Title:
Fury as Snow White filmmakers snub dwarfs
Subject:
Dwarves in the new Snow White & The Huntsman film are not played
by actual dwarfs, which infuriates midget actors.
Web
Address:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4357457/Fury-as-Snow-White-filmmakers-snub-dwarfs.html
Date:
6 June 2012
Before I start, let me explain the confusing
difference between "dwarves" and "dwarfs", both a plural form of dwarf. The from dwarves comes from the famous
author Tolkien, and this way of writing the plural form tends to be used for fictional or
mythological types of dwarves. The form dwarfs, however, tends to refer to people
with dwarfism, a growth disorder. Now, on to the story.
 |
| Dwarves, but not dwarfs. Yeah, confusing, I know. |
Summary:
Everyone
knows the story of Snow White and her seven dwarves, and in the
upcoming film Snow White & The Huntsman they are clearly present.
Just one little thing; the dwarves are not played by dwarfs, but
people of a normal height. Their height is altered by clever use of
camera angles, special effects and digitally pasting the heads of
these actors onto the bodies of real dwarfs. The Beacher's Madhouse
midgets are protesting that this is the same as “Universal
casting a white actor to play a role written for an African-American
person and digitally changing the colour of their skin”.
They are planning a 100-midget march to Universal's offices.
Opinion:
At
first I thought it was a little exaggerated, I mean if you look at
the famous trilogy of Lord of the Rings you will see much of the
same. The hobbits are played by normal-sized people even though they
are supposed to be half the size of humans as are the dwarves. Again,
this is altered by the use of camera angles, special effects and the
use of children doubles. The core difference I find is however using
the bodies of midgets to just stick the head of the actor on it. Is
it really that different from digitally altering someone's skin colour? I
can imagine that as a midget with ambitions to become a great star
good roles are far and few between.
On one hand I understand that it is annoying for dwarf actors that the few roles they are able to play go to ‘normal sized’ actors. On the other hand: As a director you want the best actor possible, if those happen to not be dwarfs, so be it.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenThe actor who played Gimly was actually the largest person in the fellowship. I think only Saruman was taller than him. So great camera work there. Regarding the whole Dwarf situation, Hollywood will never be fair, fat people are not often cast as main characters and black people usually die first. Hollywood discriminates and we simply have to deal with it.
BeantwoordenVerwijderen