Television
Channel 4's 'Bigger, Fatter, Gypsier' ads slammed as racist
A billboard advertising campaign for a new Channel 4 series of “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding” has drawn the ire of a host of anti-discrimination groups in the UK.
The show, which charts the lives of an extended family of Irish Travellers living in England, has been a massive success in recent years.
“My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding” was back on Channel 4 last Tuesday, drawing a UK TV audience of 5.7 million viewers.
But the awareness campaign for the series has prompted an angry response from Traveller representatives and wider groups aimed at bringing an end to discrimination of all kinds.
The London Gypsy & Traveller Unit wrote to Channel 4 last week to say, “We wonder if Channel 4 would have been so ready to use the adverts with similarly compromising phrases for other ethnic groups: 'Jewisher' or 'more Asian' or 'blacker'.”
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jamie.obrogan19/02/2012 3:37 pm #1 1Gypsies are not an ethnic group the way Jews or Blacks are. Get real. I get that they are angry, but what a silly analogy. - Reportdamien21/02/2012 4:06 pm #0 1How is it racist? When they are not a race, they have a cultural way of living! Culture alone does not define or translate a group of people into a particular race. It would be lodgical to classify it a discriminatory slogan, but racism is stretching it a bit!!
