Melissa Harris-Perry: You're listening to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Last week, actor Peter Dinklage, best known for his role on Game of Thrones, appeared on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron. Dinklage talked about a lot, the evolution of his career, mainstream success, and his new film Cyrano, but there was one particular moment that got a lot of people's attention.

Peter Dinklage: They're very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you're still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you're doing there, that makes no sense to me. You're progressive in one way, but you're still making that [bleeps] backward story of seven dwarves living in a cave to get-- what the [bleeps] you're doing, man?

Melissa Harris-Perry: Dinklage, who has dwarfism, was calling out Disney's decision to make a live-action adaptation of Snow White, and since his criticism, Disney has said it would be reimagining the dwarf characters in the fairy tale. Now, this is not the first time Hollywood has misfired when it comes to its portrayal of little people. For decades, the entertainment industry has perpetuated harmful stereotypes about people with dwarfism. I spoke about this with Rebecca Cokley, the program officer for the Ford Foundation's US Disability Rights Program. Before we got started on Hollywood, we started in Washington. Rebecca shared with me a conversation she once had with the late Congressman John Lewis.

Rebecca Cokley: Shortly following the Trump election, I found myself sitting in the Congressman's office. At the time, I was serving as the executive director of the National Council on Disability. The Congressman and I had a long storied, melded family history. I remember sitting there and saying to him, "Okay, Congressman, if anybody has any answer, if anybody can be our compass in this moment, it's you. What do we do now?"

He started pointing to the photos on his wall, and to be in John Lewis's office was like literally sitting in the pages of the United States history book, except the photos on his wall, same ones that we saw on our books, were his personal photos. He pointed at one photo of a couple and he said, "They were in an abusive relationship." He said, "We didn't say anything because the gentleman in the photo came from money, and his dad put a lot of money into the movement space, so we never said anything."

He said, "I don't know what exactly happened to them." He pointed at another photo and said, "That's my friend. He went to Vietnam and came back physically but not psychologically. The last time I saw him, he was living homeless in Philadelphia." He looked at me and said, "Rebecca, if there's anything that your generation can do differently than my generation, it's take care of your people."

As we have these conversations about the need to fund movements, about the need to bolster organizations, he said, "Don't ever lose sight of the fact that they don't exist without the people doing the work, and so check in with your people, hold them tight." I remember he said, "Be a phalanx where you can." He said, "They're going to try to find ways repeatedly to divide and conquer our people, and we just can't let that happen."

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's talk about what people are our people about where we have some sense of responsibility, and let's just start with Disney's decision to do a live-action remake of Snow White and what that signals about Hollywood.

Rebecca Cokley: Hollywood and the little people community have always had a very convoluted relationship. Our community as a people wouldn't exist if it weren't for The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz was the first, in fact, gathering of people with dwarfism ever at the scale that it was. Our community has had a different relationship with Hollywood than the rest of the disability community. In many cases, we are still fighting to just even get in the door. We can get in the door. It's just that they want to put pointy ears on us and call us an elf.

Disney's decision to remake Snow White in the aftermath of actors like Peter Dinklage and Meredith Eaton having completely phenomenal careers is frankly insulting at this point. Kids with dwarfism don't need to see caricatures of themselves on TV. Average height children, non-disabled children do not need to see people with disabilities openly mocked by one of the largest media companies in the world. I think we're a bit past that point today.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You made a point about Peter Dinklage's career, but of course, Peter Dinklage also had something to say about this Snow White moment. How do you think Disney has responded? Because sometimes, multinational corporations just do bad things, but then sometimes, they also respond and they get it.

Rebecca Cokley: They've responded, and in the response, we've been informed that they're going to move forward but instead cast quirky, delightful animals as pseudo dwarfs, I guess, and to me, that's not justice. I can see a number of folks in my community say, "Well, let's just scrap the dwarfs all together." I find myself thinking about, what is the opportunity here? What would it mean to show seven adults with dwarfism with personalities, with character histories, with backstories, with the ability to change and evolve?

What impact could that have on the screen versus CGI or animatronic forest creatures replacing the role? While a lot of people say, "Well, let's just scrap the film altogether," if they're going to move forward, I really wish we actually had a restorative justice framing in moving forward, which is clear that we won't.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I want to put these two things together, you beginning with this impactful moment with the late Congressman John Lewis, and worth noting every moment with the late Congressman John Lewis was an impactful meeting moment connection, not that he was always serious, but he always impacted and influenced you in a moment.

This notion of like how you feel, how you treat one another, whether or not you wound and harm one another in the context of doing the work of justice actually matters, and then connecting it to this long history in the context of Hollywood with the stereotypes, misrepresentations around dwarfism, so do a little bit of that work for me. I love where you're starting to go with a restorative justice framework of reimagining representations.

Rebecca Cokley: I think the first time I ever saw myself on television was when my colleague and friend, Meredith Eaton, was on Boston Legal. I remember turning on the TV in my apartment in DC, and we turn on the show and she was making out with William Shatner. I remember just being like, "Who did they hire to do that?" and then the camera pans on her and I'm like, "Oh, it's Meredith. Ew, she's making out with William Shatner." [chuckles] I remember immediately hopping on the phone and texting her and being like, "I just saw you on TV."

For so many children with dwarfism, our first sight of seeing anybody that looks like us is as an elf or a mythical creature that is infantile and cute and doesn't have a backstory, isn't angry, isn't frustrated, has no driving motivation, and let's also point out, predominantly white, and that's a problem for our community as diverse as ours, and at the same time, because of that relationship with Hollywood and the dwarfism community for decades, we didn't have career fairs or college fairs at our annual conventions.

Instead, what happened was the Radio City Rockettes would come every year and steal our young people, and so the coming of age experience for young people with dwarfism was starting the moment you graduated high school, you go and do Radio City. It's not that you're going to set foot on a college campus--

Melissa Harris-Perry: Wait, what? Do you mean the Christmas Spectacular? You literally mean elves?

Rebecca Cokley: Elves, elving, yes, that's where our young people went instead of college. I can count on one hand the friends of mine that have gone to college.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That's such an important point that policy matters. Obviously, you are someone who works on policy, you're a bit of a policy wonk. Clearly, if we get into policy, you're going to start talking policy, but I wanted to make sure we staked this space for the idea that symbols, stereotype images matter, and not just-- yes, because how we feel matters, because our humanity matters, but also because it has material effects.

Rebecca Cokley: Definitely. I remember one time taking my son to school, Capitol Hill Elementary School. We parked the car, we get out of the car, I get him out of his seat and we're walking and we get to the crosswalk, and the car stops and the woman literally jumps up through the sunroof with a camera and says, "Oh my God, look at the elves," like points at her kid who's in the car and was like, "Look at Santa's elves. There they are. Let's take their picture." That sort of thing happens so commonly to people with disabilities in general, and in this case, people with dwarfism.

I remember having like the old school, I know we already referenced Disney, but like the Warner Brother's devil and angel on your shoulder moment and being like, "Okay, if I was by myself, I would be cursing this person out. I'd be reaching into the back of my Honda Odyssey for my Louisville Slugger, and I would be going out that car." My son's looking to me for how I respond to this. I was like, "Jackson, this is really messed up. Those are not good people. We're going to talk about this later."

When he got home, because the last thing I wanted to do is put my son in a situation where he wouldn't be safe. When I got home, I was like, "How did that make you feel?" He was like, "I don't understand. I'm not an elf. I'm a kid. Why would they say that to me? Why would they stop and take my picture? I don't understand that." In this era of YouTube and TikTok and Instagram, I continue to find videos where people with dwarfism have videos of themselves posted online without their consent. It says a lot about society that we can win an Emmy, we can work at the White House, but at the end of the day, it's still perfectly legal for someone to take a video of us and put it up on the internet.

Melissa Harris-Perry: This moment that you describe with your son and experiencing identity-based violence, it resonates so strongly with me as the child of a Black man who grew up in the Jim Crow South who tells similar stories about police interactions. He was a child who was with his father. There was either a police interaction or a white racist interaction, and that parent in that moment is both trying to decide, "What position of resistance do I take, both to teach my child and in order to resist this moment, but also, how do I keep us safe?" that tension.

I feel like what I don't want to do in our conversation, Janet Moakley taught me this, she told me like, "Don't have trans 101 interviews." She was like, "I don't really do that. I don't do trans 101 interviews." What I don't want us to do here is dwarfism 101, little people 101, but then there's a part of me that does, just in terms of thinking about a listening audience that is privileged enough, at least some portions of this audience are going to be privileged enough to have not thought about it, to have not had to encounter that in this moment, that kind of violence, like interpersonal, emotional, and even, potentially, physical violence is still part of just taking your kid to school.

Rebecca Cokley: It really is. I remember having a moment at the White House. I was interviewing a candidate for a position. They said, "Isn't it the greatest thing ever that President Obama would hire a handi-capable person like you? Are you here as part of a charity opportunity?" I remember pausing and thinking about like, "Okay, now how do I respond in this moment, given the privilege I have in this space, given the authority I have in my role, given the fact that I am in charge of diversity for the first Black president of the United States of America?"

I said, "Sir, we don't use words like that." He's like, "But you're just so cute. You can't be here as part of a real job." I ended up having to give a little bit of, as you said, Janet calls it trans 101, I call it a dwarf orientation. I'm like, "Welcome to dwarf orientation. I went to college at UC Santa Cruz. I worked the campaign just like everyone else." Just to continue to combat the significant stereotypes faced by my community, but as the disability community as a whole, we have the highest unemployment rate in the country.

60 to 80% of our girls are sexually abused or assaulted by the age of 18. One-third of GoFundMes in this country are for non-reimbursable disability-related expense. People have this assumption that if you're disabled, you're just taken care of, and it's so far from the truth. Not only are you not taken care of, we have, on average, $17,000 of additional expenses per year compared to a non-disabled person. We face historic levels of discrimination in all facets of our life, and it's going to get even more significant with the growing numbers of COVID long haulers.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Rebecca Cokley is the program officer for the Ford Foundation's US Disability Rights Program. Rebecca, thank you for joining us.

Rebecca Cokley: Thank you so much for having me, Melissa.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You're listening to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Last week, actor Peter Dinklage, best known for his role on Game of Thrones, appeared on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron. Dinklage talked about a lot, the evolution of his career, mainstream success, and his new film Cyrano, but there was one particular moment that got a lot of people's attention.

Peter Dinklage: They're very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you're still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you're doing there, that makes no sense to me. You're progressive in one way, but you're still making that [bleeps] backward story of seven dwarves living in a cave to get-- what the [bleeps] you're doing, man?

Melissa Harris-Perry: Dinklage, who has dwarfism, was calling out Disney's decision to make a live-action adaptation of Snow White, and since his criticism, Disney has said it would be reimagining the dwarf characters in the fairy tale. Now, this is not the first time Hollywood has misfired when it comes to its portrayal of little people. For decades, the entertainment industry has perpetuated harmful stereotypes about people with dwarfism. I spoke about this with Rebecca Cokley, the program officer for the Ford Foundation's US Disability Rights Program. Before we got started on Hollywood, we started in Washington. Rebecca shared with me a conversation she once had with the late Congressman John Lewis.

Rebecca Cokley: Shortly following the Trump election, I found myself sitting in the Congressman's office. At the time, I was serving as the executive director of the National Council on Disability. The Congressman and I had a long storied, melded family history. I remember sitting there and saying to him, "Okay, Congressman, if anybody has any answer, if anybody can be our compass in this moment, it's you. What do we do now?"

He started pointing to the photos on his wall, and to be in John Lewis's office was like literally sitting in the pages of the United States history book, except the photos on his wall, same ones that we saw on our books, were his personal photos. He pointed at one photo of a couple and he said, "They were in an abusive relationship." He said, "We didn't say anything because the gentleman in the photo came from money, and his dad put a lot of money into the movement space, so we never said anything."

He said, "I don't know what exactly happened to them." He pointed at another photo and said, "That's my friend. He went to Vietnam and came back physically but not psychologically. The last time I saw him, he was living homeless in Philadelphia." He looked at me and said, "Rebecca, if there's anything that your generation can do differently than my generation, it's take care of your people."

As we have these conversations about the need to fund movements, about the need to bolster organizations, he said, "Don't ever lose sight of the fact that they don't exist without the people doing the work, and so check in with your people, hold them tight." I remember he said, "Be a phalanx where you can." He said, "They're going to try to find ways repeatedly to divide and conquer our people, and we just can't let that happen."

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's talk about what people are our people about where we have some sense of responsibility, and let's just start with Disney's decision to do a live-action remake of Snow White and what that signals about Hollywood.

Rebecca Cokley: Hollywood and the little people community have always had a very convoluted relationship. Our community as a people wouldn't exist if it weren't for The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz was the first, in fact, gathering of people with dwarfism ever at the scale that it was. Our community has had a different relationship with Hollywood than the rest of the disability community. In many cases, we are still fighting to just even get in the door. We can get in the door. It's just that they want to put pointy ears on us and call us an elf.

Disney's decision to remake Snow White in the aftermath of actors like Peter Dinklage and Meredith Eaton having completely phenomenal careers is frankly insulting at this point. Kids with dwarfism don't need to see caricatures of themselves on TV. Average height children, non-disabled children do not need to see people with disabilities openly mocked by one of the largest media companies in the world. I think we're a bit past that point today.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You made a point about Peter Dinklage's career, but of course, Peter Dinklage also had something to say about this Snow White moment. How do you think Disney has responded? Because sometimes, multinational corporations just do bad things, but then sometimes, they also respond and they get it.

Rebecca Cokley: They've responded, and in the response, we've been informed that they're going to move forward but instead cast quirky, delightful animals as pseudo dwarfs, I guess, and to me, that's not justice. I can see a number of folks in my community say, "Well, let's just scrap the dwarfs all together." I find myself thinking about, what is the opportunity here? What would it mean to show seven adults with dwarfism with personalities, with character histories, with backstories, with the ability to change and evolve?

What impact could that have on the screen versus CGI or animatronic forest creatures replacing the role? While a lot of people say, "Well, let's just scrap the film altogether," if they're going to move forward, I really wish we actually had a restorative justice framing in moving forward, which is clear that we won't.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I want to put these two things together, you beginning with this impactful moment with the late Congressman John Lewis, and worth noting every moment with the late Congressman John Lewis was an impactful meeting moment connection, not that he was always serious, but he always impacted and influenced you in a moment.

This notion of like how you feel, how you treat one another, whether or not you wound and harm one another in the context of doing the work of justice actually matters, and then connecting it to this long history in the context of Hollywood with the stereotypes, misrepresentations around dwarfism, so do a little bit of that work for me. I love where you're starting to go with a restorative justice framework of reimagining representations.

Rebecca Cokley: I think the first time I ever saw myself on television was when my colleague and friend, Meredith Eaton, was on Boston Legal. I remember turning on the TV in my apartment in DC, and we turn on the show and she was making out with William Shatner. I remember just being like, "Who did they hire to do that?" and then the camera pans on her and I'm like, "Oh, it's Meredith. Ew, she's making out with William Shatner." [chuckles] I remember immediately hopping on the phone and texting her and being like, "I just saw you on TV."

For so many children with dwarfism, our first sight of seeing anybody that looks like us is as an elf or a mythical creature that is infantile and cute and doesn't have a backstory, isn't angry, isn't frustrated, has no driving motivation, and let's also point out, predominantly white, and that's a problem for our community as diverse as ours, and at the same time, because of that relationship with Hollywood and the dwarfism community for decades, we didn't have career fairs or college fairs at our annual conventions.

Instead, what happened was the Radio City Rockettes would come every year and steal our young people, and so the coming of age experience for young people with dwarfism was starting the moment you graduated high school, you go and do Radio City. It's not that you're going to set foot on a college campus--

Melissa Harris-Perry: Wait, what? Do you mean the Christmas Spectacular? You literally mean elves?

Rebecca Cokley: Elves, elving, yes, that's where our young people went instead of college. I can count on one hand the friends of mine that have gone to college.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That's such an important point that policy matters. Obviously, you are someone who works on policy, you're a bit of a policy wonk. Clearly, if we get into policy, you're going to start talking policy, but I wanted to make sure we staked this space for the idea that symbols, stereotype images matter, and not just-- yes, because how we feel matters, because our humanity matters, but also because it has material effects.

Rebecca Cokley: Definitely. I remember one time taking my son to school, Capitol Hill Elementary School. We parked the car, we get out of the car, I get him out of his seat and we're walking and we get to the crosswalk, and the car stops and the woman literally jumps up through the sunroof with a camera and says, "Oh my God, look at the elves," like points at her kid who's in the car and was like, "Look at Santa's elves. There they are. Let's take their picture." That sort of thing happens so commonly to people with disabilities in general, and in this case, people with dwarfism.

I remember having like the old school, I know we already referenced Disney, but like the Warner Brother's devil and angel on your shoulder moment and being like, "Okay, if I was by myself, I would be cursing this person out. I'd be reaching into the back of my Honda Odyssey for my Louisville Slugger, and I would be going out that car." My son's looking to me for how I respond to this. I was like, "Jackson, this is really messed up. Those are not good people. We're going to talk about this later."

When he got home, because the last thing I wanted to do is put my son in a situation where he wouldn't be safe. When I got home, I was like, "How did that make you feel?" He was like, "I don't understand. I'm not an elf. I'm a kid. Why would they say that to me? Why would they stop and take my picture? I don't understand that." In this era of YouTube and TikTok and Instagram, I continue to find videos where people with dwarfism have videos of themselves posted online without their consent. It says a lot about society that we can win an Emmy, we can work at the White House, but at the end of the day, it's still perfectly legal for someone to take a video of us and put it up on the internet.

Melissa Harris-Perry: This moment that you describe with your son and experiencing identity-based violence, it resonates so strongly with me as the child of a Black man who grew up in the Jim Crow South who tells similar stories about police interactions. He was a child who was with his father. There was either a police interaction or a white racist interaction, and that parent in that moment is both trying to decide, "What position of resistance do I take, both to teach my child and in order to resist this moment, but also, how do I keep us safe?" that tension.

I feel like what I don't want to do in our conversation, Janet Moakley taught me this, she told me like, "Don't have trans 101 interviews." She was like, "I don't really do that. I don't do trans 101 interviews." What I don't want us to do here is dwarfism 101, little people 101, but then there's a part of me that does, just in terms of thinking about a listening audience that is privileged enough, at least some portions of this audience are going to be privileged enough to have not thought about it, to have not had to encounter that in this moment, that kind of violence, like interpersonal, emotional, and even, potentially, physical violence is still part of just taking your kid to school.

Rebecca Cokley: It really is. I remember having a moment at the White House. I was interviewing a candidate for a position. They said, "Isn't it the greatest thing ever that President Obama would hire a handi-capable person like you? Are you here as part of a charity opportunity?" I remember pausing and thinking about like, "Okay, now how do I respond in this moment, given the privilege I have in this space, given the authority I have in my role, given the fact that I am in charge of diversity for the first Black president of the United States of America?"

I said, "Sir, we don't use words like that." He's like, "But you're just so cute. You can't be here as part of a real job." I ended up having to give a little bit of, as you said, Janet calls it trans 101, I call it a dwarf orientation. I'm like, "Welcome to dwarf orientation. I went to college at UC Santa Cruz. I worked the campaign just like everyone else." Just to continue to combat the significant stereotypes faced by my community, but as the disability community as a whole, we have the highest unemployment rate in the country.

60 to 80% of our girls are sexually abused or assaulted by the age of 18. One-third of GoFundMes in this country are for non-reimbursable disability-related expense. People have this assumption that if you're disabled, you're just taken care of, and it's so far from the truth. Not only are you not taken care of, we have, on average, $17,000 of additional expenses per year compared to a non-disabled person. We face historic levels of discrimination in all facets of our life, and it's going to get even more significant with the growing numbers of COVID long haulers.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Rebecca Cokley is the program officer for the Ford Foundation's US Disability Rights Program. Rebecca, thank you for joining us.

Rebecca Cokley: Thank you so much for having me, Melissa.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.