People have been stereotyped throughout history, primarily for their ethnic or religious
origins. In this era of political correctness, it is not fashionable for the media to
adhere to traditional prejudices and stereotypes. New ones must be found.
Regrettably, short people are often degraded in ways no ethic group would tolerate.
There are no outcries and consumers are expected take it in good fun.
With evidence mounting that short people do face real prejudices
and do not succeed as their
normal-statured peers do (see News Articles),
it is time for them to enter the world of the politically correct.
This section is intended to demonstrate examples of how short people are portrayed in various forms of media. Many will be negative but we continue to search for examples where short people are treated as real people, not stereotyped into specific categories of behavior. Most of the commentaries in this section have been written by Short Persons Support readers. Please Contact Us if you would like to write a commentary.
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Cartoons
Cartoons are made to be funny but sometimes they can also bring a positive or negative moral perspective to young viewers.
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Comedies
Comedies often make fun of short people for the sake of a laugh.
They often portray short people as weak and rejected or mean, nasty and oversexed.
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Commercials
Like comedies, commercials sometimes degrade short people in order to bring attention
to their product or service.
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Dramas
Dramas don't necessarily need to make fun of certain stereotypes and so have a better opportunity to treat short people as human.
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Music
Thankfully, there are not very many examples of prejudice against short people in today's music.
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Non Fiction
Even documentaries and news articles sometimes use disparaging comments about height to criticise people for some other trait.
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Videos
Short stature, as a subject rather than a parody, is appearing more often in the media these days. This may indicate the beginning of a change in societies' views. This pages lists programs that are currently available, either on TV or at Youtube.