Premiering at the 2008 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on April 24, S&M: Short and Male sets out to discover why society is so obsessed with a man’s height. Directed by Howard Goldberg, this enlightening film reveals that short men earn thousands of dollars less than their taller counterparts. Goldberg, who unearths many additional facts -- some shocking or tragic, others humorous -- in his documentary, was gracious enough to participate in the following e-mail interview about S&M: Short and Male.  

QUESTION: What inspired you to make a documentary about this topic?

GOLDBERG: When the guy I hired to paint my house refused to climb his own ladder because he was afraid of heights, I noticed he was only 5'3”.  A short man who’s afraid of heights -- that's pretty funny.  In a burst of compassion, (I'm 5'3" as well) I climbed the ladder for him, and we got to talking about what it's like being short.

That was three years ago, I was 46 at the time, he was in his thirties. Amazingly, neither of us had ever shared our feelings about short stature with anyone else before. The reasons are complex, but it's one of thosethings we don't want to talk about. I realized then and there that male short stature could be a rich documentary topic. 

What do short men feel?  What are the challenges that short men face? Why don't we want to talk about these problems?  Do people really discriminate against short men? Are short men to blame? Is society to blame? Is anyone to blame?  And what about finding a member of the opposite sex to see a movie with and then being able to see the movie without being blocked by the back of some taller guy's head?

QUESTION: How did you learn about the North American Organization of Short Statured Adults (NOSSA)?

GOLDBERG: I was wondering if there were any support groups on the internet for short men.  So I Googled "short support".  I found a fantastic web site administered by Steven Goldsmith (who also appears in my film).  Of course, Short Support included a link to NOSSA, another group dedicated to supporting short people around the world.  

QUESTION: Matt Campisi, NOSSA's president, believes the one group that has made no progress in the face of rampant discrimination is “short men.” Do you agree or disagree with him?

GOLDBERG: It's not a belief, it's a fact.  According to numerous studies performed under controlled conditions at the highest level of academia, short men face discrimination daily. The bias against short men is as common as race bias or age bias.  In most Western Democracies it's illegal to discriminate based on race or age -- why isn't height, or "appearance in general" alsoincluded in the equation? 

It should be mentioned here that the city of San Francisco and the state of Michigan have laws protecting the short. Many jurisdictions have laws protecting the handicapped (that would include dwarfs.) Ontario's human rights charter also makes it illegal to discriminate based on appearance, and that could include height.

QUESTION:  Heightism, as you know, is prejudice against someone on the basis of physical stature. How rampant do you believe this is in today's society?

GOLDBERG: People aren't as obviously anti-short as depicted in Randy Newman’s song. They never say "don't want no short people 'round here."  It's much more subtle, but very present nonetheless. 

I experience some form of heightism every day.  For example, German Guttierez, my camera person is over six feet tall.  Whenever we'd show up ata new location to shoot, be it a business, a school, a hospital, or what have you, the person in charge would always greet him, and begin speaking to him as if he were the director. German would always have to interrupt them, and re-direct them to the short guy next to him (me). It's unfortunate but all too common that people assume that the bigger guy is the one in charge. 

Now, take that tendency into the boardroom, into the sales pitch, into any competitive environment, and we're talking about a serious disadvantage for shorter men. That's heightism.

John Kenneth Galbraith (the father of modern economic thinking) is on record saying "the social bias in favor of large size is one of society's most blatant and forgiven prejudices."

QUESTION:  Your film indicates that short men generally aren't open to talking about their stature with other people. What sort of obstacles did you face in finding subjects willing to open up and speak on camera?

GOLDBERG: Short and Male features about ten characters.  In order to find these ten we pre-interviewed about 200.  That's about 5% which isn't bad.  Given a sympathetic environment, short men will talk about being short. The environment outside of the documentary Short and Male is mostly unsympathetic. Nobody wants to hear about your short male issues. If you speak up you're ridiculed, laughed at, at best.  

QUESTION:  Did you find anything that shocked and or surprised you while making the film?

GOLDBERG: We set out with a number of hypotheses about the sub-conscious effects of height on our behavior. We designed experiments to test these hypotheses. I was surprised at how strongly the results supported the hypothesis: Height Matters.

QUESTION: Do you think tall people are more successful than those who are short?

GODLBERG: Tall men seem to go further in their careers. They also seem to earn more money. The average height of a Fortune 500 CEO is six feet, that's 3 inches taller than the male average for North America. 

Eight-and-a-half times out of ten, the tallest candidate wins the election. In Short and Male, Stuart Seltzer (a 5'4" dentist) asks his twin brother if he thinks there will ever be a short president. His brother Stephen's answer is telling: "Maybe at B'nai B'rith". 

Economists have known for a long time that on average, taller men earn more than their shorter counterparts. It averages out to about $1000 per year per inch, for men in North America. This wage disparity is similar to what economists observe when comparing the wages of women against the wages of men. 

QUESTION:  Do you believe every short man has been or will be bullied physically or emotionally during their lifetime because of their height?

GOLDBERG: Bullying is not the problem.  Hitting a career "height ceiling", making less money for the same work, not being listened to as much or as often as taller counterparts. These are the issues.   But I will say this about bullying: If you're short, (as in under 5' 6") don't ever try walking against sidewalk traffic like Joe Mangano does in Short and Male. Bruises or fractures could result.

If short men work to let others know about the problems they face, perhaps society's attitudes towards the short will gradually evolve, just like our attitudes towards women, gays, lesbians, and visible minorities have evolved.  But until that day, unfortunately, painful and risky surgeries as well as growth hormone injections will remain a temptation for many and arguably a necessity for others. 

(S&M: Short and Male screens on April 24th and 27th at the 2008 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. For tickets, call the festival box office at 416-637-5150 or go to www.hotdocs.ca. For more information about the film, visit the official site.)