The baby in the Bad Girl, Bad Boy number
Ok, was that a little kid or a midget?
shareA little person playing a baby.
RIP Paul Newman 1925-2008. Words can't express how much you will be missed.
MovieChat Forums > Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) Discussion > The baby in the Bad Girl, Bad Boy number
The *baby* was 9-year-old Billy Barty, who had a long career stretching from vaudeville to TV. And the name of the number is "Pettin' in the Park."
IMDb has a fairly full bio of Billy Barty. Who called himself a dwarf and not a midget.
That's Barty when he was 9?
Wow, he seemed a lot older. He must have been pretty smart.
Billy Barty! OMG! I'm watching the "Honeymoon Hotel" sequence right now and became totally distracted by wondering who the "baby" is. He looked kind of like Spencer Tracy a bit.
shareOk, was that a little kid or a midget?
It was nine-year-old Billy Barty, so the answer is: Both!
At that age he was the size of a much younger child. Dressed up like a toddler but with the facial expressions of a 9-year-old, his appearance was bizarre to say the least.
All the universe . . . or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?
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It really catches your attention - TCM used the snowball segment for Christmas a couple of years ago.
shareNo. The answer is NOT both. Billy Barty was a dwarf. There are many types of dwarfism. "Midget' was a term coined by P.T. Barnum for the Proportional Dwarves
featured in his circus and circuses since then but most people with dwarfism or "Little People" as they prefer to be called, dislike the term "midget" just as many races and nationalities dislike the names that they have been given throughout history. Here endeth the lesson.
"I say,open this door at once! We're British !"
No longer true, midget is once again back as the preferred term due to the pop cultures conception of "Dwarves" being burly bearded fellows. "Little people" hasn't been liked for a couple decades, the term midget is back. If only there were more midgets in movies these days!
shareI don't know anyone who prefers the term "midget".
Also, the terms "dwarves" or "dwarfs" is never even spoken in "Snow White". They are referred to as "little men".
Let me know when the "N" word has a resurgence in popularity. I won't hold my breath.
TheChamCham says > I don't know anyone who prefers the term "midget". Let me know when the "N" word has a resurgence in popularity. I won't hold my breath.Where have you been lately? The 'N' word made a resurgence some time ago. The problem is there's a lot of controversy over who can and cannot use it. I get it in regards to some words; especially the ones that were used in a derogatory, insulting, and threatening way. Those kinds of words tend to say a lot more about the speaker than about the person being called the name.
In the case of 'little people', the term sounds more like it refers to children than people of short stature. There isn't anything offensive about children but calling someone a child when they are not or calling anyone anything they are not is, in my opinion, what is offensive.
However, I don't think people get to proclaim they are whatever they decide they want to be then expect the world to fall in line. Words have meanings and convey a lot more than that as well. When we haphazardly slap the wrong labels on things it only causes confusion, disorder, chaos, and miscommunication. It must be really difficult for kids these days to make sense of the world while being force fed a lot of nonsense. I'm an adult and have trouble keeping up with the craziness myself.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate] share
I knew that it wasn't a real 1 or 2 year old. His movement mannerisms were obviously that of someone much older. Have you seen Esther Williams and Jimmy Durante's "This time for keeps"? Same deal, and there's a scene by the pool there where this "baby" plays a trick on Durante and runs around and then does this great dive off the diving board. A real toddler would've never been able to do that.
Anyway, 'little people' is the least offensive term, I believe. As for the 'n' word, generally speaking, it's usually OK for black people to use it amongst each other, but never OK for a white person to use it. Saying "'n' word" is as far as we should go on it, and then it's only OK to say it in a describing kind of way, like we're doing on these posts.
The other poster is right they are called little people. There is even a show with little people now. Midget is not PC by any means.
shareI think you'll find there is a club called the Little People of America which allows membership for those less than 5 feet tall.
shareThat's odd, because of all the terms ever in use, "little people" sounds the most demeaning. If I were four feet tall, I'd insist on being referred to as a midget.
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