The Nonnormative Celebrity Body and the Meritocracy of the Star System: Constructing Peter Dinklage in Entertainment Journalism

Abstract

Examining the coverage of Peter Dinklage in entertainment journalism, this article interrogates the possibilities and limitations of a celebrity with a nonnormative body to actually challenge Hollywood’s stereotyping of little people and the cultural tendency to use little people as a source of humor or voyeuristic pleasure. Although the rise of Dinklage to celebrity status created an opportunity for entertainment journalism to question Hollywood casting politics and draw attention to the stigma faced by little people, the discourses surrounding Dinklage have largely created a meritocratic narrative in which the struggles faced by little people in Hollywood are acknowledged but depoliticized. Such a narrative affirms the inherent fairness of the celebrity system, casting the structural and cultural barriers that create inequality as simple obstacles that the talented and hard working will overcome.

Keywords

entertainment journalism stereotype popular culture television cinema

Introduction

Since his breakout role in the 2003 film The Station Agent, Peter Dinklage has become not only one of the most recognized and acclaimed little people working in Hollywood today but also a popular star, regardless of height. Born with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, Dinklage’s performance in The Station Agent earned him nominations for an Independent Spirit Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. Along with brief but notable parts in films such as Elf (2003), he would go on to play prominent roles in several major films—for example, both the British and American versions of Death at a Funeral (2007, 2010) and the fantasy epic Prince Caspian (2008). And while he has been seen in critically acclaimed guest spots on television shows such as Nip/Tuck and 30 Rock, he has secured his status as a bona fide film and television star with his current role as Tyrion Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones, a role that won him an Emmy and a Golden Globe in 2011. Most recently, Dinklage has been cast in the forthcoming installment of the X-Men series, X-Men: Days of Future Past.

In contrast to more stereotypical and comical representations of little people—Verne Troyer’s role as Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies, Wee-Man on MTV’s Jackass, and Spike TV’s Half Pint Brawlers—Dinklage’s success has provided a much broader set of images, narratives, and attitudes about little people than usual in mainstream media, deviating from the long history of little people in entertainment media as “freaks, child impersonators, miniaturized cowboys, gangsters, purveyors of evil or the macabre, extraterrestrials, mythical leprechaun-like figures, and mascots” (Adelson, 2005, p. 236).¹ Dinklage’s rise to prominence, in fact, has been described as an important breakthrough for little people and for disability rights in general. Cara Egan (2004), a former vice president of the Little People of America, has celebrated Dinklage’s rise to fame with The Station Agent, citing the film and Dinklage’s inclusion in People magazine’s list of sexiest men alive as a culture-changing moment for little people and their place in mainstream media.

But this vision of Dinklage as a positive image for little people oversimplifies the nuanced and complex cultural position that Dinklage occupies, celebrating his status as role model and industry success story but ignoring the cultural tendency to make a spectacle of the nonnormative body as a source of entertainment. Although many of his roles challenge stereotypes and offer a depth of character that is rare in parts for little people, it is difficult to separate these progressive representations from the long history of little people in U.S. popular culture as sideshow attractions, munchkins, and other images that use little people as humorous or grotesque visual displays (e.g., see Adams, 2001 or Bogdan, 1988). Entertainment media have continued the long history of the sideshow—in which bodily difference is transformed into the spectacle of the freak—by providing a voyeuristic opportunity for able-bodied audiences to gaze at the spectacle of the nonnormative body, providing a safe spectatorial position that affirms the bodily difference of the on-screen spectacle rather than inviting identification with little people or others who deviate from the bodily norms of Western culture. Despite the more nuanced roles, the pleasures of watching Dinklage on screen cannot so easily be wrested from the voyeuristic pleasures of viewing a body that deviates from cultural norms or the long history of sensationalizing nonnormative bodies for the amusement of Western audiences.

Examining the coverage of Peter Dinklage in entertainment journalism from 2003 through 2012, this article analyzes these contradictory tendencies in the popular construction of a star with a visibly nonnormative body. Within these discourses, Dinklage functions as a meritocratic exemplar who signals a new era of inclusion in Hollywood, a pioneer whose career draws attention to the long history of Hollywood stereotypes of little people—even when these discourses rely on the exploitive spectacle of little people as bizarre, surreal, or a source of comedy within the very narrative that purports to challenge such representations.

In this way, the construction of Dinklage as a feel-good Hollywood success story in entertainment journalism effectively masks the persistent tensions between, on the one hand, a politically correct acknowledgement of past stereotyping and stigmatization through media representations, and on the other, the continuing cultural resonance of those same stereotypes and fascination with little people as Others. By offering up the narrative of Dinklage as an exceptional case in which perseverance and natural skill can overcome Hollywood’s bigotry, the coverage of Dinklage’s rise to fame transforms an insightful critique of media representation into an individualized celebration of Hollywood’s meritocracy.

Such overcoming narratives are common in media representations of disability, emphasizing individual achievement in overcoming the odds while ignoring the structural and cultural obstacles that ostracize and stigmatize others (Haller, 2010). By doing so, such narratives affirm neoliberal models of individualism, competition, and meritocracy: Very real and concrete structural inequalities that disable those with bodily impairments are recast in the overcoming narrative as simple obstacles that effort and talent will overcome. In fact, highly public figures such as celebrities who have achieved fame seemingly through talent and perseverance help hide the structural conditions that make a true meritocracy impossible in our plutocratic world. Dinklage’s success, then, illustrates the illusion of equality in the star system and the persistent use of celebrity culture to prop up an ideology of meritocracy.

Literature Review: Celebrity Bodies, Disability, and Neoliberal Meritocracy

As this suggests, celebrity culture—despite being critiqued as the epitome of vacuous, consumerist excess—often serves complex social functions concerning identity and cultural politics (Dyer, 1979, 1986/2003; Marshall, 1997; Rojek, 2001; Turner, 2004). Scholarship on celebrity and society, in fact, has described media stardom as a key site on which cultural definitions of individuality and subjectivity are negotiated. Often providing models of acceptable subjectivities that support existing power structures (Marshall, 1997), but also providing examples of fragmented and complex identities that reflect the challenges of the concept of individualism within modernity (Dyer, 1986/2003), stars and their construction in mass media help construct and promote various types of identities and subjectivities within the modern world.

Important to this articulation of modern social identities are images of and ideas about the body, particularly for visual media celebrities whose star personas revolve around their on-screen performances or appearances. Of course, in the case of most celebrities, the images and discourses surrounding their bodies are explicitly normative, staking out narrow boundaries of sexual desirability and appropriate gendered behavior, classifying raced and ethnic bodies as either acceptable or dangerous according to White, bourgeois norms, or limiting queer bodies to spheres acceptable to heteronormative values. Even in an age of increased multiculturalism, celebrities often mark out fairly narrow boundaries of normalcy. Celebrity culture and its obsessions with thinness, for example, are often linked to women’s body image issues and eating disorders (Fox-Kales, 2011). Hollywood’s increasing attention to African Americans has yielded many more images of Black bodies on screen, but Black celebrities often occupy a contradictory space that hides continuing, structural racial inequalities in the United States (Cashmore, 2012). Or U.S. pop culture fixates on mixed-raced celebrities like Halle Berry or Tiger Woods whose blackness can be both exploited for exotic cache and simultaneously denied (Dagbovie, 2007). Likewise, gay and lesbian celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres are more visible than ever, but their queerness must be contained within certain depoliticized spheres that are the least threatening to the heteronormative social order (Skerski, 2007). Celebrity bodies, in short, help manage cultural body norms and the kinds of bodies privileged in U.S. society. Thus, Holmlund (2001) shows that the impossible bodies of Hollywood celebrities help hide impossible contradictions about gender, race, and sexuality.

By contrast, stars with bodies that more visibly challenge cultural definitions of the normal body—through disability, obesity, race and ethnicity, transgressive behavior, and so on—question cultural definitions of acceptable bodies and identities, at least within the limitations provided by capitalist, patriarchal culture. Rowe Karlyn’s analysis of Roseanne Barr Arnold in the 1990s, for example, demonstrates how Roseanne created a cultural space within which gendered norms of beauty and femininity could be transgressed—Roseanne could be overweight yet sexual, critical of patriarchy but a good mom and wife—even as those transgressions marked her body as a site of out-of-control femininity within the culture at large (Rowe Karlyn, 1995). Similarly, Chris Farley’s exuberant performances on Saturday Night Live (SNL) and his popular movies often created a carnivalesque inversion of bourgeois body norms. His overweight but often kinetic body made a mockery of both class and body norms, even competing with Patrick Swayze in an exotic dancing competition in one famous SNL skit. But these transgressions were often brought back into line with bourgeois cultural norms that disciplined his body as a source of shame (Olbrys, 2006). Typically, celebrities with nonnormative bodies yield cultural transgressions that must be contained, either by shaming and disciplining the body or by inserting that body into more acceptable cultural narratives.

The popularity of a star with a visibly nonnormative body such as Peter Dinklage, therefore, represents a challenge to the typically normative body politics of the Hollywood celebrity system, but one that still must negotiate a place for itself within the dominant representation of little people within mass media and within in the culture at large. Such representations, of course, often communicate much more about the anxieties of the able-bodied world than the experiences of people with disability. “Constructed as the embodiment of corporeal insufficiency and deviance, the physically disabled body becomes a repository for social anxieties about such troubling concerns as vulnerability, control, and identity” (Thomson, 1997, p. 6). Popular media such as film and television in particular have relied on a set of stereotypes about disability that has highlighted such anxieties, from the melodramatic use of disability and impairment as a source of pathos and suffering to the image of the embittered and morally corrupt cripple seeking vengeance on the able-bodied world (Longmore, 2003; Mitchell & Snyder, 2006). And, extending the long and complex history of the freakshow in the United States, popular media often make a spectacle of people with disability, relying on the image of physical difference to signify the bizarre, the surreal, or the grotesque (Adelson, 2005).

These trends apply in particular to little people, who have been perhaps the most represented group of individuals with disabilities in mass media owing to high levels of participation in entertainment—according to Adelson (2005), around 9% of the members of the Little People of America are connected to the entertainment industry in some way (p. 358). But the roles available to little people have been severely limited and stereotypical, often othering little people as mythical creatures, angry and violent, or comedic spectacles (Winslow, Perks, & Avital, 2007). During the past three decades, however, more complex and sophisticated roles have become available for little people (even if still somewhat rare), the by-product of changing cultural attitudes about disability and disability rights.

The success of an actor such as Dinklage, then, prompts questions about continuing discrimination and structural inequality in an age of neoliberalism. The triumph of global capitalism in the late 20th century was founded on the ascendency of neoliberal individualism: a transfer of responsibility from centralized government to individual choice on the free market, often while ignoring structural inequalities that hamper social and economic mobility. For example, doctrines of neoliberal individualism prompted the dismantling of welfare systems in the United States starting in the 1980s under the logic that dependency kept the poor from taking responsibility for their own economic position. Such policies have been at the heart of the disability rights movement, as neoliberal policies see accommodations for people with disabilities as forms of welfare or unnecessary government regulation. Ignoring the very clear structural inequalities and discriminations faced by people with nonnormative bodies, neoliberal policies assume a model of individual responsibility that pressures people with disabilities to heroically overcome the obstacles they face (Hansen, Bourgois, & Drucker, 2014).

As this suggests, while responsibility under neoliberalism is transferred from the state to the free market, new forms of power have emerged emphasizing self-governance in lieu of external, coercive regulation. McGee (2005), for example, demonstrates how the self-help industry in the United States has capitalized on ideologies of self-improvement as a means of achieving happiness and wealth. And Sender (2006) shows how self-improvement reality TV shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy promote the willing self-improvement of men into contemporary definitions of masculinity and labor. These structures of power help explain the dominance of the overcoming narrative in media discourses of disability, emphasizing individual self-improvement over structural change.

But if neoliberal individualism privileges the power of individual choice and self-improvement in the quest for personal success and economic mobility, how can this vision of personal responsibility survive in the face of such enormous economic and social inequality in the United States (and the rest of the world)?

Celebrity culture provides one support mechanism for neoliberal individualism, providing a popular discourse of individual success that fuels the mythology of upward social mobility. As Sternheimer (2011) notes in her exhaustive study of celebrity fan magazines, “Celebrity culture seems to provide a continual reaffirmation that upward mobility is possible in America and reinforces the belief that inequality is the result of personal failure rather than systemic social conditions” (p. 3). This affirmation is increasingly important given the expansion of global capitalism. As Littler (2004) argues, in the face of vast inequality, media have dramatically increased the production of reality TV competitions promoting the idea that fame and success can be achieved by ordinary folks if they work hard and are clever at reality show competitions and the game of self-promotion. Recognizing that the transition to celebrity offers a form of symbolic validation in a media-saturated culture, Littler suggests that celebrity culture affirms a sense of meritocracy lost through neoliberal economics, as people measure individual success by the attainment of celebrity status. Instead of questioning the structural distribution of wealth and power, people strive for celebrity status to be saved from the designation as ordinary.

Dinklage’s success, then, illustrates the continuing role that ideas of meritocracy play in celebrity culture. As a star whose path to success pit him against a host of structural and cultural barriers (e.g., cultural stereotypes and Hollywood casting politics), Peter Dinklage’s transition to celebrity status provides an important case study of the ideology of meritocracy and the construction of celebrities with nonnormative bodies. Does Dinklage’s success and the more nuanced roles for little people in Hollywood yield a critical vision of stereotypes and stigmas, or is his success yet another individualistic story of hard work and determination that obscures inequalities?

Method

To parse out the complex cultural reactions to Dinklage’s fame, this article analyzes the construction of Dinklage in mainstream, English-language, entertainment journalism between January 2003 and March 2012. A total of 344 articles were examined, consisting not only of film, television, and DVD reviews but also including feature-length articles on Dinklage himself.²

The discourses found in such examples of entertainment journalism most often express the dominant narratives concerning celebrities as managed by a variety of institutional forces, from the celebrity’s publicist to Hollywood studio marketing departments, who actively work to maintain a certain public image for celebrities and exercise influence over how reporters frame celebrities in their stories (Gamson, 1994). Entertainment journalism, then, functions as a space within which the core narratives and discourses that define a celebrity’s partly managed and partly spontaneous public persona are constructed and reconstructed as their public persona changes over time. The range of discourses describing and framing a celebrity in entertainment journalism manages the central narratives that define their cultural meanings, providing a site on which dominant narratives can be affirmed (or deconstructed, in the case of celebrity scandals).

Analyzing the discursive construction of celebrity personas, moreover, has particular importance for celebrities associated with disability or nonnormative bodies. As Haller (2010) explains, the disability rights movement bases its activism on the assertion that disability is a socially constructed phenomenon. The concept of disability is not rooted in particular bodily impairments but rather in social and cultural ideas about what a normal body should be that guide policy and the physical construction of the social world. Social and cultural ideas about disability and normalcy structure everything from educational structures to urban planning to the basic design of chairs. Given this, understanding the discursive construction of disability and the nonnormate body in mass media provides a direct perspective on the assumptions, attitudes, and language that inform the social construction of disability. This includes the possibility that these discourses might shift and change to accommodate new beliefs in the contemporary world (Haller, 2010, pp. 40–41).

Data: Constructing Peter Dinklage

After Dinklage’s role in the 2003 independent hit The Station Agent, critiques of Hollywood’s stereotyping of little people as well as the cultural stigmas facing little people became a prominent theme in the print media coverage of Dinklage as a rising Hollywood celebrity. Out of the 344 articles analyzed here, 89 (around 26%) offered some form of commentary describing the discriminatory treatment of little people. The majority of these articles (58) centered on The Station Agent, a film about a railroad enthusiast (Dinklage) who seeks solitude but finds himself forming friendships with other cultural outsiders. In this way, the emergence of Peter Dinklage as a celebrity created a space to highlight and critique Hollywood and the culture at large regarding little people and nonnormative bodies, especially the tendency to use little people on film as “freaks, jokes, arty symbols or surrealistic garnish” (Ansen, 2003).

For example, much of the discussion surrounding The Station Agent situated the film against the long history of little people stereotypes in popular culture. One film review noted that “Dinklage (4 ft 5in) finds there aren’t that many parts for dwarves that don’t involve Snow White or custard pies” (Tucker, 2004, p. 13), while another compared Dinklage’s performance with more contemporary spectacles of little people: “Outside of Mini-Me, Wee Man from Jackass and the Oompah Loompahs, it’s been pretty thin pickings for actors of restricted growth” (Gibbons, 2004, p. 11). Before The Station Agent, Dinklage seemed destined for “marginalized roles for freaks, magical figures and oddballs” (Howe, 2003, p. C01).

In fact, many articles used critiques of bigoted Hollywood executives as part of their construction of Dinklage and promotion of the film. Noting that several executives characterized The Station Agent as too risky—“It’s a little movie, in which almost nothing happens, starring a dwarf!” (Felperin, 2004, p. 11)—the film’s director, Tom McCarthy, told interviewers that people tried to dissuade him from making the film, and he had a hard time selling it to studios: “So many people had passed on the script—openly and insultingly. People would say, ‘Could you lose the dwarf?’ Like that would make it work better” (Lacey, 2003, p. R3). One executive reportedly asked McCarthy, “Can’t he [the main character] just be really short?” (Maddox, 2004, p. 14). And according to Dinklage, the studios were hesitant because they could not accept the idea of a dwarf in a romantic role: “Dinklage said the real problem for the studios was that a little person was playing the romantic lead. ‘They loved everything else, it was just having someone like me there that kind of freaked them’” (Gibbons, 2003, p. 7). Casting Hollywood executives as the bigoted villains, the print media discourses surrounding the film’s release touted the film’s progressive casting as a key selling point.

Alongside the condemnation of Hollywood’s stereotypes, the print media discourses also highlighted the day-to-day struggles of little people as a stigmatized population. Often, this discussion of discrimination came through a discussion of The Station Agent and its central character, Finbar McBride. Many reviews discussed one of the film’s key themes: the alienation Fin experiences as a little person. As one review notes, “Outside, besieged by a lifetime of unwanted attention—stares from the idly curious and shouts of ‘Hey buddy, where’s Snow White?’ from the simply brutish—he [Fin] retreats into his cocoon of quiet” (Groen, 2003, p. R3). Throughout much of the discussion surrounding The Station Agent, print media reminded its readers of “the alienation, the social anxiety and the loneliness that can characterize what it means to be a dwarf in these modern day times” (Egan, 2004, p. 24).

After The Station Agent, print media would continue to use Dinklage’s career as an occasion to critique Hollywood’s casting politics. Dinklage’s successful career and the increasing prominence of other little people in entertainment media led to several articles exploring Hollywood’s perceived stereotypes, and Dinklage’s role in the hit series Game of Thrones offered the actor more opportunities to contrast his role as Tyrion Lannister to those typically available: “Dwarves show up a lot in fantasy genre, but when they do, they’re these sorts of caricatures, woodland creatures or the punchline of jokes, Dinklage says. ‘Nobody gives them a romance. Nobody gives them fully formed personalities, and Tyrion is one of the richest characters I have ever come across. He’s a human being’” (“Road to the Emmys,” 2011, p. A2).

But despite the challenge that Dinklage purportedly represents to Hollywood’s representation of little people, the language used to describe Dinklage throughout the articles reflects the same problematic assumption that little people function as a source of visual spectacle or humor. More than most other stars, Dinklage’s body and the description of his body play a central role in his star text. Thus, the majority of the articles analyzed here made explicit reference to his size in their discussion of the star. Of the 344 articles, 240 (around 70%) described Dinklage’s height or the height of his characters, most often using the term dwarf, which is the terminology that Dinklage himself prefers (Gibbons, 2004, p. 11). While these descriptions ranged from innocuous descriptions of the actor—“dwarf actor Peter Dinklage” (Harris & Dunkley, 2003, p. 10)—to more troubling and offensive descriptions—for example, condescendingly noting that he is “about the height of a pre-pubescent child” (Lacey, 2003, p. R3)—the overwhelming presence of size descriptions in general illustrates Dinklage’s status as marked in the culture by his nonnormative body.

Of these 240 articles, 106 (around 30%) relied on language that deviated from routine descriptions of Dinklage and his characters and created a visual spectacle of little people. One of the most common techniques was the addition of one or more adjectives before the term dwarf to create a more vivid image of Dinklage’s roles. Such descriptions revealed a tendency to construct often-humorous visual images that depict dwarfs as weird and a source of surreal pleasure. For example:

a taciturn trainspotting dwarf (Ward, 2004, p. H11)

a blackmailing dwarf (Rea, 2007, p. H02)

a gay, American, blackmailing dwarf (Tookey, 2007, p. 68)

an embittered dwarf reporter (Schoard, 2008, p. 27)

a poisonous dwarf (Lowe, 2012, p. 6)

a drunken, Machiavellian, wenching dwarf (Renzetti, 2012, p. R7)

a lusty dwarf (Nussbaum, 2012, p. 15)

an acid-tongued dwarf (Starke, 2012, p. 15)

Similarly, several articles (59, around 17%) used puns about size in their discussions and reviews. For example, one review refers to The Station Agent as a “small masterpiece” (Sonnekus, 2005, p. 42), while another notes that “Peter Dinklage … is, at 4 ft 5in., about to become a giant of the American independent cinema” (Gibbons, 2003, p. 7). And far less frequent but far more troubling, some articles also described Dinklage himself (not just his characters) in terms that playfully describe—and at times demean—him as a little person. In addition to the comparison with a “pre-pubescent child” mentioned earlier (Lacey, 2003, p. R3), several reviewers used terminology such as “little guy” (Caramancia, 2006, p. 34), “miniature” (Keak, 2007), and “pint-sized” (Kalina & Schembri, 2009, p. 16), or calling him a “tiny leading man” (“We love telly,” 2008, p. 37). One television critic commenting on the 2011 Emmy’s even compared Dinklage with the small Emmy statue, noting that, “As far as I’m concerned they should give Peter Dinklage to Alan Cumming” (Salem, 2011, p. E11).

Discussion: Celebrity and Meritocracy

At the core of Dinklage’s star text remains an inherent tension: He is a triumphant challenger of harmful media stereotypes, and yet those same stereotypes linger as his body becomes an object of voyeurism and spectacle. This tension exemplifies the complex dynamics of contemporary celebrity culture. As Marshall (1997) claims, stars function as valuable cultural images for the creation of cultural identity: “Each celebrity represents a complex form of audience subjectivity that, when placed within a system of celebrities, provides the ground in which distinctions, differences, and oppositions are played out” (p. 65). Individual celebrities, in essence, become sites of contestation in which different forms of identity and ideological assumptions about the social world are embodied and negotiated. As Dyer (1986/2003) argues, each celebrity offers a multifaceted, polysemic image whose signification is grounded in the ideological fissures of that star’s cultural and historical context—stars resonate in particular historical contexts precisely because they embody tensions and anxieties that can be overlooked behind the veneer of the complete individual.

In the case of Peter Dinklage, the tension at the core of his persona addresses the very viability of the individual as an agent in her or his own success. The insistent focus in the media coverage on Hollywood’s continuing use of stereotypes and the lack of quality roles for little people might suggest a broad, structural critique of Hollywood discrimination: Little people remain stereotyped because of persistent cultural stigmas and systematic discrimination against them. But, ironically, by showcasing Dinklage’s success, this critical insight instead forms the background to a celebratory narrative in which hardworking and talented individuals can overcome adversity to succeed through grit and determination. In this way, Dinklage’s rise to fame illustrates the necessary illusion of meritocracy in the star system by depoliticizing Dinklage’s exceptional narrative and allowing for the continued problematic assumptions that his body functions as an object of spectacle.

After all, the discourses of Dinklage’s success are often accompanied by a hesitancy to see Dinklage’s career and prominent roles as overtly political statements about a minority group. For example, in the reviews and discussion of The Station Agent, the importance of dwarfism to the main character is negotiated in a way that acknowledges social stigmas while attempting to see the character outside the discourses of dwarfism. Several reviews related Tom McCarthy’s narrative of the script’s development, in which the general story idea about social outsiders was crystallized when he ran into Dinklage on the street one day and witnessed the kinds of coping skills Dinklage used in his day-to-day life. McCarthy decided then and there to make the film about a dwarf (Lacey, 2003). The backstory indicates the centrality of the experiences of little people to the development of the character, but both McCarthy and Dinklage have downplayed the significance of dwarfism to the film, denying that it is a “coming-of-height story” (Durbin, 2003, p. 49). In several interviews, McCarthy stressed that this is not a film about dwarfism per se: “We didn’t want to deal with dwarfism … The film is about disconnection with friendship and community. Dwarfism was a cause of his situation, but it takes a back seat to a bigger message” (Smith, 2003, p. 1 E). Dinklage echoed these sentiments: “The lovely thing about Tom’s movie is that, yeah, it is addressed, but it’s not the overwhelming thing that the movie’s about. It’s about these three characters and the dwarf thing sort of gets lost in the shuffle” (Felperin, 2004, p. 11).

Avoiding the typically sentimental clichés that tend to come along with positive images of disability in the media—the optimistic disabled person who perseveres in the face of adversity, or the hardworking supercrip who overcomes all the obstacles—the film and its coverage in print media emphasize a kind of depth of character that is not defined by disability (see Davies, 2004). But in doing so, these discourses also distance the film from a more overtly political message, creating a kind of culturally safe space to mention discrimination while insisting that the film’s themes are universal, not political. Ironically, such insistence transforms Dinklage’s success story itself into a stereotypical overcoming narrative, even as they deny that The Station Agent relies on this stereotype.

Dinklage himself also frequently downplays his status as a role model or agent of social change for little people, casting himself as yet another hardworking actor trying to make a living. In several interviews following the release of The Station Agent, Dinklage repeatedly denied any claims as an activist: “I’m just an actor. I like good roles. It’s hard to be, like, a spokesperson or be up on a soapbox” (Howe, 2003, p. C01). And of being an industry pioneer, Dinklage has said, “As an actor, I just like to play juicy roles … [The responsibility for social change] should be put on some people who are actually making decisions or policies like politicians, not for an actor who just wants to work and pay the bills” (Chen, 2012, p. 39). Dinklage has even (half jokingly) made the case that his situation is not that dissimilar from other actors trying to build careers on quality roles:

I have no complaints because I am getting scripts and I have the luxury of turning roles down. I have friends who are so tired because they only get the handsome best friend role; the same with beautiful women. I am not complaining about how limited my roles are because every actor’s are. (Geary, 2004, p. 20)

When pressed about this statement, though, he followed it with a joking retraction: “No, I don’t really believe what I’m saying at all. I’m in complete denial. Thanks for catching me. I just like to compare my pain with others” (Geary, 2004, p. 20). Although this comment clearly comes with a bit of sarcasm, there is a certain denial here of his position in the industry as politicized or as one defined by dwarfism. He is, instead, just another struggling actor vying for quality roles in an overly commercial and generic industry.

In this way, the denial that his fame is politicized functions as an important aspect of Dinklage’s celebrity status. Such denials allow his constructed celebrity persona to balance a critique of Hollywood’s stereotyping with an affirmation of the meritocracy of the star system. His emergence as a Hollywood celebrity after the success of The Station Agent foregrounded the biases inherent in Hollywood’s depiction of little people and the dearth of quality roles available, but this critical narrative also simply forms the background of Dinklage’s feel-good success story. The film and Dinklage’s performance create a space to critique Hollywood, but it is a fairly safe space to do so because Dinklage’s accomplishments provide an optimistic counter example to Hollywood bigotry. Ironically, Dinklage’s career supports the idea that Hollywood is essentially meritocratic. The star system, after all, has always been an important cultural institution in the promotion of meritocratic ideologies—each star’s rise from obscurity and construction as unique only affirms the narrative that anyone could one day become a star and earn a lavish celebrity lifestyle (Marshall, 1997). Dinklage’s success, then, only supports this narrative of hard work and prosperity (perhaps even more persuasively than traditionally beautiful stars), even as his star text illustrates Hollywood stereotyping and the struggles that actors with nonnormative bodies face. Dinklage became a star, so others can too. In fact, one feature article on Dinklage made the argument for meritocracy in Hollywood explicit, noting that Dinklage, after “flail[ing] for years, worked steadily for some more years, got a great role and became famous,” providing a “meritocratic twist” for an actor who does not “meet a certain physical ideal” (Renzetti, 2012, p. R7).

And yet much of the media coverage of Dinklage also emphasizes how much he does, in fact, meet a certain physical ideal. Forty-eight of the 344 articles (14%) discuss Dinklage’s sex appeal, with several offering detailed, sensual descriptions of Dinklage. Calling Dinklage, “the newest thinking person’s sex symbol,” one article gushes over his “soft kissable lips, a strong jaw, and knockout blue eyes” (Lehmann-Haupt, 2003, p. 28). Another calls him “dark-haired and striking, with a deep, sexy voice and eyes more than one reporter has called ‘soulful’” (Moore, 2004, p. T03). Several refer to him as the sexiest dwarf in the world (Arnold, 2003; Geary, 2004), while others refer to him as “classic leading man material: dark, handsome and moodily charismatic” (Matheou, 2004, p. 13). Capturing the assumed dissonance between dwarfism and sex appeal, one article says that his character in Game of Thrones “may be no taller than a mailbox but women everywhere have fallen for his sharp wit and steamy bedroom antics in this medieval fantasy drama” (Starke, 2012, p. 15).

The persistent attention to his sexual allure and classic leading man good looks demonstrates the complexity of his star persona and its relationship to the discourses of disability in contemporary culture. As Egan (2004) notes, the idea that a dwarf might be considered not just an acceptable object of sexual desire but even an enviable one is a radical transformation in cultural norms. In popular culture, little people and people with disabilities in general are most often desexualized and displaced from narratives of romance (Longmore, 2003; Snyder & Mitchell, 2006). So the sexualization of Dinklage and the gushing descriptions of his soulful eyes represent a major challenge to this popular representational trope. And yet the sexualization of Dinklage might also objectify of his nonnormative body as a site of alluring taboo. Reflecting the perceived novelty of combining dwarfism and sex appeal, these discourses also suggest a continued cultural fascination with sex and the Other made manifest in the history of the U.S. sideshow (Adams, 2001).

But while Dinklage’s status as a sex symbol balances and manages these contradictory cultural impulses, it also reinforces the inherent meritocracy of the star system while rationalizing Dinklage’s rise to fame. Dinklage’s success, in other words, is naturalized because of his natural good looks. Deflecting attention away from the structural and cultural barriers that keep little people relegated to stereotypical roles, the construction of Dinklage as a sex symbol justifies his rise to fame from the ranks of little people entertainers. The narrative of his success highlights his natural good looks and exceptionalism, constructing the discrimination faced by little people in Hollywood and the social world not as substantive concerns to be interrogated and critiqued but as a simple obstacle that exceptional individuals will overcome.

That Dinklage’s success is depoliticized in the discourses constructing his rise to fame exemplifies the cultural function of stars; they function as mediated images of individualism that can obscure or deflect inherent contradictions in contemporary culture. Dinklage can be a star who affirms a politically correct awareness of disability stereotypes and yet also a subject of those same stereotypes as he is described as “a drunken, Machiavellian, wenching dwarf” (Renzetti, 2012, p. R7). But this contradiction is collapsed into a meritocratic view of the individual and contemporary society: The persistent image of Dinklage as a struggling but naturally talented actor who overcomes the bigotry of the less enlightened to break barriers in his profession becomes the overwhelming narrative that hides the inherent contradictions of his place in the culture.

The construction of Dinklage’s role in the fantasy epic Prince Caspian perhaps best illustrates these inherent contradictions. Profiles of Dinklage’s role are quick to discuss Dinklage’s usual skepticism of the fantasy genre and its stereotypical use of dwarfs as nonhuman or as generic fantasy backgrounds (Barnard, 2008; Wloszczyna, 2008). And yet the descriptions of the narratives almost always include Dinklage’s character as one in a long list of nonhuman fantasy creatures:

[Caspian’s army] includes centaurs, minotaurs, a cranky dwarf (Peter Dinklage) and a very brave mouse (voiced by Eddie Izzard). (Weitzman, 2008, p. 39)

[The main characters are] aided by the dwarves Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) and Nikabrik (Warwick Davis), sword-wielding mouse Reepicheep (drolly voiced by Eddie Izzard) and badger Trufflehunter (Ken Stott). (Fulton, 2008, p. 50)

[New characters in the film include] a curmudgeonly, Narnian dwarf named Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage), a chivalrous mouse named Reepicheep (voiced by Eddie Izzard), and a wise professor named Dr. Cornelius (Vincent Grass). (Marchand, 2008, p. E01)

Such comparisons blur the line between the idea of dwarfs as nonhuman, mythological creatures and real-world human dwarfs such as Dinklage, contributing to the othering of little people in popular culture as not fully human. But the tensions between a critique of the fantasy genre’s stereotypical use of little people and the deployment of those very same stereotypes are easily assuaged through the appeal of Dinklage as an exceptional actor and meritocratic model. The pleasurable narrative of the star who overcame adversity creates a kind of space in which the acknowledgment of harmful stereotypes and the use of those same stereotypes can coexist behind the veneer of Dinklage as an appealing model of individual success.

Conclusion

These rhetorical tendencies in the print media coverage of Peter Dinklage indicate both the possibilities and the limitations of celebrity culture to transgress the normative body politics of Hollywood. There is no denying that the success of Peter Dinklage has created more visibility for little people in Hollywood and has encouraged more thoughtful and nuanced roles for little people. As indicated here, Dinklage’s career has also created a space in which print media have helped call attention to Hollywood biases, both in casting and in its problematic representation of little people on screen. But these possibilities remained locked within a star system that uses powerful narratives of individual merit to obscure the structural and cultural barriers that continue to face little people and people with disabilities more broadly.

Dinklage, then, illustrates the remaining power of meritocracy within celebrity culture. The rise of reality television and new systems of ordinary media celebrities reveals a culture of celebrity in which natural talent and individual achievement are increasingly irrelevant. This gives rise to the common refrain from cultural critics—usually referencing one Kardashian or another—that celebrity culture is devoid of meaningful values because we celebrate fame for fame’s sake. But stars such as Dinklage function as counterpoints to such critiques, providing powerful narratives of individual success won through talent, hard work, and persistence. Such narratives, however, obscure the lingering structural barriers to wealth and success for large portions of the population.

In the case of Dinklage, this narrative clearly showcases changing attitudes about disability and the body, reflecting a U.S. media culture that is somewhat more cautious about political correctness and body image issues than it has been in the past. But the star system continues to be a vehicle for dominant cultural ideas about individualism and merit—not a system capable of exploring structural discrimination and blocked opportunities. So by casting Hollywood’s bigotry as the obstacle that Dinklage has overcome, the depoliticized narrative of Dinklage’s rise to fame depicts very real discrimination and stigma as simple hurdles that the talented and good looking will bound over.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Russell Meeuf is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Media at the University of Idaho. His research focuses on celebrity culture, film and television studies, gender studies, and disability studies. He is the author of John Wayne’s World: Transnational Masculinity in the Fifties and is the co-editor of Transnational Stardom: International Celebrity in Film and Popular Culture.

References

Adams

(2001) Sideshow U.S.A: Freaks and the American cultural imagination, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Adelson

(2005) The lives of dwarfs: Their journey from public curiosity toward social liberation, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Ansen, D. (2003, October 9). What’s the big deal? Newsweek, Web Exclusive.

Arnold, G. (2003, October 17). Track friendship in “Station Agent”; Film favorite in Sundance debut. The Washington Times, p. D01.

Barnard, L. (2008, May 13). Size doesn’t matter: Peter Dinklage says he’s happy to at vanguard of more open-minded attitude to diminutive actors. Toronto Star, p. L06.

Bogdan

(1988) Freak show: Presenting human oddities for amusement and profit, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Caramancia, J. (2006, November 12). They fought the aliens, and the viewers shrugged. The New York Times, Section 2, p. 34.

Cashmore

(2012) Beyond black: Celebrity and race in Obama’s America, New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.

Chen, J. (2012, July 11). He’s going ape: Dinklage plays orangutan pirate in new “Ice Age” movie. Daily News, p. 39.

10.

Dagbovie

S. A.

(2007) Star-light, star-bright, star damn near white: Mixed-race superstars. Journal of Popular Culture 40(2): 217–237.

11.

Davies, M. (2004, March 23). A victory for the little man. Birmingham Post, p. 11.

12.

Durbin, K. (2003, September 7). The new season/film: The scene stealers; Crib sheet: Breakout performers. The New York Times, Section 2, p. 49.

13.

Dyer

(1979) Stars, London, England: British Film Institute.

14.

Dyer

(1986/2003) Heavenly bodies: Film stars and society, London, England: Routledge.

15.

Egan, C. (2004, March 25). Comment and analysis: Dwarfs wear black: At just over 4ft, Peter Dinklage has been called the sexiest man alive. The Guardian, p. 24.

16.

Felperin, L. (2004, March 26). Film: A small wonder: The actor Dinklage and the director Thomas McCarthy talk to Leslie Felperin. The Independent, Features, p. 11.

17.

Fox-Kales

(2011) Body shots: Hollywood and the culture of eating disorders, Albany: State University of New York Press.

18.

Fulton, R. (2008, November 21). A proper charmer: Dashing Caspian adds thrills to the new Narnia film “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.” Daily Record, p. 50.

19.

Gamson

(1994) Claims to fame: Celebrity in contemporary America, Berkeley: University of California Press.

20.

Geary, T. (2004, March 19). The world’s sexist dwarf Peter Dinklage gives a performance in “The Station Agent” of such charisma that his height quickly becomes irrelevant. The Daily Telegraph, p. 20.

21.

Gibbons, F. (2003, September 20). Fast track to success: Offbeat venture proves film festival hit. The Guardian, p. 7.

22.

Gibbons, F. (2004, March 19). Friday review: “Be real – Call me a midget”: At long last, a film has dared to portray a dwarf as a fully rounded human being. The Guardian, p. 11.

23.

Groen, R. (2003, October 10). It’ll melt your cynical heart. The Globe and Mail, p. R3.

24.

Haller

(2010) Representing disability in an ableist world: Essays on mass media, Louisville, KY: Avocado Press.

25.

Hansen

Bourgois

Drucker

(2014) Pathologizing poverty: New forms of diagnosis, disability, and structural stigma under welfare reform. Social Science & Medicine 103: 76–83.

26.

Harris, D., & Dunkley, C. (2003, January 27). Truth in marketing. Variety, p. 10.

27.

Holmlund

(2001) Impossible bodies: Femininity and masculinity at the movies, New York, NY: Routledge.

28.

Howe, D. (2003, October 18). Who says bigger is better? Peter Dinklage fills a tall order in his new movie. The Washington Post, Style, p. C01.

29.

Kalina, P., & Schembri, J. (2009, April 30). Short cuts. The Age, Metro, p. 16.

30.

Keak, T. Y. (2007, September 26). A farce of a funeral. Singapore. Straits Times, Life Section.

31.

Lacey, L. (2003, October 9). The little movie that could. The Globe and Mail, p. R3.

32.

Lehmann-Haupt, R. (2003, September 1). The new sexy. Variety, p. 28.

33.

Littler, J. (2004). Celebrity and meritocracy. Soundings, 26, pp. 118–130.

34.

Longmore

(2003) Screening stereotypes: Images of disabled people in television and motion pictures. In: Why I burned my book and other essays on disability (pp. 131–148), Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

35.

Lowe, A. (2012, March 18). Fantasy made flesh: “Game of Thrones” is back. The Sunday Times, Features, pp. 6, 7.

36.

Maddox, G. (2004, April 12). Star turns reveal the secrets of success in a mad mad world. Sydney Morning Herald, p. 14.

37.

Marchand, P. (2008, May 16). Narnia misses magic mark. The Toronto Star, p. E01.

38.

Marshall

P. D.

(1997) Celebrity and power: Fame in contemporary culture, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

39.

Matheou, D. (2004, March 21). Apocrypha now. The Sunday Herald, p. 13.

40.

McGee

(2005) Self-help, Inc.: Makeover culture in American life, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

41.

Moore, R. (2004, February 5). Why Peter is an agent of change. The Daily Telegraph, p. T03.

42.

Nussbaum, E. (2012, May 7). The aristocrats: The graphic arts of “Game of Thrones.” The New Yorker, 88, p. 68.

43.

Olbrys

S. G.

(2006) Disciplining the carnivalesque: Chris Farley’s exotic dance. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 3(3): 240–259.

44.

Rea, S. (2007, August 19). “Funeral” a big departure for director Oz. The Philadelphia Inquirer, p. H02.

45.

Renzetti, E. (2012, March 31). Like “The Sopranos,” with dragons: It’s riveting. The Globe and Mail, p. R7.

46.

Road to the Emmys: The supporting actress and actor. (2011, June 17). Variety, p. A2.

47.

Rojek

(2001) Celebrity, London, England: Reaktion Books.

48.

Rowe Karlyn

(1995) The unruly woman: Gender and the genres of laughter, Austin: University of Texas Press.

49.

Salem, R. (2011, September 19). The Emmys in 140 characters. The Toronto Star, p. E11.

50.

Schoard, C. (2008, February 3). Other releases. The Sunday Telegraph, p. 27.

51.

Sender

(2006) Queens for a day: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the neoliberal project. Critical Studies in Media Communication 23(2): 131–151.

52.

Skerski

(2007) From prime-time to daytime: The domestication of Ellen DeGeneres. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4(4): 363–381.

53.

Smith, D. (2003, October 2). Dark, handsome and short: Star of a Sundance hit is ready for an encore. The New York Times, p. 1E.

54.

Snyder

Mitchell

(2006) Cultural locations of disability, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

55.

Sonnekus, N. (2005, July 10). Outside track. South Africa. Sunday Times, p. 42.

56.

Starke, P. (2012, July 1). Award winners outside the box. South Australia Sunday Mail, p. 15.

57.

Sternheimer

(2011) Celebrity culture and the American dream: Stardom and social mobility, New York, NY: Routledge.

58.

Thomson

R. G.

(1997) Extraordinary bodies: Figuring physical disability in American culture and literature, New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

59.

Tookey, C. (2007, November 2). Funeral tale dies a death. Daily Mail, p. 68.

60.

Tucker, I. (2004, March 21). Up front and on the verge: Who Peter Dinklage, what actor, they say “This guy should be the next James Bond,” we say, a cultured actor whose stature is the least of his attributes. The Observer, p. 13.

61.

Turner

(2004) Understanding celebrity, Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

62.

Ward, M. (2004, September 29). DVD releases. Herald Sun, p. H11.

63.

Weitzman, E. (2008, May 16). A battle royal: Fantasy epic “Prince” is worthy heir to first “Narnia.” The Daily News, Now, p. 39.

64.

We love telly: We love movie – The Statin Agent. (2008, May 20). The Mirror, p. 37.

65.

Winslow, L., Perks, L., & Avital, S. (2007). Limited representation: A homology of discriminatory media portrayals of little people and African Americans. Paper presented at the National Communication Association Convention, Chicago, IL.

66.

Wloszczyna, S. (2008, January 21). Curmudgeonly and courageous: Peter Dinklage is big on his red dwarf role in Disney’s “Chronicle of Narnia” sequel. USA Today, p. 5D.