About a week ago I read a review for the new Sam Raimi horror flick Drag Me To Hell. The description offered went something like:
Christine Brown is a loan officer at a bank. When she refuses to give an old Gypsy woman an extention on her loan, the woman curses her to be dragged to hell.
My immediate thought was: Gypsy curses? Really, Sam Raimi? Really? This is the best you could come up with? I hate you.
Nick Mamatas explains it all here much better than I could because he actually saw the movie. The bottom line is: that’s some seriously fucked up prejudice and stereotypes that should not be acceptable at all. AT ALL. It’s like the dark side to the whole Magical Negro thing — Magical VooDoo/Witch Doctor/Evil Gypsy Person who will curse you with their evil, heathan magic if you do something like steal their jewelry, deny them their loan, kill their daughters, or just look at them the wrong way.
This is not okay. It’s just not. Do people who write this shit even get that Gypsies are real people? Do they think they’re some sort of made-up folktale people who only exist for our amusement? If so, what the fuck is wrong with those people?
Movie makers, TV creators, fiction writers: stop with the Gypsy curses, already. It is: NOT Okay.
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I agree–it is not okay for sure. I think it’s a matter of education. I don’t think people realize that there really are Gypsies (Roma) who have been persecuted or that this kind of thing plays into hurtful stereotypes. I was in the library when one of the staff used the word “gyp” as in cheat. I asked her if she realized the word came from Gypsies and she didn’t and was appalled and said she wouldn’t use the word again. I don’t remember when I discovered where the word came from, it was so long ago (and I’m a word person). At the time I thought omg, this is like when people used to say someone “Jewed them.” It wasn’t as linguistically obvious, at least I thought so, but I remember in university some student from a small town using the expression “Jewed” and being surprised when I pointed out where it came from. People need to be educated.
The Gypsy Curse on Buffy was pretty excellent. Also tongue in cheek, like one assume’s Mr. Raime’s use of the cliche is.
like when people used to say someone “Jewed them.”
I am consistently shocked and amazed when people so effortlessly use the word “Jew” as a verb. Really sad.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read Thinner by Stephen King, but if I recall, that was also a curse by a gypsy. A guy kills an old gypsy woman with his car, and is cursed by her husband (I think) to waste away to nothing. This book came out in 1999, and I think that’s when I read it, or maybe a year later.
Thinner was published in 1984. The movie came out in 1996.
vesta, I was going to point to the same one – “Thinner” originally came out in 1984, though, so it’s a bit older (but still not old enough to be ok, and offensive to fat people to boot). There was also another man who was cursed, and he turned into a lizard or something.
There are seriously people in the world who don’t know that gypsies are real. One person I’ve talked to even thought that gypsies were female genies. The lack of education is so sad.
I didn’t make the “to gyp” -> “Gypsies” connection until well into my teens. I thought it was spelled “jip” and had a vague notion about it coming from “chipping” away at something. Gah.
The “Gypsies are mythical” idea sounds like one of those weird childhood beliefs, where it’s only years later that you realize how non-sensical/naive it is. I imagine that adults’ unwillingness to actually point out and explain racism leads to a lot of that, since kids just come up with their own explanations.
This will date me, but when I was a kid, I was a big fan of that Fleetwood Mac song, “Gypsy.” I remember asking my mom what a gypsy was and she said it was just someone who roams around with no home. I did not know that gypsies were actually an ethnic group until, I think, high school when we studied the Nazi’s and I didn’t understand why people who were simply nomadic would be persecuted.
I think that a lot of people, most prominently in the U.S. were led to believe that gypsies were mystic Genies or sort of bohemian-esque people who chose a certain alternative lifestyle. That was the belief I was raised on and was most widely known when I grew up. I’m not trying to justify this in any way, I’m just curious as to how it came to be that many people do not really understand that gypsies/Roma are real people with a history of persecution.
I agree that there are many stereotypes that shouldn’t be used, but then that’s all horror movies are for the most part! There’s the curses, the stupid white jock, the trashy white prom queen, the token black girl and her boyfriend, the smart white girl… so on. Originality is not a staple of modern horror.
And to get myself in trouble here, when I lived in Hungry I was confronted by Gypsies (cigány) on a daily basis, many of whom perpetuated the myth. There was one little old lady that we had to take pains to avoid as we walked through the park so that she wouldn’t try and get us to sit for a tarot reading.
Of course there were many who didn’t fit the profile, but for the most part people see Gypsies as people who live a lifestyle, not as a race in itself.
I’m really not very concise and I forgot what my point was.
Hungry Gypsies in Hungary?
Thanks, Samantha, for perpetuating the stereotypes about us based on your no doubt devastating to you confrontation with a little old lady trying to eke out a living you will never have the “privilege” of experiencing. Sorry your vacation experience was so sullied by her.
Roma suffer in many countries forced sterilization, horrific discrimination in access to all public services, murder and abuse and destruction of property from gangs that can rightly be described as pogroms, often with the police and governments turning a blind eye, or even with their active support.
And I am pretty upset by the levity used by some of the writers here about the Rom (And the instant derailing and silencing of the subject). Wow. My grandfather was a Romani from Poland, and there were other Rom in my small town in WNY, but they all called themselves Hungarians or Poles, so they wouldn’t face craptacular attitudes like this. Why do you all think this is acceptable? I don’t excuse at all the cultural and social practices of some Rom that reinforce our popular image of us, but where is the acknowledgment of our humanity or our history? Would it kill everyone to google the Roma Rights Center or other places to learn a little bit more before being so blithe about the subject? Rent Latcho Drom on Netflix (although I am concerned that reinforces the stereotype that all Gypsies are born musicians, but still, rent it! At least it shows the great diversity of Romani culture.)?
When I lived in Macedonia, either the Roma were lazy, or if they got into business successfully, were accused of taking jobs away from Macedonian Slavs. They just couldn’t win. Anyways, thank you so much, Angry Black Woman, and to the others here who tried to keep on topic and address the issue in a thoughtful way. I would like to see this blog or others that deal with racism and bigotry invite a Roma activist in the states or elsewhere to occasionally blog.
“I would like to see this blog or others that deal with racism and bigotry invite a Roma activist in the states or elsewhere to occasionally blog.”
Good point, Katin. I just invited the only person I could think of off the top of my head to do a guest post or too — unfortunately it’s not going to work out. If you have recommendations of other writers we might invite to talk about Roma experience in this forum, please feel free to drop some links.
I’m up for nominating Katin to fill that role. I mean, Katin clearly cares and knows about the problems faced by Roma, including the prejudice that even the term “gypsy” entails.
I think another problem, though, is the idea that all “gypsies” are Roma. I may be mistaken in this, but it has been my understanding that “gypsy” has become (even if it didn’t start that way) a term that represents a number of disparate outcast/dispossessed cultures, primarily in Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa (but it’s been growing to include other peoples in other areas).
Ultimately, KatinPhilly’s primary point still stands, regardless. There are a lot of disrespectful stereotypes of “gypsies” regardless of their actual cultural background, ranging from “con artists and thieves” to “mystic witches” to “bums”.
It is unfortunate that so many people here seem so quick to fall back on those stereotypes.
Agree with MisterMephisto, but I thought the “Gypsy curse” thing was an anti-Rom slur. Or are there stories of, e.g. Irish Traveller curses too?
What do people think about the tradition of depicting witches as malevolent? Recall that Wiccans are real people, too, and witches (or people identified as witches) have certainly suffered at the hands of the larger society.
Being one of those Wiccans, I’m not exactly jumping for joy about the whole “evil witches” thing.
On the other hand, there was a group of purported Wiccans in my area that actually tried to get Hansel and Gretyl banned from some of the local libraries. And not in a “hey, let’s make fun of people who like to ban books” fashion… they were deadly serious about wanting to ban a book and couldn’t understand why so many of us refused to sign on.
I also recognize that Wiccans are not the only people that claim the term “witch” as their own. So I find it disingenuous to claim that I and my fellow Wiccans are the only ones to suffer under such a stereotype (especially since I haven’t suffered).
So, since I don’t live in a place where people are still being killed for being “witches” (accurately or otherwise), I generally just ignore the “evil witch” as a ridiculous and inaccurate caricature that is now little more than a part of the candy-capitalism-gone-mad that is Halloween.
But we witches have had a lot more positive press over the last twenty years than “gypsies” have, at least in most “First World” countries.
I expect that, were I an accused “witch” in Africa or a member of one of the “gypsy” cultures (where being killed for that by ignorant mobs is still a very real possibility), I would probably feel very differently.
I think there is a place in society for fantasy literature — Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc (I’m sure there are some good kid runs off with Gypsies and discovers the world novels, but I can’t think of them at this moment). However, most fantasy worlds are based on a common cultural idea of the supernatural — sorcerers and sorceresses, witches and warlocks, dragons, gryphon’s, and centaurs, dwarves, gnomes, pixies and fairies, the four elements, ghosts and spirits, etc — and most of these are mangled versions of various culture’s religions.
So how do you folks reconcile the simple joy of a fantasy adventure novel with the not-always even-handed historical basis of its characters?
Emilie,
But in Harry Potter, the witches and wizards are the hero’s people. His lot is with those who are Othered by the majority of “normal” people, aka Muggles. There’s a huge difference between making Gypsies the most important people — both good and bad — in a story, and making them just the nasty element necessary for a Good, Normal Muggle’s plot conflicts.
I think a fictional work in which Gypsies are treated as real human beings is fine, even if it draws on some supernatural elements. Or if it doesn’t, as in the non-fantasy “House” episode where the Roma patient chooses the strong bonds of his community over the opportunities offered outside it, and this comes across as a perfectly good and rational choice given how lonely and isolated the elite doctors are.
In LOTR the most important character isn’t a Man, but a humble, halfling hobbit who was Tolkien’s representation of the people with whom he sympathized, i.e. the rural middle and working class of England. And LOTR has been severely criticized to the extent that the orcs are meant to represent people of color.
You know, I was noticing this the other day, too. I learned that my husband came from gypsy stock when, earlier in our dating, I had used the term “Gypped” not knowing where it came from (or even that it was spelled that way; I seriously thought it was jipped – I was also 16 and naieve). His grandfather came over here from Bohemia with his parents just prior to WWII. Since he educated me a bit, I have been noticing more and more the lack of knowledge in America about Roma history and persecution; here they are treated either as cranky, mystical seers that don’t really exist or European bums. I’ve also noticed the ahistorical and innacurate portrayal of the gypsy “look”: Always black and curly or wavy hair, dark eyes, dark or olive skin. Well my husband and nearly his entire family are blue-eyed and blonde; and there are plenty of other Roma who do not fit the physical stereotype. Most Americans aren’t even aware that gypsies exist as a group of people who are ghettoized througout europe, much less of the stereotype (even though we use it!). I’ll echo Lilian: People need to be educated.
Well, I think that there’s also an important element here of treating a culture or religion appropriately within the context of their own belief.
I mean … Wiccans believe that they can do magic (just like Christians believe that prayer works). Showing them doing magic isn’t necessarily a slur.
Roma don’t have some universally shared belief that they’re able to cast curses back and forth. Showing them casting curses is a slur.
—Myca
Golden Compass?
Wiccans believe that they can do magic (just like Christians believe that prayer works).
Christians vary tremendously in the sense and extent to which they believe that “prayer works,” all the way from scientifically-supported “patients’ emotional well-being improves when they know people are praying for them and that helps them get better physically” to Christian Scientists, who believe that it is morally wrong to use medicine and surgery (although they generally accept mechanical medical assistance, e.g. bone-setting) because it shows a lack of faith in God and who treat their children through prayer. Are Wiccans on a similar spectrum regarding magic? I’d think that to the extent there is a faith tradition associated with Gypsies/Roma, they’d have the same range of beliefs as any other faith would.
I haven’t read Philip Pullman’s work, so I couldn’t say re: Golden Compass.
In my experience, yes, except that it may be actually an even wider spectrum.
Right, but see, that’s my point. The Wiccans are a religion. The Roma are a culture or race.
—Myca
This is one of the times where I’m blind to my own priviledge: I didn’t even think of how the movie portrayed gypsies and thought it was great in part because the female characters really motivated the plot. I can;t believe I overlooked something so obvious.
First of all, let me qualify all my future statements by stating that I am a Rom; my great-grandmother and her family came over to the US from Romania. Since that time, we have kept our heritage strong in the oral tradition.
I am also a fan of Sam Raimi’s work (I love the Evil Dead series), and I enjoyed “Drag Me to Hell” immensely, and this is why:
We propagated this stereotype, because our survival as a race depended on it, and in some areas, still does.
Let me explain. From the 17th – 20th century, we were a prevalent force in Europe, despite our small numbers. Our refusal to conform to society earned us a black mark, making us outcasts, and causing many rumors and stereotypes to spread around Europe and Western Asia. Usually, these rumors were about us being thieves, carrying disease, or generally being horrible people. Some were happy to oblige these rumors; most found them to be troublesome. Everywhere we went, we were run out of town. Until one of us had the genius idea to spread that we were masters of the occult. This made us a king’s ransom through fortune-telling, but also had the added benefit of convincing people that if they slighted us, we could make their lives a living hell forever.
Needless to say, they stopped running us out of towns as much. Or stealing our things. Or killing us randomly. Or destroying our livelihoods. All of this was replaced by fear of us. And fear means we were left alone, the way we like it.
Yes, the movie was a stereotype, but it’s a stereotype that we depended on for centuries. And, sadly, there are many of us in countries where they still depend on it. Unfortunately for them, there is the Internet, where such superstitions are debunked regularly, taking from them the only thin protection they had.
With all of that in mind, I liked the movie because it was a stereotype. It’s not racist any more than saying we enjoy life is racist; it may not be true, but it’s a part of an image that we have worked so hard as a race to build.
Ah, OK, I was under the impression that there were certain beliefs (such as regarding curses) that were part of Roma culture and that deal with the supernatural — I was thinking of it as similar to Indian culture in this way, where drawing a line between religion and culture is very difficult. For example, I can’t tell you whether it’s a religious or a cultural belief that keeps menstruating women from participating in Hindu religious ceremonies. The oldest sects of Christianity in India (which predate Christianity in much of Europe) share similarities with Hindu religious practice that do not overlap with Western Christianity. So I was thinking of Roma in a similar way, that there are aspects of culture that aren’t written down in something like a Bible, but that persist and are seen as important not just as tradition (“we do this because our ancestors did”) but in a supernaturalistic/ religious way (“we will bring down something bad on ourselves if we disregard this tradition”).
This may very well be true. In all honesty, we’ve reached the far edge of my knowledge about Roma culture.
I guess my point was more that if you say something like, “Indians worship Krishna,” there will be a hell of a lot of Indians waiting to correct you, while if you say, “Christians worship Jehovah,” it’s a lot less messy/more true. I think of this as sort of the same thing.
—Myca
I think just about every culture has beliefs about things like curses.
I, too, always thought of gyspys as traveling nomads, but I did know they were based in Romania.
@Jenny
We are not based in Romania, that’s just where my ancestors were from. The Roma are spread over all of Europe, and now even we aren’t entirely sure where we started from. The name Roma or Romany isn’t a reference to Romania, it’s just part of our language, which can make it really confusing when you’re talking about Romanian Romas.
Yeah… part of the “Roma=Romania” thing probably stems from about a century of most people’s understanding of “gypsy” coming by way of Bram Stoker.
Part of it is also a linguistic red-herring, since the terms seem (due to their linguistic similarity) to come from the same root, whether they actually do or not.
@lonespark:
The “Gypsy Curse” stereotype may have started with the Rom, but movies like The Wolf Man imply that the local “gypsies” seemed to suffer the same negative affiliation with the supernatural. Unless there are lots of Roma wandering around Wales that I don’t know about (which is entirely possible).
@Myca and PG:
I don’t know, personally, of any Wiccans that are as extreme as Christian Scientists when it comes to using spells/prayer (these terms are almost interchangeable in my religious experience) over actual medical attention… But yeah, there is a range of approaches from: “Modern Medicine is over-run by a non-holistic approach to the treatment of physical phenomena, so I’m trying some alternatives first” to “Sweet, set me up for my surgery and morphine! I’m good to go!”
Ory points out that many Roma actually took advantage of the “hex throwing gypsy” stereotype to ward off unwanted attention… Which, hey, maybe it used to work great (though I’m sure it backfired almost as often).
The problem is that the continued propagation of these stereotypes is actively making people more ignorant about the persecution that the Rom and other “gypsy” cultures suffer, whether it be “just othering” or “hunted and beaten to death by angry, torch-wielding mobs for being a witch/thief/rapist/etc”.
But the first time anybody called her a gypsy was when the psychic guy talked about her in the store. Up to that point I’d been thinking of her as some generic Slavic lady. And then he started going on about the lamia, and I was like, wait, that’s from ancient Greece, not Romany, so his mythos is all fucked up, and went back to thinking of her as some generic Slavic lady.
Not that this invalidates this post or any of the comments. I just want to be as careful as possible about hearing what people say and what they don’t say.
Ory – I am having serious trouble with your explanation for the oppression of the Roma:
“Our refusal to conform to society earned us a black mark, making us outcasts, and causing many rumors and stereotypes to spread around Europe and Western Asia. Usually, these rumors were about us being thieves, carrying disease, or generally being horrible people. Some were happy to oblige these rumors; most found them to be troublesome.”
While there may be a little truth here, I think it is the other way around, mostly. Roma were treated badly and ostracized, and even enslaved (in roughly the area of what is now Romania) long before the 17th century. The first presence of the Roma in Europe was in the 1300s. What you say comes dangerously close to blaming Roma for their historical plight. And they NEVER stopped running us out of town, killing and expelling us, or destroying our property because of clever evil curses.
I am not disputing the whole curse or fortune telling thing – it has been used (hell, I have even used it, as a self-deprecating joke), and I also like Sam Raimi films, but christ! The other poster is correct – many cultures have this, but this is essentialized onto us, even though all the time I spent in Romani communities I never heard a curse or had my fortune told (one of the few ways a few Rom could make a living, by the way, and yes, some played on that to fleece ignorant people, but we have a hell of a lot of fortune tellers here in Philly, for some reason, and I highly doubt they are largely Romani).
I don’t feel comfortable writing more on this, as I am no expert or activist (although nice of you to nominate me, Mephisto!), as I was raised in a very multicultural family (my grandfather died when my mother was a very young girl), and do not have privilege to speak on behalf of the Roma. Mandolin, if you want to write me (I am guessing you have my email, since I am required to post it), I can see what I can come up with for you. For now, a good place to start is here:
http://www.errc.org/
I had issues with a former director there for her reflexive pro-Israel statements, but understood she was responding in part to the discrimination faced by the cingane and dom and ghawazi peoples (what gypsies are called in various countries in the region – there are other names, too) in the Middle East and North Africa. But this is a very informative website, focusing mostly on greater Europe. By the way, our totally awesome war in Iraq made a bad situation for them there even worse.
Finally, Mephisto wondered if “gypsy” is a generic term applied to disparate groups in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere (travellers are not gypsies, although they face discrimination, too). Well, there are a lot of cultural differences and other divisions between those who live in, say, Turkey, and those that live in Ukraine or Spain, but they share enough in common (linguistic similarities, etc.) that they can be accurately considered coming from the same group. And yes, Leah, not all have a “certain” look”, so beware of using the word “gypped” in public, or we will put a curse on you!:)
My own intial reading of “Drag Me To Hell” is that is it almost completely rendered through the perspective of the lead character, Christine Brown, and as such the stereotypical rendering of the Gypsy woman is actually a rendering of Christine’s own racism. I do not trust the authenticity of anything after their first encounter in the office, as I think there is much evidence to suggest It Is All In Her Head – and that includes the car fight and subsequent curse itself.
This is my first comment (I visit here often) because although I do not think it is a great film, I think it is far more interesting than its “Rollercoaster Ride” reputation, as the curse seems to be a direct Id manifestation of Christine Brown’s eating disorder and latent prejudices. I feel it is ripe for feminist deconstruction (either positive or negative) which I am not equipped to do.
How can you be so demeaning and offensive? Your simple use of a smiley face does not take away the fact that you are mocking a provably un-true part of a persecuted culture. For what? For a joke? You should be ashamed of yourself. People suffer because of perpetuated stereotypes like this.
Oh wait. Maybe, just maybe, the context does affect how the material should be processed and how seriously it should be taken.
Kyle,
Would you like to explain how in the context of the movie, the references to Gypsy stereotypes are clearly ironic/satiric and from a perspective that privileges the Gypsies’ viewpoint rather than that of non-Gypsies?
This is starting to sound like a retread of the Rob & Arnie defense:
“They were joking!”
“Uh, how should I know they were joking?”
“Because they would never mean such a thing.”
“Oh, so they have a track record of actually being supportive of transgender people and especially kids?”
“No, but why should they? They have a right not to support trans people.”
“Sure. And I have a right to look at the totality of their record and figure that they are at best not themselves transphobic but willing to speak from a transphobic perspective that dehumanizes transpeople in order to get a cheap laugh, regardless of the damage that it does to trans kids who already suffer enormous social and legal discrimination.”
1) The importance of context wasn’t brought up at all in the original post, and I was pointing that out.
2) Regardless of how you’d like to pick it apart, context does matter, and we’re talking about a horror flick. The whole idea is to play off of people’s irrational fears for cheap entertainment and a good scare.
Dealing with the root cause (those irrational fears) by educating people who might otherwise be ignorant is commendable, and that’s happened here in the comments section. Raging at the movie and Sam Raimi as if it is causing worldwide racism against Roma is simpleminded and misses the point.
Outrage should be limited to people who have seen the film. The director, Sam Raimi, has emphatically stated that the old gypsy lady is “The Victim of the story”, and that the cute white girl is “despicable”. NOWHERE IN THE FILM DOES THE GYPSY LADY CURSE CHRISTINE!. We see a demon disguised as the old woman, who materializes inside locked cars, projective fires rulers from her mouth so hard they crack glass, has a ghostly floating handkerchief as a pal, and then, yes, puts on a big show of casting a Curse on Christine. It’s a trick of the Demon’s. The Real Old Gypsy Lady was innocent, and this makes the crime Christine commits against this innocent little old lady at the end of the film really significant.
JohnMarkowitz, how many people do you think will walk away from this movie with that theory? How many people do you think will walk away thinking “Wow, gypsies are evil and gross?” I guarantee the latter will be a larger number than the former.