This is follow-up to my earlier post on the new Marvel series Wandavision.
I got a really nice question about this, so Iāll clarify why this show is the most offensive way to present a Roma womanās fantasy life, and why that matters in relation to Wanda Maximoff:
TheĀ āMagical Gypsyā Stereotype
Just to clarify: The word āgypsyā is a racial slur, and Iām using it to make a point about racial stereotypes. Iām not giving you permission to use it. If you arenāt Romani and/or Irish Traveller, that word is not for you.
If youāre familiar with the 1960s TV showĀ Bewitched, youāll have recognized that Wandavision is dressed upĀ like an homage to that show. What you probably donāt know is that Bewitched was conceived as thinly-veiled allegory to interracial marriage, a major hot-button issue at the time. Samantha and her family were a different race from Darrin (Samanthaās husband), in that witches were not humans, strictly speaking. That culture clash was most of the showās storyline.
It seems as if Samantha and her mother, Endora, were meant to stand-in for Roma women. The popular stereotype at the time was that Romani and Travellers were āmystical,ā even magical. TheĀ āMagical Gypsyā is our most prominent stereotype.Ā Bewitchedās premise fed right into that narrative, and Wandavision makes it even clearer.Ā
Samantha deceives Darrin into marrying her by lying about her heritage, and then they spend the rest of the series fighting over whether Samantha should act ānormal.ā Samanthaās parents have no permanent home. They have century-old customs that baffle (and even frighten) Darrin and other humans. Theyāre sneaky, and they lie a lot, and they often use their powers for personal gain, including theft. The witches and warlocks look white, of course, but they arenāt really the same as theĀ ānormal humansā of the series. That hit a lot of Romani people where it hurt, back then and in reruns.
One of the witches is even namedĀ āEsmeralda,ā in a direct nod to Victor Hugoās famous Roma character.
The Maximoff Twins, Adoption, and Romanipen
The Maximoff twins, like many superheroes, have complicated backstories which have not been consistent from universe to universe. In the earliest universes, they are the children of Whizzer and Miss America. Later, theyāre revealed to be the children of Magneto, eventually placed into the adoptive care of a Romani couple. In 616, it is retconned that the High Evolutionary tricked them into believing Magneto was their fatherāin fact, they arenāt mutants at all. Their mother is actually Natalya Maximoff, the sister of their adoptive father and a Roma woman.
So, they might be Romani children (born to Natalya). They might be the adoptive children of Django and Marya Maximoff, without any blood relation. It may seem to outsiders that these distinctions are important, but actuallyā¦
Romani people do not determineĀ family through bloodlines, but through a concept called āromanipen.ā A person born to two Romani parents, but raised by outsiders, is not considered Romani. A person born of non-Romani (or āgadjoā) parents is considered Romani if theyāre raised in the community. Thereās no such thing as the āRomani race.ā Romani people are a culture, and you must be taught the culture to be considered one of us.
The Maximoff twins are just as Romani, either way.
Thereās a long, painful history of Romani children being removed from their families by the state āfor their own safety.ā It happens in the USA, it happens in the UK, it happens all over mainland Europe. Itās happening right now. These losses are horrifying, not only on a personal level but also to the Romani culture. These childrenāoften placed into social services for years, even if they arenāt adoptedāare not being raised as Romani. They are not considered Romani children anymore. The government has completely stripped them of their cultural identity. This has devastated Romani populations in some countries, leading to full cultural genocide in only a few generations.
Nobody understandsĀ āhiding in plain sightā better than a Romani. There might be peoples who have experienced something equivalentāJews, the disabled, and the queer community come to mindābut no one has needed assimilation more, or mastered it more completely. We have assimilated into every country weāve ever lived. We go to your churches. We speak your languages. We wear your clothes and eat your food and laugh at your racist jokes.
When Wanda and Pietro Maximoff lose their family to war in the MCU, the Roma in me knows that pain. When Wanda is pursued by the government, when they try to cage and control herĀ āfor everyoneās safety,ā the Roma in me is in that cage with her. When sheās made country-less, forced into exile, the Roma in me has never related to her more.Ā
The alternatives to assimilation arenāt just horrible. They are genocide.
If you have a Romani in your school or workplace, youāll probably never know it. We donāt tell people weāre Romani. Even admitting it anonymously on the internet feels like playing Russian roulette.
Watching Wanda Maximoff, a Roma superheroine, dream herself into perfect assimilation in time-after-time, place-after-placeā¦ Thatās really fucking twisted. She dreams about beingĀ ānormal.ā She dreams about putting down roots. Sheās constantly assaulted with the possibility that she might not beĀ ānormalā enough to live safely, or to have children. Assimilation is the story, here, and that is an integral part of what it means to be Romani.
But In the MCU, Wanda Maximoff Is Not Roma
We donāt have much representation in the media. The MCU strips Wanda of her cultural identity while maintaining all the bitter truths specific to our people. Itās an insult. This show is an insult.
The Romani have no voice on the international stage. We have no seats in congress (few politicians at all, outside Hungary). We have a handful of published writers, worldwide, and even fewer prominent actors onscreen. We are invisible, often by our own design. I have wrestled a lot with that as Iāve grown older. How much are we to blame for our own erasure?
But then I remember this:
And I remember that the Nazis killed nearly half of our total European population in World War II.
When the French government began forcibly deporting and ārepatriatingā their Romani population in 2010.
I remember that to be Romani means to live with a constant fear of homelessness, of statelessness. To teach your children to be chameleons. To be an outsider in the country where your grandparents were born. We donāt deserve to be erased, and it wasnāt right for Marvel to whitewash our pain.
Our pain is red. Blood red. Scarlet, even.
I hope thatās clear enough.
