TSC: This is apparently a piece of concept art for Pixar’s upcoming film, “Inside Out”, about an 11-year-old girl’s mind and the emotions which live therein. The characters portrayed are metaphors for “Anger”, “Disgust”, “Fear”, “Joy”, and “Sadness”. Can you guess which one is supposed to represent “Anger”?



Also notice that “Joy” is the tallest of the characters. So, this is another example of cultural ideas about what “it means” to be short or tall being presented to our children without critical thought. It’s this type of cultural indoctrination which will cause these children, once they enter adulthood, to make snap judgements about others based on their height. We saw a similar motif in Dreamworks “Shrek”, over ten years ago, with the diminutive and abusive character “Lord Farquaad”.

And, to be clear, I’m not singling Pixar out as a particularly noxious offender when it comes to the proliferation of height stereotypes and heightism. They just represent one aspect of a culture in which heightism is firmly rooted and unquestioned. Children today are bombarded with media impressions which suggest (or outright state) that “tall is good” and “short is bad”. These media impressions sometimes even go so far as to present the message in terms of gender, i.e. “short men (specifically) are bad”. This isn’t to say that our society celebrates short women - it does not. But because heightism is a gender based prejudice, our popular culture often singles out males for the most aggressive shaming. Presumably because being short is seen as a type of physical gender nonconformity when observed in a body that is otherwise viewed as “masculine”.

While large movie studios have made progress over the years in curtailing their role in spreading gender based stereotypes, it seems that they have made no effort to address heightism. Of course, how can we blame them? It’s profitable, and (as of now) most short people don’t seem to mind being degraded, shamed, or stereotyped for the amusement and satisfaction of others.