ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the entertainment industry has routinely exploited little people. It focuses on how entertainers distinguish between using their physical attributes and participating in stereotypes. The chapter explores the complications and dangers for little people in Hollywood. It discusses the use of words like "munchkin" or "midget" in describing the entertainers. The chapter analyses whether there is a connection between the limited roles for little people and their struggles to make a living as entertainers. For as long as show business has existed, little people have been delighting audiences—usually for the wrong reasons. In the early 1800s, they were billed as "midgets" and put on display alongside oddities like the "Feejee mermaid" in dime museums, precursors to freak shows that served as entertainment for the unwashed masses. The root of people's fascination with little people is hard to pin down.
