little people, BIG world

I'm going to get a little non-PC, so those of you who might be overly sensitive to such things may want to take a pass on this post. Actually, I shouldn't be called to task for this. I place the blame entirely and squarely where it belongs...on TLC (that'd be The Learning Channel, not Tender Loving Care).

TLC has developed an insatiable need to "educate" the American populace via what might well be considered exploitive and sensationalist tactics. Show me where, for instance, one might consider "The Man with Exploding Arms," "The Girl with Two Faces," "The 1,100 Pound Woman" or "I am My Own Twin" to be purely scientific titles inviting sincere, open and understanding dialogue.

But I digress.

Today's non-P.C. topic revolves around the Roloff family, who (if you've been cruising past TLC) you will know as the family on "Little People, Big World." LPBW being the most sensitive title I've seen in a good long while on TLC.

The Roloff family consists of "little people" Mom and Dad, Sharon and Matt, twins Zach and Jeremy (one of whom is a "little person" and the other, an "average sized" person) and a couple of other "average size" kids who are kind of just along for the ride.

I watched a couple of episodes one day (it being in my nature to check out exploitive TV and all), and discovered that while they are not "just like my family" (as TLC promises), they aren't different enough to justify my attention...aside from the whole dwarf thing, of course.

Father Matt is an overbearing, somewhat obnoxious small man with a narrow mind. All he needs is a wife-beater and some beer and he'd make a damn good redneck. Which is interesting, because as near as I can figure, he comes from normal people (and I actually don't mean that tongue-in-cheek, although both he and his wife are children of "average size" parents). His dad, who appeared in one of the episodes, seemed like a very nice guy.

Matt seems hell-bent on getting Zach (the "little person" twin) to hang out at Little People conventions so that he can meet his future wife (Zach is 15). From the episode blurb I caught earlier, he has been at least somewhat successful in this regard...Zach brought a dwarf girl (yeah, they said it, not me) to the Winter formal at his high school.

I feel sorry for this kid. It's not bad enough he is the twin to a normal sized person (sorry, that whole "average size" thing is too much for me), but he's basically being told that the only life he will ever have is as a a dwarf. What...he can't marry some tall, leggy model like Herve Villechaize and Verne Troyer did? It's not like Zach isn't already an actor of sorts and out in the public eye. I haven't read the TLC fan boards, but I bet there's more than one non-dwarf female in this country who finds him cute. So what's the D, Matt? Don't limit your kid to skim milk just because it's all you drink. Nestle makes strawberry syrup for a reason.

But that whole rant is really an aside. My non-PC issue is "Where are all the little people?" I'm not quite shallow enough to believe that they are all in Hollywood waiting for parts in the remake of "Wizard of Oz" or the next Mike Meyers movie. So where are they? I think I have seen one little person in a business suit waiting for the morning commuter train in my life. I get the whole difficultly of fitting into society and the practical difficulties of working in your typical office space (like how do you press the button for the top floor if you're the only one on the elevator?), but I live in NYC. I find it difficult to believe that there aren't some dwarfs (I recently learned that "dwarves" is only the proper plurality for the mythical creatures) on Wall Street or Madison Avenue or in the Garment or Diamond Districts. Even if they aren't hanging around office buildings, I should at least pass some on the street. But I can count the number of times that has happened on one hand and still have fingers left over. So somebody help me out of the depths of my ignorance (since TLC doesn't seem interested in doing so) and let me know WHERE THE HELL ARE ALL THE DWARFS???