That really annoyed me too - I spent a lot of time after the "oh hey, they're Romani" reveal waiting for them to tell us more about what the culture is really like, and they never did. They just told us what the family is like, and sort of vaguely implied a few times that not all Romani are exactly like this, but they didn't give us anything to compare it to. And it's such a neglected issue that I wanted to hear more.
I would have loved if, rather than it just being the "Reid and Prentiss know everything" show - which is awesome, on occasion - they had to consult with someone who was Romani who could have looked at the unsub family and gone, "Wow, these people are crazy and have no idea what the hell they're doing, because that's not what we do at all, this is what we really do." And then I realized what I really wanted was some sort of Romani version of John Blackwolf. Because really - they do such a good job dealing with Native American culture, and then they just really fell down on the job here. Extremely disappointing,
( ... )
I have to admit that not much of the rest of the ep, like team interaction and personal stuff, even registered for me, because the cliches just kept getting worse and worse, and I just couldn't believe that they really went there, and then even made it a long-term enduring pattern with many abductions over a century
( ... )
I was really unhappy about it when they went there, although in the moment I allowed myself to be more comforted by the "perverted the culture" comments by deciding that they weren't Romani at all, but... that was totally in my head, and even if it weren't, it's a red herring, because as you say, the association is still going to be there.
I wonder if they could have done it without involving the mention of Romani at all, just a creepy family tradition that somehow got started by some sociopath who raised his family up in it. Probably not; the way of life would still be reminiscent of Romani. Although maybe they could have had someone bring the similarity up and have shot it down completely.
To me it felt like a lipservice, that didn't make much difference at all. Twice or so someone says "Romani culture isn't like that, this is a perversion of it" (and now that I think of it this still kind of implies that this is somehow descended from it, rather than just a Romani being a serial killer), but the whole episode they *show* us something else, and then aren't even content to let it be a single event, but make it a group thing.
Oh, good grief, the language. I'm just dumb; that definitely supports ratcreature's realization that even what they did say still implies it descended from Romani culture. So I completely abdicate any claim that they were even giving lip service to it not being connected to Romani. Utter Fail.
It's the equivalent of having an episode in which a group of Jewish bakers are shown coming their hair over their horns before robbing cradles to get fresh baby blood for their bread. It's not only racist, but it's ancient mythological racism which anyone with access to google and a lick of sense would recognize as such.
Yeah. It was pretty far out there. I mean, sad as that is, I usually don't even take much notice of stereotypes about Romani, because they are so omnipresent and they almost never appear in either fiction or news as anything *but* thieves and such, or as some sort of "social blight" that needs fixing. (Or sometimes as some kind of folk art cliche, I guess.) But this was so extreme I couldn't believe the series went there.
Also this has extra horrible irony in that in reality the children being stolen from their families all too often were (and still are) Romani children by various authorities.
I've read the book that Criminal Minds is influenced by, which is 'Mind Hunter : Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit' by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, well worth a read. I think Mandy Patinkin's character was based on him, and some of the cases as well. I haven't watched every single episode, it's not the show I follow closely, but every single episode I've seen (so far) has been based on a real case, very loosely, but you can pretty much work out who it's about.
So, would this be based on a real life case? Really really badly adapted, although I can't think of any off-hand? Not that it makes it any better....
I have no clue about this book, because I generally don't read serial killer stuff, I only watch procedurals sometimes. But I honestly can't imagine this kind of plot would have worked in the real world, especially not the multigenerational clan thing that posited this going on for a century.
Well, there are a lot of very, very bizarre cases out there, but yeah, I read a lot of forensic serial novels for fun (and then I can't sleep) and I've never come across this type of thing.
However, a real life case involving travellers, I came across was in a forensic mental hospital in North England, was where a young teenage traveller was beaten to death because he was a traveller. It was appalling, I had to transcribe the case.
Prejudice against Irish travellers in England is very open, at least in the work places I was in at while living there. I think it's probably important for me to point out, that although Irish travellers face the same discrimination and have the same type of sterotypes that the travellers do in Europe, they aren't related ethnically.
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I would have loved if, rather than it just being the "Reid and Prentiss know everything" show - which is awesome, on occasion - they had to consult with someone who was Romani who could have looked at the unsub family and gone, "Wow, these people are crazy and have no idea what the hell they're doing, because that's not what we do at all, this is what we really do." And then I realized what I really wanted was some sort of Romani version of John Blackwolf. Because really - they do such a good job dealing with Native American culture, and then they just really fell down on the job here. Extremely disappointing, ( ... )
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I wonder if they could have done it without involving the mention of Romani at all, just a creepy family tradition that somehow got started by some sociopath who raised his family up in it. Probably not; the way of life would still be reminiscent of Romani. Although maybe they could have had someone bring the similarity up and have shot it down completely.
Sigh.
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but really, the fact that they took a prejudice like "stealing your children" and ran with it seemed much worse than just any ole crime...
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Also this has extra horrible irony in that in reality the children being stolen from their families all too often were (and still are) Romani children by various authorities.
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So, would this be based on a real life case? Really really badly adapted, although I can't think of any off-hand? Not that it makes it any better....
Reply
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However, a real life case involving travellers, I came across was in a forensic mental hospital in North England, was where a young teenage traveller was beaten to death because he was a traveller. It was appalling, I had to transcribe the case.
Prejudice against Irish travellers in England is very open, at least in the work places I was in at while living there. I think it's probably important for me to point out, that although Irish travellers face the same discrimination and have the same type of sterotypes that the travellers do in Europe, they aren't related ethnically.
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