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Try Kindness
Ridiculing and ostracizing people because of the way they look or act is as old as the Bible and remains a common practice around the world, from the U.S. to Thailand and Ethiopia.
In the U.S., we have done a little better in recent years in backing away from stereotypes of people with differences, whether too heavy or too thin, too big or too small or who look different, sound different or act different than the typical person.
“Silver Linings Playbook,” “Rain Man,” “A Beautiful Mind” and “My Left Foot” come to mind as movies that have tried to show honest portrayals of people with differences.
But then there are movies like “Forrest Gump” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” that showed distorted versions of reality, whether it was the inaccurate portrayal of Gump on the autism spectrum or the inaccurate and hideous treatment of people with psychiatric illnesses in Cuckoo’s Nest.
People think it’s funny to make fun of others. Jerry Lewis made a career out of mocking people with psychiatric illnesses or developmental differences and he entertained millions of people around the world who saw nothing wrong with such ridicule.
“Beauty,” Margaret Wolfe Hungerford wrote in her 1878 novel, “Molly Bawn,” “is in the eye of the beholder.”
Shakespeare knew all about bigotry and how hurtful it can be for those who may not fit in.
“Hath not an ugly person eyes? Hath not an ugly person hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?” Shylock said in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.” “If you prick an ugly person, do we not ugly-bleed? If you tickle an ugly person, do we not ugly-laugh? If you poison an ugly person, do we not ugly-die? And if you wrong an ugly person, shall we not ugly-revenge? “
The struggle continues to convince people that those who are different should be appreciated for who they are and not scorned for who they are not. Beauty, intellect, abilities are all relative and subjective and they differ widely in different cultures, so ask not for whom the bell tolls.
The Karen women, a group known as the “long neck” or “giraffe” tribe in parts of Myanmar and Thailand, wear heavy, brass rings around their necks. It is a custom to make a woman more attractive to a possible mate because it is a sign of beauty and wealth. You won’t be getting a mate any time soon if your neck is too stubby.
Members of the Masai tribe in Africa are known for wearing heavy jewelry made of stones or elephant tusks to stretch their earlobes over time.
A lip plate to a Mursi or Suri woman in Ethiopia signals that she has reached child-bearing age. The two lower front teeth are removed before a piercing is made to allow a heavy clay or wooden disk to adorn and stretch the lower lip. Like ear stretching, larger and larger disks are inserted over time to further elongate the lip. The larger the disk becomes, the greater the beauty, as it signifies maturity, which is an attractive attribute to a male of the tribe. An unstretched lip and you women may never wed.
Women in many Asian countries stay out of the sun because pale skin is a sign of beauty and desirability.
In the African country of Mauritania, where drought and famine are common, being overweight has traditionally been a sign of prosperity. A heavier woman has been so desirable that girls as young as seven were sent to fat farms and urged to eat in order to put on weight.
Scarification is a popular tradition throughout the world and in many different cultures from the Western Pacific to South America to parts of Africa. Men and women undergo the painful process of scarification, but women tend to scar their torsos and chest because it is considered sensual and intriguing.
Sloth was the deformed Fratelli brother in 1985’s film, “The Goonies.” How demeaning for all those people who don’t fit society’s definition of attractive. And Herbert Butros Khaury AKA Tiny Tim was famous more because of his odd looks and personality but how many real Tiny Tims are victims of ridicule?
Why isn’t “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” called “The man with kyphosis, an illness caused by a weakness in the spinal bones of Notre Dame.”
And why isn’t the “Phantom of the Opera” called “Eric, the man with a congenital facial deformity of the Opera.”
How about a more sensitive name for the evil Captain Hook in “Peter Pan,” like “Captain Amputee whose hand was painfully severed by a crocodile.”
People with disabilities have long been stigmatized, stereotyped and ridiculed in films and books, with little compassion for the people with the real disabilities. It’s time to have a little sensitivity.
Why can’t Henry Frankenstein’s creation have a name rather than to further dehumanize this angry, sad man-made man without even providing him with a name, like Frank.
On the subject of Frankenstein, Marty Feldman in “Young Frankenstein” had bulging eyes, caused by a thyroid disease that developed into Graves’ ophthalmopathy. Anyone less famous and with similar bulging eyes would be considered a freak.
In “The Wizard of Oz,” Bini Aru, Boq-one, King Cheeriobed, Isomere, Jinjur, Kiki Aru, Ku-Klip and Margolotte are those rollicking, happy “munchkins” but let’s call them people who are short because they were born with achondroplasia, a genetic condition that results in disproportionately short arms and legs.
“The Attack of the 50-foot Woman” could be retitled in a more empathetic way as “The Attack of the Woman with agromegaly, usually caused by a benign tumor in the pituitary gland.”
People who don’t fit the physical ideals portrayed in the media actually may be people with serious eating disorders, like the grossly overweight Fatty Arbuckles, Lou Costello, Jackie Gleason and even Greta Garbo, who was told she had to lose weight and ate nothing but spinach for three weeks and then dieted, rigorously, for the rest of her Hollywood career.
Remember Dame Lesley Lawson AKA Twiggy, the English model and poster girl for anorexia in the swinging 60s. She was 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 91 pounds.
People get strength out of ridiculing others, nothing new there, and those who are different, suffer, nothing new there either.