I'm torn on the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Oh, I want to see it, definitely. But every time I see a trailer or picture and Noomi Rapace is in it, I wince and go, "Oh, please don't be atrocious, please don't be atrocious."
Which, she's a Swede. She ought to be a point in favour of the film.
But she's also playing a Gypsy fortune teller.
(
Cut for me ranting about media's portrayal of Romani and other gypsy characters, which, let's face it, you've heard me rant about before. )
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Oh, man. You would think so, but there's this awful fad in the UK right now for fetishing "Gypsies" (many of whom are actually Travellers) based off a documentary called My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and the subsequent TV series. So the shops are full of memoirs with old-style horse-drawn caravans on the front, and chicklit called things like "Gypsy Bride", and books on how to plan your own "Gypsy wedding", and I saw pictures in the paper of a little girl having a Gypsy-themed birthday party... I'm Northern Irish and I've seen the prejudice against the Travelling community back home, so the whole thing creeps me out immensely.
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I guess what creeps me out is that there are pretty much no gypsy characters - whether Romani or Traveller - who have defining character traits more important than being a gypsy. Or equally important. Or, in most cases, that exist at all.
When was there ever a character like the Romani kids I meet at work, who I pretty much only know are Romani because that's their mother tongue? Or, even with traditional-living "gypsies", when are there any attempts to show actual traditions, rather than romanticized fairytale versions, as well as the wider context of society?
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Martin's character has a backpack, and it is stolen by a Gypsy kid. It is all very dramatic, and the kid's father sees Martin yelling for the kid to give back a box that was in the pack.
So the father drags the kid to where Martin is staying, makes him give back the backpack AND carry it for him the next day to the edge of town. Then there is a lot of talk between Martin's character and the gypsy father about how the kid's theivery was continuing years of gypsy stereotypes that his father was working to un-do, and how the gypsy people aren't like that any more, and so on.
[my take on the whole storyline was "Dude. He's a pilgrim. It's a city built around pilgrims. The most unrealistic part is that the kid expected anything in the backpack other than smelly socks and stale bread." People leave packs sitting out all the time - nobody steals them because nobody's carrying anything of value, except the occasional camera.]
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