mini-Me” by strangers who don’t seem to see the offence in likening them to a “psychopathic baby”. From the Wizard of Oz to Life’s Too Short, Butchins pulls out example after example of dwarves being the butt of the joke.
This democratic approach to art, bringing in films, television and fairytales, with their wild-haired, grotesque monsters that symbolise the darkest sides of human nature, works a treat. Even garden gnomes, imported from Germany, get a look in, as Butchins wonders whether they became popular when dwarves stopped being fashionable accessories in high society and were relegated to porcelain ornaments instead. This may sound brutal, but his candour is as important as his curiosity. As he documents variations on the same story – people turned into entertainment (at best) as a result of their differences – you get the impression that he is quietly seething at this systematic reduction of people to commodities.
There was also a lot to enjoy as we careered towards the modern era. Kristina Gray wrote a children’s book about achondroplasia after realising that her son, who has this form of dwarfism, had few positive images to look up to. Even a doctor, she recalls, told her that her son, then six weeks old, would probably work in the entertainment business. Shocking as this is, it is easy to see why he might have thought that when we are shown how this stereotype has persisted through the ages. The footage and photographs of old freak shows was intriguing, but the archive interview of a man discussing their demise, from around the 1950s, was even more so: he explained that nobody wanted to be part of freak shows any more, because the welfare state meant they were no longer poor enough to need it. An interview with Peter Blake about his fascination with dwarves and freak shows was a respectful discussion from slightly different points of view, on the ethics of an old work called Dwarfs and Midgets. Diane Arbus, so often accused of exploitation for her famous photographs of carnival workers and dwarfs, was treated to a sympathetic analysis for her portraits of lives on the margins.
The overall question seemed to be whether we are moving towards a new perspective, not just in art, but in society as a whole. Butchins is cautiously optimistic. The hour ends with a paean to Peter Dinklage, whose character, Tyrion, in Game of Thrones is not a figure of fun, but a hero of the story. He is, everyone seems to agree, a sign that times are changing.
