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Big Fat Gypsy Wedding

February 14, 2012 by · Comments Off on Big Fat Gypsy Wedding 

Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, “Channel 4, we have had enough your big fat mockumentary,” say Hackney’s Gypsies and Travellers
Geraldine Lindsay works at the LGTU and suggested making the poster featuring herself to highlight what she sees as “racism” in the Channel 4 campaign. “It is no longer acceptable to stereotypes other minority groups in this way,” she said.
Gypsies and Travellers mounted a protest in Hackney today against the “stigmatising” publicity promoting the latest instalment of Channel 4’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

The slogan “Bigger Fatter Gypsier” has been emblazoned on billboards across the UK, alongside pictures of children and half-n*ked girls.

They publicise the second series of the massively popular show which which attracted more than seven million viewers last year, and follows Gypsy and Traveller brides as they plan for their wedding day.

“What does “Gypsier” mean in this context and what do the images say about being a Gypsy?” asked a collective letter of complaint from the London Gypsy and Traveller Unit (LGTU) hand delivered to Channel 4’s head office in Westminster.

The Gypsy and Traveller community protest against the slogan “Bigger Fatter Gypsier.”
“The stereotype promoted is that of apparently alluring girls and young women and of menacing young men,” it continues.

“It is hurtful and damaging to use the correct descriptive term for an ethnic group as a sly dig at that group.

“We wonder if Channel 4 would have been so ready to use adverts with similarly compromising images and phrases like “Jewisher” or “more Asian” or “Blacker”?”

LGTU created their own poster as part of their protest in Westgate Street saying “Bigger Blingier Blacker,” portraying a black woman from Hackney in skimpy clothes draped across a car.

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