Review: Big Fat Gypsy Weddings

By now it’s clear that, in spite of the title, this programme is not about sneering at the stupid gypsies and their tacky weddings. It’s a grown-up documentary that gives us an insight into the lives of a group of people who are so ‘other’ to mainstream society that not only did we know nothing about their culture, but, frankly, it would never even have occurred to us to wonder until now.

However, there’s an obvious tension in this type of documentary between trying to paint a sympathetic portrait of a beleaguered community trying desperately to keep their traditions alive, and the awareness that some of those traditions are deeply and unpleasantly sexist. There’s the strictly-enforced gender roles, the entrenched purity myth and the control of young women’s sexuality, the focus on preserving their ‘reputation’, and the disturbing practice of ‘grabbing’, where girls remain passive while boys resort to rough or even violent tactics to get a kiss. Never mind mocking them for their massive dresses, these were the elements that really bothered me (although I’m sure it could be argued the dresses were connected – there’s a certain element of ‘suffer to be beautiful’ when young women are physically scarred by the weight of their clothing).*

Overall, I think the programme did a pretty good job of handling all these issues with what is really the only valid option in such cases – by editorialising as little as possible and by giving the subjects a chance to speak for themselves. And, in spite of everything, most of the participants came off as surprisingly sympathetic and normal – the 17-year-old brides in both last night's and last week’s episode seemed frank, level-headed and, above all, human. It was a reminder that, much as we might abhor aspects of a culture, any society is made up of individuals, who are worth treating with respect and an open mind.

*Although this was not the point of the documentary, it is also worth pointing out that all of these issues are merely magnified and more overt versions of ones still widespread in mainstream society today.