Last night, Rob and I saw The Station Agent, a wonderful movie about a train buff, Fin, who inherits a disused depot station from an old friend, sets up housekeeping there, and begins forming meaningful friendships despite his desire to be left alone. Fin is a dwarf, and we saw the film with my friend David, who is also a dwarf. (I am aware the more correct term is “little person,” but it is also more nebulous.)

David, an actor, was jealous of the guy who got to play the main character. He said that the motion picture accurately and touchingly portrayed events he has to deal with every day, and it would have been a great opportunity to take an interesting, dramatic role rather than have to always be the comic relief.

I confess it was uncomfortable to sit there with him and witness such indignities on the screen, knowing he was seeing them as someone who had suffered them. Afterward, we went out to have drinks and discuss the movie, and he said that we would be surprised what assumptions people make about him just because of how he looks. “People who don’t know me say things like, ‘I can tell you’re a great guy,’” he said. Considering no one has ever concluded the same thing about me, one would think I would not find that so awful, but it was actually the most terrible and oppressive thing I had ever heard. How dare people assume someone is a great guy when they don’t know a thing about him!

Then, he and Rob talked about musical theater for the rest of the time, effectively putting the kibosh on any further insights.

So my meaningful life lesson from The Station Agent is that musical theater is an insidious threat to civilized conversation.