Musings on... My Big Fat Gypsy Valentine

You'd have to be living under a stone not to have heard about/watched My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and it has been a favourite of mine ever since it fired aired in 2010. It's Channel 4's eighth highest rated programme ever with the second episode pulling in 8.7 million (thankyou Wikipedia). 

Danielle

This episode follows two teen brides as they prepare to marry - Ina is 16 and Danielle is 15, and Danielle has to wait until her 16th birthday because being married at 15 is against the law! Once married, they girls would move away from the family home to live among their husband's family, and would be expected to maintain a traditional wifely role. 

I had always found the aspect of love interesting in gypsy and traveler culture. The idea of love is so important to them, and girls dream of their perfect husbands from a really young age. I can't believe how young they are when they decide on their lifetime partner - girls are expected to marry their first loves, as to have more than one boyfriend was frowned upon. Having said that, there were some girls who commented that marrying young was a bad idea... "he could be an eejit" - a valid point! Fabulous dresses as per usual (WHERE WAS THELMA... not the same without her) and I particularly liked the dress made out of wallpaper (why why why). 

Its hard to talk about this series without facing the criticism against it. While it's great for entertainment and is clearly very popular, it does make me wonder how accurate this representation is of Gypsies. Is it trying to be sensationalist? Are the families on screen really a representation of the culture as a whole? A major issue leveled against the show is of racism, particularly the advertisement for the second series... "BIGGER, FATTER, GYPSIER". What strikes me is that the series (at least the first one) clearly highlighted the inequality that many experience on a daily basis. That can only be a good thing, right? But adverts like that seem to side with that inequality.

Its a shame that a programme designed to shed light on a different world, and to better educate people on traveler and gypsy culture, has fallen into what seems to me as a pressure for ratings. As a history student, I would definitely like to see some historical and political context of both Romani Gypsies and Irish travelers, but I guess those aren't the issues of importance - it's about big dresses and crazy weddings. I find it hard to equate my personal entertainment with such a clear problem in the representation of the gypsies and travelers, and it leaves me feeling uneasy. I will always take the programme with a pinch of salt, but if you're a traveler or gypsy, I expect that's hard to do.