The Terror of Tiny Town: a dwarfsploitation movie with emancipatory value? more

One year prior to the release of the all-time classic “The Wizard of Oz”, featuring the acclaimed Munchkins, Sam Newfield directed “The Terror of Tiny Town”, advertised as the first 'comedy western with an all-midget cast', starring “Jed Buell’s Midgets”. In this pastiche, conceived as a ‘weapon of mass distraction’ and categorized as a ‘pure exploitation movie’, diminutive actors are riding Shetland ponies and walking under the swinging doors of a local saloon. The “Terror of Tiny Town” is regularly cited among the Worst Movies of All Time. Various works of popular culture contributed to the movie acquiring cult status by recycling its title, re-interpreting its footage or through references in other movies; the film is ubiquitous on the internet and in social networks and blogs. The purpose of my paper is to demonstrate that the movie adapted American western genre stereotypes to a hitherto excluded category of actors and, by analogy to ‘blaxploitation’ movies, may have been instrumental in emancipating the short statured community. Although a black ‘midget’ featured in the film, it discriminated against ‘dwarfs’. It is likely that the absence of a ‘mirror audience’ prevented the movie to giving birth to a genre or even a sequel.