Some might say that Little Man, the latest beast unleashed from the Wayans stable, is their most disgracefully no-brow ‘effort’ to date. The film is already languishing in IMDB’s worst movies of all time and has appalled critics the world over.
Not me, though. I simply can’t believe that any movie could be this stupid. I suspect when the Wayans formulated the premise – thug midget (Marlon W.) is released from jail and must pose as a baby to recover ill-gotten loot – they had the ideas of noted Anarcha-feminist Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia in mind. Posing as an infant, Marlon infiltrates the home of a young couple divided by the issue of children. She (Washington) is a high-flyer who wishes to postpone having a family while she clambers up the greasy career pole. He (Shawn W.) is far more desirous of a conventional house and home. This deliberate gender reversal is, I believe, a brilliant deconstruction of the hierarchical family unit recalling Emma Goldman’s argument that the traditional patriarchal structure condemns women “to life-long dependency, to parasitism, to complete uselessness, individual as well as social.”
The African-American setting adds a post-colonial frisson. Who could better embody Julia Kristeva’s ideas of ‘otherness’ than a black midget in the post-Katrina United States? When examined in this light, a scene depicting the diminutive protagonist reaching for a buxom blonde’s breasts only to be obliged by her plainer friend seems less like a rejected cutting from the Carry On editing floor than a metaphor for political and social dissatisfaction.
Many have pointed out that the special effects department seem to have lost the plot, that Marlon’s size varies from scene to scene. This too, may be deliberate subversion on the part of the filmmakers.
Either that or it’s a load of rubbish. But it did make me laugh at least three times. Oh, the shame.
90mins. Cert 15a. Ppens September 1.