Do you know this huge actor named Peter Dinklage? Game of Thrones’ Terion, you know him! He embodies a famous dwarf who loves prostitutes. But it is not his brothel performances, simulated under the complicit eye of the HBO cameras, that bring him back to centre stage today.
While Disney is working on a new live-action version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it has railed against the demeaning portrayal of the new Dopees, Grumps, and the like in the upcoming film. Imagine the offence: representing the dwarves of Father Grimm, made up, with beards and pointed hats, leaving to work in the mine! What a scandal! During an interview with Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, he denounces a “f***ing backward story where seven dwarves live together in a cave” and shouts: “What the fuck are you doing? Did I do nothing to advance the cause? Guess my voice doesn’t carry enough.”
The self-righteous at Disney did not expect this blow to the shins. They had nevertheless made efforts to avoid the worst. After the controversy over the stolen kiss played at Disneyland and condemned by feminists, hadn’t they hired Rachel Zegler, a Latin actress, to play Snow White? Not enough for our Peter, who has become a destroyer of stereotypes and ambient “hypocrisy”.
His voice carried high enough to scare those at Disney. They have just apologized for having almost departed from the vulgate woke, in a press release published by The Wrap: “To avoid reinforcing the stereotypes of the original animated film, we take a different approach on these seven characters and have consulted members of the dwarfism community. We look forward to sharing more as the film enters production after a long development period.”
The alert was hot. The dwarfs will therefore be replaced by “magical creatures”, and Disney, adds the media, would be looking for voice actors to accentuate their personality. We want non-gendered beings so that this misstep is completely forgiven.
Affected from birth by achondroplasia, Peter Dinklage saw his growth interrupted at 1.32 m. An initial handicap that he was able to transform into an asset since he owes his physique – and his talent, of course – to have been able to impose himself in roles to his measure. He engaged in ethical fights against animal abuse and veganism very early on, to which he would be fiercely addicted. Does the strictness of his diet impact his crazy reasoning of the moment? It would be a lesser evil.
By helping to destroy the literary myth of the “dwarfs” or “Zwerge” of our past “fairy tales” – which has persisted in our imaginations since 1812 through the bad folkloric action of the Brothers Grimm, these despicable reactionaries -, he wants to defend the present. He believes this cultural fact discriminates against the future community of “small people” of the universal world.
Peter Dinklage, who knows how to denounce the “hypocrisy” of the studios and holds high the cancel culture, owes his international fame to the role of Trumpkin in The Prince Caspian (2008): a kind of dwarf with a long beard and comical exclamations. Did you say stereotype? For now, by making the seven little protectors of the real Snow White disappear, he has played a dirty trick on ingrained culture and intelligence, shouting his new bad song: “Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, We return from woke!”
