Needs Help (new crowner 2/13/19): Hot Gypsy Woman

Or Greedy Jew?

Point is, it's a trope, not an opinion. And it's an easily recognizable name.

What about Gypsy Curse? And no, Romani is not synonymous with Romanian.

I don't think that ease should be what takes priority here, honestly.

I mean, if the Romani community believes that the word is a slur and shouldn't be used, then what gives us the right to say that we know better?

I do think that that is admittedly common nomenclature to an extent that "Hot Gypsy Woman" isn't, which could be an argument for keeping it.

I'd argue that the name should still go, however, and efforts be made for a suitable alternative to be found.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jan 18th 2019 at 8:12:15 AM

And if we're going for potentially offensive stereotypes and names, there's also Black Is Bigger in Bed, Horny Vikings, Sensual Slavs, Dashing Hispanic, Latin Lover.... I'm pretty sure that these don't apply to every member of the relevant demographic.

Edited by RoundRobin on Jan 18th 2019 at 3:14:17 PM

Ah, but there you have the problem. The thread is populated by a bunch of non-Romani who are guessing as to what a Romani would think. (Sorry, but your 1 Romani friend doesn't represent the entire Romani population).

To be very clear, I'm not speaking of getting rid of all tropes that describe stereotypes. What I'm talking about is removing racial and ethnic slurs from the names of tropes that describe those stereotypes.

I didn't think they would be counted as such, no, but I felt I ought to mention them anyway. May I ask what would have the necessary weight, then?

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jan 18th 2019 at 8:15:34 AM

Like I said, I wouldn't be opposed to changing the name because I do get why people would want to, but it's not exactly meant to be an inclusive and inoffensive trope, being a stereotype.

Link I think "gypsy" is probably about as offensive as "shiksa" or "redneck". Some people are comfortable with the designation, and some people object to the stereotypes associated with the term. Again, Romani aren't the only culture people refer to when they use the Gypsy stereotype.

And again, I know it's a stereotype, but that doesn't justify such a trope's name containing a slur.

It's like...if I talked at length on stereotypes about black people, and over the course of that analysis, only called black people the n-word, even when it wasn't a quote.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jan 18th 2019 at 8:20:11 AM

Sorry for the double post, but after talking to a friend (not the one I mentioned earlier), I have an idea for a compromise - why not change the name to something less offensive, but keep the old name as a redirect? Granted, we might need to implement some special rules to prevent people from, say, redirecting slurs like the n-word to some trope, but I think this could at least meet everyone halfway.

I've also talked with a Romani troper (also not the person I mentioned earlier) who does want it changed, and they suggested changing it to "Romantic Roma". It's gender-neutral (an issue that had been discussed earlier in the thread), less objectifying, less offensive, and even alliterative. I think this, combined with the above suggestion, would help a lot with the various problems that people have with the trope.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jan 18th 2019 at 9:43:24 AM

Romantic Roma does sound like a possible option.

Hey. I'm the guy who suggested Romantic Roma.

Part of the bigger issue is that, even as a stereotype, it is unhelpfully vague. To the point where any Roma woman who could be considered attractive could end up getting lumped with it. This, on the other hand, makes things much clearer, and is a much less offensive name.

Also, in a specific rebuttal of something said earlier, the word Gypsy was a name forced down our (and other iterant ethnic groups') throats, against our will, and with no bearing whatsoever on what we called ourselves, which is a fairly similar story to that of the n-word, and it is a word many Roma (regardless of our specific Romani ethnic group, as we are FAR from just being one) dislike very intensely.

I have spoken with other Romani about this in the past, including two Romani Jews (One from France of Gitano descent, and another of one of the Eastern European Romani groups), a Ukranian Roma, two other Romanichal besides myself, a Kalderash, and a Romanian Roma from Alabama. And we all pretty much agree that the name needs to be changed.

Edited by GamesandTropes on Jan 18th 2019 at 9:44:05 AM

We don't remove things simply because people find them "offensive." The trope is about the stereotype.

Also, I removed the changes to the page title within the page itself.

When the equivalent of the n-word for an ethnic group is used in a trope name, there's a problem. Especially when Romani are considered people of color.

Ask yourself if you should rename any tropes about black people to include the n-word explicitly.

Ask a black person how "Scary Black Man" would come across if renamed to "Scary N*****".

Edited by GamesandTropes on Jan 18th 2019 at 10:53:28 AM

And I ask again, why does the article about the stereotype need to contain a slur in the name?

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jan 18th 2019 at 1:46:08 PM

As I mentioned in my first comment, you can be a 'gypsy' without being Romani, and since the examples often don't specify the ethnicity of the people they're talking about there may be some examples that aren't referring to Romani people but another 'gypsy' group (the stereotypes are largely the same irrespective of where 'the gypsy' is actually from) which would make a name with 'Romani' in the title restrictive.

(I'm from the UK, and when people say 'gypsy' they're talking about the Irish, not Romani)

Also Romantic Roma is much more vague than Hot Gypsy Woman. Hot Gypsy Woman makes it clear the trope is about the fetishization of a stereotype: women that are 'other'; women that dress in a different, sexy way; dance in a different, sexy way. Romantic Roma risks any attractive Roma woman getting listed as an example.

Edited by Clanger00 on Jan 19th 2019 at 6:21:47 PM

Also, 'Romantic' doesn't really get the point across.

As was mentioned above, Hot Gypsy Woman is all about objectification of the woman in question. It's a very old stereotype, back from the days when European women covered themselves in layers-upon-layers of cloth, while Gypsy women (as they were then called) wore more revealing clothes, showed their legs, danced provocatively... Think Esmeralda from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame and you'll get the visual HGW is meant to represent.

Conversely, 'Romantic' could mean anything. Giving a flower can be romantic. Reading a poem or sighing in the rain, as a Proper Lady was expected to do, can be romantic. It doesn't have that... zing, if you get my meaning.

Perhaps Sultry Roma? Or something similar, that can express the fetishization of a certain culture in a single word?

Romantic Roma also comes off as being too nuanced and respectful in contrast to what the trope actually is, which is a stereotype of Roma women being hot and seductive, while not making it clear that it's, at least currently, a female specific trope. I guess Sultry Roma Women wouldn't be too bad though.

This specific stereotype has a lot more to do with Roma specifically than it does with any of the other iterant ethnic groups of Europe.

And I am here to tell you the fetishization goes beyond just women being fetishized, as there is one of the things that was a cause of much of our persecution was European men fearing us taking their women.

Hell, this *still* happens.

I'm not saying that's not a stereotype, but it isn't what the trope is.

Tropes Are Tools

I don't think "Gypsy" is quite as offensive as the n-word (it's used in the G-rated Hunchback after all), and more outdated than an outright slur, similar to Magical Negro.

Edited by rjd1922 on Jan 19th 2019 at 3:57:21 AM

I mean, again, I think that’s more because it’s not something that’s really penetrated the public consciousness. If enough people in these ethnic groups think that it shouldn’t be used (and I do think there’s probably a difference between members of those groups using it and outsiders using it), we shouldn’t use it when naming Tropes.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jan 19th 2019 at 6:28:42 AM

If the trope is about a specific stereotype instead of "Romani who are attractive" then I think the trope might have some miuse. They must be overtly sexual and/or fetishized, right?

"A person of X ethnicity who happens to be attractive" is not a trope, and any such example should be removed. That misuse is common to tropes related to physical appearances.

Probably because the terminology itself encompasses the stereotype in a way that the less-offensive term doesn't? Since stereotypes are mostly perceived by people from outside the group in question, it might make more sense to use a designation used by those "outside people" to describe the stereotype, as well.

For example, European settlers perceive natives as "savage" tribes, and when the particular label appears in a work, it serves to draw certain expectation from the audience about the native character's personality traits and their subsequent role in the story. Which is probably why the trope Noble Savage is not named Noble Native.

That's an entirely different argument though. We're not asking to rename an inoffensive trope title to become more offensive in this discussion.