Thank God the Gypsy Robe is now the legacy Robe — Page 3

The Roma people qualify as one of the most hideously oppressed by our beloved Western Civilization, particularly in the last century, and if they find the term Gypsy to be a slur against them, it cost Actors’ Equity nothing to change the name of the robe.

If Gypsy is really considered to be a slur of equal weight as n***** then this is a tiny first step. If matters have not changed since this article was published three months ago, the theater community has yet to come together on this.

But the industry’s major charity, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, is sticking with its annual “Gypsy of the Year” fund-raiser, which collects millions of dollars for health care. And the word remains widely used by performers themselves.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/20/theater/actors-equity-association-gypsy-robe.html

Change would have to come to an overly-revived Broadway musical and more than a few popular songs. How about the many literary references? I believe that it is in Jane Austen's novel Emma that Gypsies threaten her young friend. (In the case of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, which have many instances of the word n******, a censored edition was published that used the work "slave" instead. Although this may sound offensive, the alternative has been in many cases not to include the books in the high school curriculum at all. No one is accusing Mark Twain or, in the case of Show Boat, Oscar Hammerstein II, of being racists, but intent to be historically accurate here does not matter.)

Hardest of all would be to train the population to avoid using the word "gypsy" to express the common meaning of a free spirit or a wanderer. Educating the public to not use the word would be a lengthy process.

Ultimately I do not see success here principally because the Roma people have no political power. But I still applaud the Union for doing its part.

Yes, this.

I agree with so many posts here saying this change is a good thing. I'm just going to point out a more self-serving but not negative point-of-view. Equity did the right thing for them and the community by being proactive with this change because no matter how you slice it, no matter how many paragraphs you write on BWW that like 50 people at most read, every time they advertise this ceremony, which is supposed to be celebratory and give nothing but positive attention to the dancer receiving the robe, what people outside the community will see is the word "Gypsy". The word is derogatory in every other context. That will do nothing but invite more and more negative attention and ire as time moves on and distract from the purpose of publicizing the ceremony in the first place.

And for all the people saying it will always by the "Gypsy" robe...it will for a few years until people get used to the new name or die off. I get the need to honor tradition, but there are such things as negative traditions and as we evolve and become more aware we need to adapt to the times. There are many theatre traditions/terms that are no longer done/used because time has moved on. This is about self-preservation and making sure theatre survives.

Updated On: 7/17/18 at 02:12 PM

I did not know that the Roma people had not requested this change. If the preponderance of that group is indifferent, then I would start to wonder if Actor's Equity was not just pandering to the media for its approval.

But the Roma Peoples Project at Columbia seem very happy about the change, if this group is representative of the Romas:

Today, Actors Equity posted to Twitter a message they received from the Roma Peoples Project at Columbia University.

"Given the actual Roma history and its entanglement with the 'gypsy' misnomer, we at the Roma Peoples Project believe that the change of name from 'Gypsy Robe' to 'Legacy Robe' initiated by the Actors' Equity Association is remarkable," the statement says. "It is a step towards accurate representation of Roma people in mainstream society. We are moved by their honorable choice."

Read the full statement on the Actors Equity Twitter account.

I meant this no snark, these are real questions I'm interested in:

Why are you people so attached to the term, is my question?

Why so afraid of change?

The word hurts people. I'm sure that people have argued the many meanings of many racial slurs. Why not just... not say the word? Why do you NEED it to be called the Gypsy Robe? Why is that important to any of you, as none of you are ever going to be in a position to even receive it?

Updated On: 7/18/18 at 02:31 AM

newintown said: "OlBlueEyes wrote: "But the Roma Peoples Project at Columbia seem very happy about the change, if this group is representative of the Romas."

The Roma or Romani people have no autonomous state, government, or central leadership, so there is no single person or group who can legitimately speak for them as an entity."



That works both ways though. Just as the RPP don't speak for all Romani, neither do the members of the community who self-identify "Gypsy." It's their right to try to reclaim the word, but it's not our place to force along that change, and to tell those that do view it as a slur that they are wrong to do so, simply because some Romani have reclaimed the word.





@John Adams, I appreciate your thoughtful response, and I see how you are arriving at your conclusions. I think your intentions in trying to continue the reclamation of the word are honorable, but misguided. If I'm understanding your post correctly, you're saying that continuing to use the word in a positive context helps the Roma people because it erases the harmful history of the word. But I think we have to let THEM lead that change. Many Roma people STILL view it as a slur, even if some of them self-identify as Gypsies. If they want to begin using it more universally, then perhaps down the line, the word will lose its negative potency. I would argue that something similar has happened with the word "queer," which, as someone else mentioned earlier, is now acceptable in most contexts as long as it's not deliberately being used to insult someone. But that change could not have happened if straight people had instigated it, because it would have taken agency away from the LGBT community, and the people who were hurt by the word would have had no say in the matter. The same is true in this case.

It's not our place to decide how best to help the Roma people. You're interpreting their words in such a way that fits in with your theory about how best to use the word. But as you yourself said, that's not exactly what they're saying. It seems to me that you are twisting the meaning of those quotes to justify your viewpoint, but in the end, you're the one who says it's best to keep using the word positively. Just because you believe that your theory fits in with Dragan's philosophy, does not mean that Dragan would agree with your methods.

And even if he did, the fact remains that many Roma people still find the word hurtful, regardless of context. You can't negate that fact by citing examples of people who are NOT hurt by it.



As for the fact that Equity initiated the change themselves, I don't think that's really relevant. Not everybody has to be TOLD that what they are doing is wrong for them to realize it themselves. The word has a harmful history, and a harmful connotation for many Roma - that information is there in the world for anyone to access if they care to find out. Clearly AEA was made aware of that fact, and they decided to change it. Even if no Roma people knew about the robe (which I think is unlikely), Equity removed the term because they knew they were contributing to a harmful history.



And some may disagree with me, but even if they made the decision for self-serving purposes, I believe that's better than not making the decision at all.

This really has been an interesting discussion. I also think we can observe why many groups tend to be reactive rather than proactive. Though they get criticized that a change should have happened a long time ago and they are only making certain changes after getting negative feedback, at least that group/organization can cite to the criticism to validate the change. People tend to wish that organizations/groups would be more proactive and lament that they are not and make a change before it blows up, but when they do that, people will criticize them for making a "needless" change or for not honoring tradition. They also fail to see why a certain change is needed or why it is such a big deal since there isn't the same noise that happens when changes happen "after-the-fact". I think this is a case where Actor's Equity should be applauded for making the change without needing to face the same level of backlash for the name that we expect when these sort of changes happen because they had the foresight to see that this could be a real disaster for them AND it has the added bonus of respecting other groups of people. They don't always do things that are worthy of applause, but this time, I will applaud them.