How does contemporary media represent gypsies ?

The media represents certain social groups in way in which the truth is subverted into something totally opposite. The media simulate these ideas to entertain the public and to gain an audience. Gypsies have been for many years represented in a negative way; people who write and speak about gypsies often do not know them and therefore do not show a complete representation of them.  Much of what is shown about Gypsies is very negative and never a balanced picture of their lives. This leads the public into creating their own perception of their lives, which is evidently information they seen or heard from the media.

Social groups like gypsies have under gone discrimination by many countries. For centuries Europe regarded gypsies as social outs; this meant that society had the perception of them to be out of society and to not be included. This understanding has however not changed in society; many people still discriminate against gypsies and the main factor to blame for this is the media’s influence. Shows like ‘My big fat gypsy wedding’ which documents the lives of travellers uses the term ‘Gypsy’ in their title when Gypsies and Travellers are two different kinds of people. This mishap is one of the stereotypes conveyed by the media about this social group, society does not recognise them for who they are and in some way mock and ridicule them.

Kate moss, according to Grazia magazine had a ‘my big fat gypsy hen party’ this indicates that people enjoy the representation of the gypsy community provided by channel 4 in the hit show ‘my big fat gypsy wedding’. However it seems that people may enjoy the show for their own entertainment. The channel has stated that they aired the show for documentation purposes, however it seems that people sitting at home are in some way comparing their lives to the ‘’gypsies’’ and ridiculing them.  We the audience see the gypsies to be ‘dirty, criminal and abnormal and we compare ourselves and we the audience redeem ourselves to being the normal ones.  There is a highly selective point of view given when watching this show, as the show clearly connotes the ‘ us over you’ side and this is  supported by the editing which is  constructed in a way were the audience are against the gypsies which clearly shows a biased point of view.  In series 5 the advertisement for ‘my big fat gypsy wedding’ was complained about 370 times by the public, the billboard was deemed outrageously racist. A letter to channel 4 the London traveller and gypsy unit asked ‘’ we wonder if channel 4 would have been so ready to use adverts with similarly compromising phrases for other ethnic groups. Jewisher? More Asian or blacker?’’ this illustrates that the Gypsy and traveller community hit back with the adverts and the show, as their lives were being ridiculed and depicted in a negative way. The media represented them in way were they wanted to gain more entertainment and wanted more drama. Using half naked pictures of girls and men fighting clearly indicated that the media wanted to portray the stereotype of gypsies and in some way exploit the social group and represent their life style to be wrong. The show uses more drunken wedding scenes were the women are being grabbed violently this represents their culture to being crude and violent.

 The women are represented in way were they are sexualised, seeing young girls wearing hot pants and  teenagers wearing tight dresses indicates to us that the women are only there to be looked at, by using low angles and close ups this is the way they are represented. Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze applies here as the young girls are dressed this way to be looked at by the males; this creates more entertainment for the show and depicts the gypsy lifestyle to being high entertaining with sex and drama. Using images of boys being very aggressive and shots of them fighting also point outs that the gypsy lifestyle is portrayed in a way were people see the males to violent and aggressive.  However in a letter written by a young traveller boy, he challenges every aspect of ‘my big fat gypsy wedding’ he states that Irish traveller’s only make 10 % of the traveller community and also addresses the fact that the show forgets about the Romany gypsy community. He ridicules and refutes the term used as ‘grabbing’ and states that this isn’t practiced by the gypsy community, he also talks about his life as a teenager who studies at collage and discusses the fact that his sister went to college and university and became a social worker. This is surprising to know from a traveller as many of them are portrayed in the show as not having an education back ground. In the boys letter he totally rejects the reading of the series, which channel 4 indicated would be very education and entertaining. This proofs the fact that the media has exaggerated and given the public the wrong perception of the traveller community, the negative of example of the traveller community represented has influenced many and has caused the traveller community to be outraged by the negative depiction of their lives.

 

 

 

Theories

The Marxist theory is one theory that explains how we should view the way the institutions portray gypsies in a certain way.

The elite have constructed these images for our entertaining purpose.

Gypsies continue to live this way because they enjoy and love their lives; if they didn’t then they wouldn’t be living this way. Channel 4 portray their lives in a way were the audience sit in their living rooms and mock and ridicule their lives, in some way stating that they wouldn’t ever live this way.


''In order to maintain control and socialorder, the ruling elite ensure that evenminor sectors of society ‘feel’represented''

With reference to any group you have studied discuss how their ‘identity’ has been mediated.

In our consumer media, obsessed, society much of what has come to past is influenced and produced by media institution. The things audiences know and care about are simulated by the media. They learn to construct their social identities, whether they are black, white, Asian, Arab or even poor or rich. Media, in short, is central to ultimately controlling people’s social realities as their influence helps people to make an overall conclusion about social aspects.

Many people and institutions have criticised the media for their negative depicts of black people in the lime light.  Challenging the media portrayals of black men as ‘Gangsters and hoodlums’ and black females as’ mammies and welfare mothers’ has frustrated most black actors and actresses as they would like to portray and play roles which inspire and help base their careers.  Author bell hooks (1992) contends that black representation “determines how blackness and people are seen and how other groups will respond to us based on their relation to these constructed images” (p. 5). This indicates that she agrees with the fact that people will make their overall judgement on a group of people from what they see in the media. Television, radio and magazines are a key catalyst for the influence and understanding of different social and race groups.

Black feminist have also discussed and challenged the idea of some media outlets run by black men hate the idea of women being successful in playing lead roles in which they are perceived to be good.  Burks (1996) notices and states that black cinema continues to have influences from white, male, heterosexual hegemony, although the black cinema is independent, however the industry is controlled by white hegemony and they also produce the same type films and portray characters of all nationalities in the stereotypical way. This brings about the idea that the change of roles portrayed by actors of different ethnicities could in some way jeopardise the way society views and takes their media products, which would then affect their income and profit from the public. “Black independent cinema is not necessarily free of the dominant white, male, heterosexual hegemony that has succeeded, at one point or another, in colonizing us all” (p. 26). This is the view from Burks as she believes that the black outlets are still influenced by upper class hegemonic people.

However the likes of spike lee have constructed films that portray the black man in a positive light, producing the roles of black men who want to achieve the best and become the best. These types of changes in the film industry that do not depict the stereotypical role of black men influence and change the perceptions of society. In Spike lee ‘s ‘Bamboozled’ he is committed to challenging and creating images which bring issues of racism on screen, however he does fall into the status quo by sexualising black females in his films in order to link with the main stream industry. The images portrayed of woman are not as challenged like they are with the males, the woman at the end of the film seem to be defined by the males. This brings forth the idea that, sexism in the movie industry is something that is not fully concentrated on and challenged.

Many groups of people are discriminated against; however the main catalyst for this discrimination is the media. The way the media portrays certain groups of people is to blame for the hatred against many social groups. Society has become lazy and does not go out and look for answers to current issues which they feel affect them, rather they take their information from the nearest more convenient source which is evidently the media. The division of world media is very apparent, western media is biased towards the Arab. In the debate the world media association stated that the US media in particular have to concentrate on freedom of speech and try to be none biased towards the Arabs. Mark Lynch a professor in political science stated that "After 9/11 a lot of Americans were not responding to the Arabic media, but to what they were being told about the Arabic media’’. This indicates that after terrible attack on America, the US media became biased against the Arabs in general and vice versa. People were no longer making their own judgements about the Arabs and the eastern world; however they were having their judgements made for them through the media and what they saw or read. This connotes that the media has dominant control in the way people construct their opinions and attitudes towards other countries. Many images shown on western televisions have become distorted and redundant, many people now when they see certain images  of groups of people and will not be affected by it or have any emotion towards these pictures. This creates the understanding that the media have portrayed these groups of people in a particular way so much that the images they’re showing have no power.

To conclude the media has sufficient amount of influence over the people, they help them in some way construct their opinions. However the issue with this is that the media can be biased and in some way influence the people by sharing their opinions with the world and not giving the full picture to some stories. The identities of certain groups of people have been distorted by the media and this has been happening for many years. Although in the earlier years the media was very blunt on who and what they agreed with and followed, however now the public have become more aware of the power the media has and they can leave the information they find biased or unbiased towards groups of people.