Category: Discimination

Court Dwarfs: Nano Morgante

June 13, 2022 By arne hendriks Off

Surely one of the most remarkable sculptures created during the reign of Cosimo I de’ Medici is that of the dwarf jester Nano Morgante, whose real name was Braccio di Bartolo. Morgante, which means giant, was ironically nicknamed after the giant from the poem of the same name…

Court Dwarfs

December 6, 2020 By arne hendriks Off

If we are to overcome the irrational prejudice against smallness we must understand how its current perception is the cumulative result of past ways of seeing. Rather than being an abstraction such ‘traditions of perception’ can often be traced back to specific historical traditions and…

The Devil’s Dwarfs

June 4, 2015 By arne hendriks 0

During WWI the British Army made it perfectly clear that no man under the height of 160cm (5 ft 3 inches) was deemed strong enough to fight and serve their country. But as the war dragged into the second year, with the enormous losses in men’s…

The Raw Tom Outrage

January 20, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

Tom Watkins is a 15 year old kid from Amsterdam that’s being raised by his mother on a Raw food vegan diet. Raw foodies eat uncooked, unprocessed organic foods as a large percentage of the diet. The idea is that raw food is healthier than cooked food…

This Crowded Earth

November 30, 2012 By arne hendriks 1

This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch is a 1958 novel set in a future where overpopulation has inspired science to create a small human race with the use of hormone therapy. The story starts in the late 1990’s when suicide, crime and accidents have increased steeply…

Overcoming the Uncanny

March 12, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

People are often disturbed by the idea of shrinking the human species. The confrontation with unusually small-sized adults sometimes triggers a psychosomatic sensitivity  also known as the uncanny. The uncanny is a Freudian concept of an instance where something is familiar, yet foreign at the same…

Height Tax

February 27, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

Being tall is expensive. You need more of everything just to sustain yourself, and for most of it either you pay or the environment does. Tall people are an increasing burden on the planet. A 20% increase in height equals a 73% increase in weight. And all…

Big Small Possible

June 25, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

Two short films created for Raum für Projektion from Berlin give a rare insight into a possible future when there may be extreme size differences between generations.  There is something natural in the way people of different sizes feature in these films. They seem to…

310 for every Cm

May 10, 2010 By arne hendriks 1

A 2003 University of Florida and University of North Carolina study found that short people are paid less than their taller peers: Each centimetre in height amounted to about $310 more a year in pay. In a similar study conducted in Australia in 2009 by professor…

Randy’s Short People

April 24, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

If we are to shrink ourselves, overcoming prejudice against smallness will be a first priority. Randy Newman wrote Small People in 1977 as a parody of the absurdity of human prejudice and discrimination. But did it work? Lyrics: Short people got no reason Short people…