When Peter Dinklage collected his well-deserved Golden Globe for his work on Game of Thrones, after taking the stage (I still say he should’ve walked along the tops of everyone’s heads like Crocodile Dundee), he mentioned “a gentleman in England I’m thinking about, Martin Henderson. Google him.”
In case you were too drunk or busy doing something “more important” than watching a “pointless awards show,” here’s the guy he was talking about, 37-year-old Martin Henderson, a dwarf and aspiring actor who was picked up and thrown to the ground by a drunk man.
An aspiring actor who appeared as a goblin in two of the “Harry Potter” films, Henderson was left badly injured after a drunken stranger picked him up and threw him to the ground outside a pub in Wincanton in Somerset last October. After suffering tissue damage to his back, he has been unable to walk properly since.
Henderson, 37, told British newspaper The Telegraph that his assailant may have gotten the idea from Mike Tindall, a member of England’s Rugby World Cup team. Weeks before the attack, Tindall had been disciplined, along with some teammates, for attending a “dwarf tossing contest” at a bar in New Zealand.
“I think until someone steps out and says ‘this is not acceptable,’ all dwarfs are under threat,” he told the newspaper, adding that he fears his condition could ruin his career. [ABC]
Too often people forget the immortal words of Bushwick Bill, the one-eyed dwarf rapper from the Geto Boys: “Liftin’ weights will make ya bigga. But lift me, you’ll be a dead-ass nigga.”
Still, I think it’s slightly unfair to compare consensual dwarf tossing weeks before in a different country with picking up a stranger and throwing him to the ground. It sounded like quite the night though:
England’s rugby stars were also seen downing shots as they partied in a Queenstown bar called Altitude, which was hosting a ‘Mad Midget Weekend’.
Get it? Altitude? (*siiiigh*) As Doug Stanhope wisely points out, one of the drawbacks of a country with no guns and free healthcare is that drunk guys kicking the sh*t out of each other don’t have the same fear of consequences. Solution? Make all dwarves carry gun. Not big ones that you could go on spree-shooting rampages with, mind you, just little ones, in case some A-hole keeps effing with you.
Reacting to the name-check, Martin said: ‘I could not believe it when I heard I had been mentioned.
‘I was totally shocked. It is really odd to think my name was heard by all these actors.
‘It is nice to know my message is getting out to people that it is not acceptable to throw dwarves around.
‘I have a massive response and it has mostly been really positive.
Martin confirmed he is still awaiting an apology from the England rugby team over the incident – which has left him needing to use a wheelchair for long journeys. [DailyMail]
Peter Dinklage is already the first dwarf to ever make girls consider the possibility of banging a dwarf – the world’s most famous DILF, say. I wouldn’t be surprised if he also became some kind of dwarf Martin Luther King, fighting for their civil rights. For too long dwarves only recourse in the face of harassment has been trying to deflect the abuse onto gingers.
[NSFW for language]
Yo, Dinklage. Whaddya do when muthaf*ckas underestimate your size, man?