Channel 4 drops the ball with “Big Fat Gypsy Wedding”

If BBC is the staid channel of British television, providing programming that looks to “inform, educate, and entertain,” than Channel 4 is its rambunctious little sister that nevertheless is supposed to impress. Channel 4’s reigning motto is “Television with a difference,” and in 2011 the heart of the organization’s mission was to provide programming “not normally found in mainstream media.” To say the least, I had high expectations for what I was going to see with Monday’s screenings. In particular, “Big Fat Gypsy Weddings” intrigued me because I wondered how words like “innovation” and “original” would be applicable to a program from the very stale and overdone reality genre.

Unfortunately, “Big Fat Gypsy Wedding” did not live up to the Channel 4 expectations of creativity, but certainly did fall into the lower standards of exploitative reality television. On paper, “BFGW” could purportedly be high quality documentary programming for Channel Four; in fact the premise might even sound like a BBC or in America, Discovery Channel program. Cameras follow “travelers,” a socioeconomic class of people that until this point was relatively neglected by mainstream media. As we follow their everyday lives, we begin to understand more about their culture and lifestyle. It sounds like an award winning documentary that educates viewers on a group of people different than themselves, a slice-of-life style program.

Well, Channel 4 must have missed the memo about producing quality, innovative programming, because the shenanigans on “BFGW” seem straight out of any old trashy reality program – skimpy outfits, testosterone-driven males, and a flair for the dramatic that unfortunately paints the travelers in a negative light (substitute “travelers” in that last sentence and it would even sound like I was describing “Jersey Shore,” it is that bad.)

That isn’t to say we learn nothing about traveler culture. We see a traveler fair, we learn how important weddings are to travelers, and we learn of how boys and girls enter into courtship. The problem is not so much what is show as it is HOW it is shown. In the wedding portion of the episode we viewed, we saw the bride getting into her dress, which feature a large cutout at the front to give it some “Spanish flair.” Now, all the power to her for wearing a big wedding dress and showing off her body while doing it. However, Channel 4 then cuts to a shot of her dancing provocatively to rap music in her wedding dress. It is not exactly the image of a pure, blushing bride viewers have come to expect. Essentially, “BFGW” is exactly what its title implies, and what is advertised on the controversial billboards we saw in class—bigger and fatter. Everything is made larger than life on the show, something to laugh at, to judge, or to cringe at. We do see a picture of traveler life painted; the problem is it is done so in an exploitative manner.

While this may make for interesting television, “BFGW” certainly does not fulfill Channel 4’s mission of innovation. If I wanted to view trashy reality television, there are any number of programs I could turn to on British TV, just like in America. More importantly, and more disappointingly, “BFGW” is exploitative to the point it seems it is counterproductive to what a show like itself should be doing. Instead of informing and educating the public about a group of people different than themselves, it stereotypes and mocks them.