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Post by Heightism Report on Sept 30, 2018 2:49:21 GMT
Back in the 90s, the concept of political correctness was really taking hold, and people were looking for ways to end certain types of speech that framed marginalized groups in negative ways. To no one's surprise, short men weren't included in any of these efforts.
The naysayers can't even pull the old "he's not talking about short men, he's talking about robots" cop-out because the main character specifically states that it is short "man's" disease, follows it up with a definition that involved short men, not robots, and as a bonus, the scene includes all of the elements of the short man's disease stereotype.
The scene includes
-Various forms of overcompensating, such as lifts, working-out
-Being prone to anger and violence
-Paranoia that everyone is attacking you for your height even when they're not
-Driving a motorcycle to compensate for height
-Being a creepy short man by making sexually suggestive remarks about women
The host then completes the round robin of short man hating by rubbing Baby Aspirin on the short robot, and of course, he chose Baby Aspirin to point-out that short men don't deserve to be classified as actual adult men because they are more like babies.
As if we didn't get the point yet, the words "shrimp" and "little baby short man" were thrown around.
Then, there is a break, and when they return, Servo denies that he is short, which is considered a major sin because short men are supposed to always know their role and be aware of how society feels about them, and if they deviate from this script, they are believed to be poaching respect and perks that are reserved for tall men.
This is a really egregious example of heightism because the hatred toward short men is evident. Even though this was presented in a silly context with robots, the message that short men are violent, angry, unmanly, lesser males who need to be scolded, mocked, and policed is 100% crystal clear.
I found this video by complete accident. It's always worse when you're just experiencing some nostalgia for yesteryear, and you end-up being confronted with society's hateful beliefs.
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Post by Heightism Report on Sept 30, 2018 7:32:22 GMT
I also want to add one more thing about political correctness beginning to take hold in the 90s. During this time is when the term "vertically challenged" was created. It started out as a punchline used by at-least a few stand-up comedians. The jokes all relied on mocking political correctness and degraded short people in the process. It's similar to the logic that Randy Newman used when he wrote the song that we are all too familiar with, except people claim that he was mocking prejudice instead of political correctness. So, in both cases, a social phenomenon was being mocked, and the final takeaway was that it is still ok to mock short people. In the case of the vertically challenged jokes, the premise was that political correctness is starting to get out of control because even short people are starting to request consideration. The joke relied on the notion that short people's problems are petty, and short people are angry for no reason, which as we know, is a harmful stereotype about short people. So, in addition to all of the heightism that was already flourishing, "vertically challenged" became a slur to imply that a short person was asking for undeserved consideration in society, and the fact that this joke was popular renewed the zest for more discrimination in-regard to the notion of "short man's disease" and all of the other classic stereotypes about short men. This is why it isn't surprising to see this type of heightism in the MST3K video that is the subject of this thread. All of this goes to show that heightism has been extremely prevalent for a substantial amount of time. Forms of discrimination being celebrated to a degree where people laugh at the same premises for decades at a time, aren't easy to eradicate. We certainly have our work cut-out for us.
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Post by valorzeal33 on Sept 30, 2018 17:12:49 GMT
Because this video doesn’t have closed captioning, I went on Tubi-tv, and was lucky to find this video and that it has subtitles included.
Gotta say is wow. All the things you mentioned in the heightist list have been included in the very first part of the film. Even more shocking is how hardly anyone in YouTube comments section ever said anything about them. All their heightist insults went in their ears and out the other. It’s like they were purposefully ignoring the heightist remarks.
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Post by HeightismAOS on Sept 30, 2018 20:24:03 GMT
Even more shocking is how hardly anyone in YouTube comments section ever said anything about them. All their heightist insults went in their ears and out the other. It’s like they were purposefully ignoring the heightist remarks. Heightism is so engrained and pervasive, that it's like breathing to most people. The only shocking thing to them would be any of us daring to talk about this. |
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Post by Heightism Report on Oct 1, 2018 2:28:43 GMT
I remember this video. I think one of the important things is this can't be passed-off as satire because this segment doesn't rely on the premise that they're saying things they don't actually believe; The "humor" lies in the fact that they openly hate short people and they don't care. The things they said about wanting to injure short people, hating them for wearing suits etc., are prevalent beliefs that society holds. My Heightism Report Twitter feed is loaded with filth that believe those exact sentiments.
Also, the comments are mostly people who are disappointed with the fact that the word midget is censored. Furthermore, the bulk of the remaining comments are people flinging the "learn to take a joke" "stop being offended at everything" platitudes. The thing is, who are they speaking to? There are no short people in the video protesting the segment, and there are barely any comments pointing-out that this type of hatred is unacceptable, so why are they defending themselves against an invisible adversary? The answer to that is they know good and well that they believe exactly what was reflected in the video. They have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and they know that they are hypocrites, so they are lashing-out as a defense mechanism because they don't want to be held accountable. Another thing they are doing is "defending their turf," and their turf is their convoluted world where short people are allowed to be used as punching bags. This turf is so important to them that they are defending themselves against the imaginary adversary I already mentioned. Another thing that happened is they had a moment of anger and bewilderment at the fact that their beloved word "midget" was being taken from them, and they decided to ensure that the rest of their heightist beliefs were protected. This is a prime example of how status-quo groups react when they are even mildly inconvenienced, and in this case, they were inconvenienced at the notion that their hateful beliefs would ever be called into question. They feel entitled to be able to degrade short people, and they'll do anything they need to do to defend their right to continue their hatred without being held accountable
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