The World's Tallest Woman and Me, Channel 4
True Stories: Carny, More 4IF SOMEONE slaps you in the face, but first tells you that they are going to do so, adding that they feel really guilty about it, does it hurt less? If the
theory needs testing, I'd be happy to try it out on the irritating Mark Dolan, whose self-indulgent programme The World's Tallest Woman And Me kept trying to pretend it had something interesting to say about people seen as freaks, but merely put them on display.
Dolan claimed that he'd always had a fascination with women who could look down on his 6ft 4in height, which I'm sure completely pre-dated the commission to make a documentary about them. He travelled to an American convention for particularly tall people, where the social club sold stickers that said things like "Looking for fun in all the tall places".
And there he stumbled upon, or perhaps she stumbled over him, the 6ft10in Ellen, whose website of chaste size-comparison pictures turned out to be only the tamest of a series run by the "Hugh Hefner of tall women", catering for people with a fetish. But Dolan was stuck with his useless "quest" and quickly backed away from investigating further, wittering, "That's kind of become the story and, ah, I don't want to lose focus."
Dolan did a lot of wittering. Going to meet another American, who bills herself as the world's tallest woman, he worried: "I think Sandy is going to be very used to broadcasters turning up and … really wanting the freakshow, and I like to think of myself as having different motives … but I unfortunately can't completely extricate myself from this notion of the freakshow either." There was much more, but in the end he said he guessed he'd just have to live with the guilt.
Sandy (7ft7¼in) was stuck in a wheelchair in a nursing home at the age of only 52 owing to the strains on her large body; she was depressed and often ill. It was genuinely sad, but her "status" as the world's tallest woman didn't really seem to be the issue, though Dolan tied himself in knots trying to say that he "sensed" it was the only thing of value in her life. And despite saying all that, it didn't stop him, guilt and all, immediately setting out to prove that in China there was a woman who was taller, flying over there to measure her at 7ft9in and thus destroy Sandy's claim to fame.
The Chinese lady was poor, living on a pittance with her mother and stared at by crowds whenever she went outside, though she could only, painfully, stand up for an hour at a time anyway. "Do you feel like a winner?" beamed Mark Dolan, tactlessly, at which point I wanted to grow to giant size and squash him myself. In his brief visits he learned little about his subjects, but revealed plenty about himself.
Meanwhile, True Stories: Carny allowed its carnival folk to speak for themselves about their lives. Not all were as vulnerable as the ailing tallest women, but it emerged that many of those who travelled with the fair around small-town America were there because they didn't fit in anywhere else.
This was a poetic and sensitive film by Alison Murray, who had clearly spent months gaining the trust and friendship of her subjects, not just turning up for an afternoon and wittering about guilt. It had the feel of an insider's view as the stories of several characters emerged slowly, complemented by scenes of the fair being set up and dismantled, and odd snatches of music. By the end, I felt I'd got to know these people through their own words.
The full article contains 640 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
