Another day, another example of how photography can be used to misrepresent Roma – even if its original intention was to overturn stereotypes.
Carlo Gianferro‘s fantastic series Gypsy Interiors – portraits of wealthy Romanian and Moldovan Roma in their homes– is more than three years old now: it won a World Press Photo award in 2009. But today for no apparent reason the Daily Mail website (for it is they) ran the work with a short, sneering article on how he had “lifted the lid” on this “notoriously secretive race’s” “opulent”, “gaudy” “mini-palaces”.
I really like Gianferro’s work and own this book. His aim was to show a different face of Roma from the usual poverty/begging/unauthorised camps type images. I feel sorry that his photographs have inadvertently been twisted by the Mail to reinforce the message and stereotypes that they are constantly putting out through their pages – that Roma migrants in the UK are begging, selling the Big Issue and/or claiming benefits here in order to fund this kind of “opulent, gaudy” lifestyle.
This piece about his photos is a not-so-subtle nod back to classic and oft-repeated Daily Fail stories such as this and this. It is infuriating, but not surprising given this paper’s obsession with Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, who are continually held up either as villains, halfwits or objects of ridicule. Or all three simultaneously, as with a piece like this one….the reader comments under these stories are never pleasant or enlightened.
For once it seems the photos have been acquired by the Mail legitimately, albeit they are being used in a way I suspect the photographer would not be pleased about.
It’s interesting to see how subtle changes have been made to the story through the day, softening the tone of the original piece somewhat in some cases.
Like this morning, the URL slug was “Welcome-big-fat-gypsy-house-Romas-private-world-revealed-time-series-stunning-pictures.html” Â yet now it is simply “Private-world-Roma-revealed-time-series-stunning-pictures.html”
Then the headline went from this:
to this:
And one particularly offensive caption was changed from this (bottom):
to this:
It shows that even well-intentioned and ethical documentary photography is at risk of being misappropriated and turned on its head by biased newspapers with an agenda…although one newspaper has particular form when it comes to this kind of thing.
UPDATE 14/06/12: The page has now been removed at the request of the photographer.
Excellent post, Ciara. Thanks for pointing this out – yet again it shows what a nasty, scurrilous rag the DM is.
Yes, nice one for drawing attention to this rubbish Ciara. Even knowing what to expect from the Mail, I’m still pretty shocked by this one… and so bizarrely written – both “secretive” and “outwardly loud and vivacious” … and since when has the Mail had anything against people having palatial homes? God forbid decorating them in a colour scheme of their own choosing! Suppose it depends who has them.
Yes. I wonder if Paul Dacre and the other Mail execs have power showers in their bathrooms, are “free to colour their homes in exactly the way they wish” or ever “proudly sit in their living and bedrooms”
I think we deserve to know.
Update: the page has now been removed at the request of the photographer – 24 hours after being published.
A good result in my opinion.
Dastardly deeds. Sensationalised stereotyping. Pretty shocking. Great the photographer has triumphed!
Excellent post, Ciara! We all know the Roma are a hard-working, correct and law-abiding, civilized minority – more hard-working than the Japanese, more correct and law-abiding than the Germans, more civilized than the Swedes… I think anyone who publishes anything that seems even remotely against them has a hidden agenda, is a dirty fascist and needs to be sent to jail!
Hardly, but if people throw generalisations and stereotypes around about an entire ethnic group of 10 million they are an idiot at best.
You are welcome to your opinion about Roma or anyone else, if you read my post it is actually about the use and misuse of photographs to create or reinforce stereotypes.
Last time I went to Germany, I saw (among other things) a group of skin-heads dressed in combat/camouflage trousers, proudly displaying nazi-inspired tattoos. I thought they were neo-nazies but now I realize I might have been wrong: I was just stereotyping them. They were probably Hindu, hence the swastikas. And even if they were nazis, I need to open my mind… maybe they are sweet people and we just don’t understand them.
Now on a serious note: if someone working for that toilet paper Daily Mail writes “the Germans have no sense of humor and the Finns drink way too much and the Swiss are too damn boring”, guess what? No sane German or Swiss citizen will take this as a sign of “stereotyping” or would feel discriminated against.
I see what you’re saying but I view it slightly differently.
My main complaint with the original story really turns on the way it was framed – that photo caption that was changed illustrates it perfectly.
“Money, money, money: Their accumulated wealth, ARGUABLY SOME OF IT FROM ILL-GOTTEN GAINS IN BRITAIN, is demonstrably on show…”
This is utter speculation, and it fits in with the narrative that the paper is constantly pushing: not to be trusted, up to no good etc.
As a photographer and journalist, accuracy and integrity matters to me.
I am not saying all Roma are saints, of course not. But would a newspaper write a caption under the photos of a group of rich Germans saying their wealth was “arguably” from ill-gotten gains in Britain? I can’t see it.
It’s really this – not the ‘some Roma are rich and have odd taste in interior design’ – which is the damaging stereotype in my opinion. As I said in my post, this “ill gotten gains in Britain” thing is a line which is continually pushed by this newspaper, the only angle it ever really takes with this ethnic group.
Anyway this is just my opinion as someone who counts a number of Roma families as friends and thinks a lot about photography and media ethics. You are welcome to yours.
[...] yesterday of how good photography can be twisted to misrepresent Roma – I wrote about it on my main blog so won’t reproduce it here. However, for once the photographer managed to get the newspaper [...]