After ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ is branded “a work of fiction”, we ask Traveller Isaac Blake what he thinks.
The return of Channel 4’s ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ was embroiled in controversy from the beginning. It ran billboard advertisements stating that the new season was ‘Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier’, drawing criticism from travellers’ rights organisations who questioned whether a campaign stating ‘blacker’ or ‘more Asian’ would be accepted in the same way.
And then Pip McKenzie, a Roma Gypsy studying Sociology and History in college, slammed the series as “a work of fiction”. Blogging under the name Pipopotamus, the 17-year-old published an open letter to Channel 4. He accused them of ignoring Roma Gypsies in favour of Irish travellers who make up just 10% of the Gypsy population and claimed that the lifestyle shown in the programme is alien even to most of the Irish traveller community.
In reply to Pip, Factual Entertainment Commissioning editor Nick Horan rejected the criticisms: “The series was never intended to comprehensively cover every aspect of Gypsy and Traveller life. But it was always the ambition of the programme to reach a large number of people and challenge their views and preconceptions of travelling communities.”
The Fresh Outlook set out to determine whether Pip’s allegations were true. Is Channel 4 actually ignoring more than 90% of the Gypsy population? And does the series really challenge preconceptions, as Nick claims?
We spoke to Isaac Blake of the Romani Culture and Arts Group based in Cardiff. He told us that even the programme’s title is misleading: “It should be what it says on the tin. It’s called ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ when clearly it’s mostly based on the Irish Travelling community … if they had done a bit more research they could have distinguished between them better.”
The Irish Travelling community and Romani Gypsies have very different cultures. Romani Gypsies cherish childhood and uphold a huge respect for the elderly and women. Jake Bowers, the editor of the Travellers’ Times magazine, once said that comparing Irish Travellers to Romani Gypsies is like comparing “Dublin with Dehli.”
In his letter, Pip notes how the series focuses on negative aspects surrounding the younger generation of Travellers. The programme discusses how they sometimes leave school early but fails to investigate the reasons why. According to Pip, it is often due to social exclusion and bullying: “We have to contend with a curriculum that is totally irrelevant to our way of life. Moreover, both teachers and students seem ignorant of our cultures, thus we are labelled as troublemakers and bullied for being different.
“The myths that you have been spreading have not helped matters,” he added.
And Isaac agrees: “I was recently speaking to a colleague of mine – there was a TV [sic] camera crew who went to Appleby Horse Fair and all they were interested in was the youth – following them around and finding little characters.”
He said that the show is creating more problems for these young people that it is fuelled by: “‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ has made it more difficult for kids in school, there has been a lot more name calling … We have seen a big rise in behavioural issues.”
Then there’s the very controversial subject of ‘grabbing’. Pip is particularly sardonic when talking about this mainly Irish Traveller tradition of choosing a wife: “If only I had known that the key to a women’s heart was to sexually assault her using a gypsy courting ritual called ‘grabbing’.”
And Isaac is no more familiar with the ritual, despite its high profile in the programme: “I think that was an isolated incident for that family. I’ve never heard of it in my life. I’m from the Romani Gypsy community here in Cardiff and I lived on site about 25 years and I’ve never seen that. The community take care of the children so if you saw something like that you’d intervene, regardless of the fact that it’s not your child to make sure the child was safe.
“I think that’s a child protection issue and local authorities should be involved but to stereotype a whole section of people based on an isolated incident – well, that’s discrimination,” he told us.
So what could Channel 4 do to give its viewers a better representation of Travellers? Isaac would like to see a broader example of individuals featured in the show: “I would like to see more footage on site, more of the older generations like what the mums and dads have to say … If Channel 4 did a bit more research they could have worked with the Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month, they could have got involved with the educational programmes.”
Pip just wants his community to be taken seriously: “We are not a joke, we are human beings and your work of fiction is only strengthening stereotypes and ignorance … Unlike those who star in your ‘documentary’ I am not after 5 minutes of fame, but what I am asking for, is for you to put humans above ratings.”
By Katie Harrington
http://katieharrington.net/2012/02/23/my-big-fat-stereotype/
[Image courtesy of nshepheard]
