I finally caught "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" on C4 last night. It is an interesting programme but the overly facile approach did no favours to the Gyspies and Travellers portrayed, nor did it provide a huge amount of insight into this secretive community for the outsider.
It is a disgrace that such active discrimination, as having your wedding booking cancelled 3 times because you were a traveller, still happens in our society. Rightly the travellers are pointing out that if that happened to any other race in the UK there would be an outcry, but the backlash against multiculturalism and political correctness seems to have given some people the idea that they have a right to be racist to certain people.
Within the black community there are large amounts of racism against chinese, indian, and even african (as opposed to west indies) black people. The idea that it is ok to be racist if you are black is as manifestly ridiculous as feminist getting their tits out for lads mags, and yet racism persists and probably always will.
The huge popularity of the "gypsy wedding" programmes is indicative of a wave of accepted dicrimination, similar to the ubiquity in primary schools of using the word "gay" meaning rubbish, or the unpleasant tendancy of middle class people to refer to poorer people as "chavs".
A more interesting, but harder to make, film would have been an insight into the american romany culture which has provided plenty of shock stories in recent years - such as 10 year old brides. Or even a more balanced documentary, perhaps something to make people confront their prejudices rather than reinforcing them. the plea of the gypsies in this documentary seemed to be "we're just people like anyone else, sit down with us and give us a chance" This indeed may have made for a more enlightening programme.
It is a disgrace that such active discrimination, as having your wedding booking cancelled 3 times because you were a traveller, still happens in our society. Rightly the travellers are pointing out that if that happened to any other race in the UK there would be an outcry, but the backlash against multiculturalism and political correctness seems to have given some people the idea that they have a right to be racist to certain people.
Within the black community there are large amounts of racism against chinese, indian, and even african (as opposed to west indies) black people. The idea that it is ok to be racist if you are black is as manifestly ridiculous as feminist getting their tits out for lads mags, and yet racism persists and probably always will.
The huge popularity of the "gypsy wedding" programmes is indicative of a wave of accepted dicrimination, similar to the ubiquity in primary schools of using the word "gay" meaning rubbish, or the unpleasant tendancy of middle class people to refer to poorer people as "chavs".
A more interesting, but harder to make, film would have been an insight into the american romany culture which has provided plenty of shock stories in recent years - such as 10 year old brides. Or even a more balanced documentary, perhaps something to make people confront their prejudices rather than reinforcing them. the plea of the gypsies in this documentary seemed to be "we're just people like anyone else, sit down with us and give us a chance" This indeed may have made for a more enlightening programme.
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