There are colourful displays of Royal Crown Derby crockery, handed down from mother to daughter on her wedding day. There is certainly no sign of wealth or excessive spending. Many tell me they struggle to feed their children, and have no savings or bank account. Things seem set to get worse for Traveller women. O'Roarke is expecting to be the only Traveller liaison worker in the capital before long — her funding comes from the Irish government.
Who is supposed to help them if they get rid of the bit of support they have now? If they get a letter saying they are in danger of eviction but they can't read it, what are they supposed to do?
Conditions on the site are as grim as the homes are spotless. The trailers are not connected to water pipes, and the toilets, bathrooms and cooking facilities are in a small, unheated shed across the yard. But living on a site is about being part of the community. When Traveller girls are growing up, they are only allowed to go out with other family members, and once married, her husband rules the roost. Almost immediately her children became depressed. He would buck to get out," says Kathleen.
I was on anti-depressives. The children couldn't go out because the neighbours would complain about the noise. Since moving to their site two years ago, Kathleen and her children have been far happier. They won't let our kids mix with theirs because they say we stink and don't talk properly. Settled kids won't even play sports with ours in case they touch them.
Mary, Kathleen's year-old daughter, is upset by the series too, and says that she has faced further prejudice since it hit the screens. All my friends are asking if it's true what they show on telly, and I think they've gone different [towards me] since it was shown. In one episode the viewer was informed that young Traveller men at weddings and other social occasions use something known as "grabbing" to force a reluctant girl to kiss them. I've only lived here for 3 years but locals who have lived here for longer get very hostile towards their arrival, claiming that crime goes up around Derby Day purely because of the Travellers.
I was having my hair cut a few weeks before this year's Derby and the hairdresser - a young woman around 20 years old - launched into lots of the usual stereotypes about them when we started talking about Derby Day.
I'm not sure any evidence exists either way of who commits crime around the time of the Derby. My own experience of Derby Day is that the visible crime - fights etc - is the result of drunk white middle-class lads. But I think it's safe to say the hostility locally runs quite deep. Best answer: I've been watching the episodes on YouTube, of the British documentary version.
I assume it's just repackaged for TLC. How many episodes in are you? They cover the question about wedding expenses as best as they can in episode 3 or 4, I forget which exactly. I think a number of factors are at play-- for one, it's a major life event in the communities and families save for years for the wedding day of a daughter.
Three, without the expense of a mortgage, there's a lot of money freed up over the years to save. There's obviously more to it, and I searched online a bit yesterday with the same question, but the answers are largely bigoted and accusatory. So we'll likely never get the whole story, and that's okay. If the TLC version is different from the British version, then maybe I'm wrong, but I have found the series thus far I've just started episode 5 to be fascinating, fairly well balanced, and an incredible look at a very fierce people.
If nothing else it becomes a jumping off place for people to want to learn more, just as you are here. The feeling I've gotten from the series so far is that it's not for anyone to judge, and that while there are some "negative" aspects to the culture "grabbing", women's place in the community, etc. I don't think the production company pays for anything.
Best answer: The Television Without Pity forum has been very helpful in satisfying my shameful curiosity. It's awful. Coming from a culture where weddings are an important event, I can tell you that many people save up all their lives for their children's weddings, in particular their daughters. In Pakistan, you can even invest in a "wedding fund" in the same way as you can invest in a "college education fund.
I don't know, violetk. Did you read that Television Without Pity thread? I'm a couple of pages in, and it certainly doesn't sound like people there are getting a balanced picture of Traveller culture. I guess it's now ok to refer to entire ethnic groups as "low-down trashy morons"? This show does not feature Romani and surprised they call them Gypsies, when they aren't.
The way these guys live and Romani are different. Different struggles too especially much having to do with skin color. It's no longer available to listen to on the BBC website, but someone has uploaded it to YouTube , so you can hear it there. I know a family that has Traveller tendencies. BabyGaga also reports that women compete to have the most lavish wedding dress.
But is this really an accurate representation of what women from these communities wear on their wedding day? She said, "I don't know anyone so rich that they can afford to splash out on wedding dresses like that.
Mine was secondhand. They'll now be saying we are all criminals, or sponging off the state. The journalist, Julie Bindel, who penned the article reports that she asked multiple women from the Traveler community about whether those featured on the show are representative of their communities, to which they revealed that the programme focused on a small group of individuals.
An article on The Guardian called My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding exploits our community for cheap laughs has slammed the documentary series which aired on Channel 4 in the U. The article was penned by a woman who claims she is an Irish Traveler who has been living in London since she was a child, and when she watched the show she was left feeling disappointed. Even worse is that when the new season came around, the show had started advertising for it, using billboard posters with the slogan, "Bigger, Fatter, Gypsier.
These posters also featured young looking girls wearing barely-there clothing, and it's this reason why the author used the website as a platform to share her thoughts.
My family was brought up to be sure of who we are and what we stand for. But these posters are making a joke of that. Do they want people to laugh at the word 'Gypsier? She also noted how troubling it was that it seems acceptable to use these words in a way to mock her community, but were it any other creeds, religions, or ethnic groups being mocked the reaction would not be the same.
The publication revealed that My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding participant, Priscilla Kelly, who appeared in season one of the show, has since gone on to slam it for the way it portrays her community. She did this with a Facebook post back in , presumably because she wanted to use her post as an opportunity to expel some myths about the Irish Traveler and Romani gypsy ways of life, as well as the treatment of the people who appear on My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding.
She said, "For the record, they do not pay us anything to do the show. So we are gaining nothing but disrespect from other people who don't understand our culture.
Amy Winter from the TLC said this at the time: "TLC prides itself on providing access to worlds that our viewers might not otherwise experience, revealing the relatable in the extraordinary. Having the opportunity to explore the hidden and often misunderstood gypsy and traveler culture continues the network's commitment to compelling storytelling and surprising real-life characters.
Most of the detailed and massive dresses featured on the show are made by Boston clothing designer Sondra Celli.
There is certainly demand for her services, and Channel Guide Magazine reports that sometimes she finds herself working "hour days, six or seven days a week. People come into my office all the time and are intrigued by what they see. Apparently, these women are also fantastic to work with because when it comes to designing the garments, Celli claims they give her complete freedom.
She says she knows their styles, she knows what they like, and she knows the difference between the communities and their style preferences.
Well, that, and unique fashion and unusual choices for wedding garments. The Sun reports that Thelma Madine who is featured on the U. The two women reportedly had a fall out in , which resulted in Phillips leaving the shop and opening her own rival dress shop in Liverpool.
In a separate incident, she successfully brought her former boss to court for unfair dismissal. Anyone who ever watched My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding or the American version of the show may have felt unsettled by a grabbing ritual. The Guardian featured an article in , titled The big fat truth about Gypsy life , in which they attempted to highlight the real-life struggles and problems that people within this community face, including discrimination.
She said, "Grabbing has never happened to me or any of my friends and the first time I ever saw it was on the telly. I wouldn't put up with it, and I don't know why they made out we all do it. It's just one nasty boy they showed. I have honestly never heard of it. It's all make-believe. She told Wrestle List how she first got into the sport, saying she initially bought her brother an Undertake DVD set one Christmas and after that, they started to watch wrestling and fell in love with it.
Around a year later she started training. This ties into another point, the one that suggests the women in the Traveler and Romani communities drop out of school and stay home with their children, which is not always the case.
Perhaps one of the most shocking things that season one participant of My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding , Priscilla Kelly, revealed was that not all of the weddings on the show were even real.
0コメント