Blogpost by Dr. Andra Drăghiciu Rap, School, Life – The female body between objectification and individuality in the series “Infamia”

As a Romanian citizen, I was given a personal numerical code at birth. This code consists of several elements and begins with a digit that indicates the (biological) gender and century of birth. My best friend and I were born in 1988. His code begins with a 1. 

Mine begins with a 2. 

Why? 

Because I am a girl...

Regardless of the century of birth, the digit for the male biological sex in Romanian personal codes always precedes the female: 3 for men and 4 for women in the 19th century, 5 for men and 6 for women in the 21st century. And it doesn't matter where you are on the gender spectrum – the Romanian administrative system does not recognise diversity.

It's either one or the other. 

The Romanian case is no exception. In most European countries, people are assigned social and communal roles at birth (albeit not as blatantly with a numerical value). These roles come with expectations and responsibilities: those of a girl or a boy, a daughter or a son, etc. These roles are performative and are imposed on us through visible signs and symbols even before birth.

An example: gender reveal parties, inspired by the American model, announce the sex of the unborn child using the colours pink or blue. They are intended to prepare the family for the new member. Society wants to know what role the child is destined for, and this determines how it is spoken to, what it is called, and what colours, fabrics and toys surround it.

Before a person becomes an individual, they are born as a social object.

However, as we develop self-awareness as teenagers, we try to find a way to reconcile social expectations and roles, which must be simple and clear, with the complexity of our individuality – often through defiance and rebellion. 

In the words of Silvia Grasso quoted above: 

The Italian philosopher writes this sentence in her book about the film Barbie and refers specifically to women's relationship to their own bodies, which she sees as social objects that women must first reclaim in order to position themselves as social subjects and individuals. 

The shift of the conflict from the European “West” to the European “East” and the instrumentalization of a gypsy mask (Radmila Mladenova) thus fulfil a classic function in this film: as a signifier of the “other”, it allows Western audiences to outsource debates and negotiations about uncomfortable social issues and protects the dominant culture from having to endure its own ambivalences (Frank Reuter).  

Using three concise rap songs that she composed and sings, this text highlights the three most important phases in Gita's coming-of-age process, caught between conforming to what is expected of her as “number 2”, i.e. as a female social object in a world that adheres to traditional role distributions, and her desires as an individual, modern woman.

1. The Explosion

Gita lives with her parents and younger siblings in Wales. She has curly black hair, rides a bicycle, wears shorts, has colourful nails and wears a gold chain with a pistol pendant. She has several tattoos, her circle of friends is diverse, she goes to school and enjoys what she considers a normal teenage life. She leaves all this behind and moves back to Poland with her family, unaware that she will have to marry there to pay off her father's debts. 

As a minor social object, Gita is considered legally incompetent in the eyes of society, subordinate to her parents and dependent on them. She is torn between the desire to stay in Wales, where she has friends and goes to school, and the fear of being far away from her family. Although she claims that she will soon turn 18, meaning she will be emancipated and finally able to make her own decisions, and her father even allows her to stay in Wales, Gita goes along with the move. She does not yet feel ready to break away from her family and go her own way.

The song Napalm, which she composes during the car journey, speaks of the explosion of her world, of what she sees as the unfair power relations between her and adults, and of the pain of not being able to defend herself against this as an immature social object and a personally immature individual. She describes her life as a game in which she is just a pawn being manipulated by others:

Napalm fell on my world/And it was so flammable/I can't find the words for my rap/Or a rap to embrace my pain./Gita Burano from Wales/On a rollercoaster ride to Poland/With tongues/She used to be so high/The flame is dead/Will something ignite in me?/Hardly/I sail to my exile/Or to spill the last drops of my life/With a catamaran/Or whatever it's called/I have everything with me/All my loot/Which of the circles is my true gang?
How do you get through these damn rites?/Will there be an end to it?/Will I win this power game?/Will anything be fair again?/Can a power game be fair?/My life has become a game.

To the song Napalm

Her coming-of-age process, the transformation from an immature social object to a mature female individual, begins with a typical teenage rebellion, in which she defiantly expresses her boundaries and desire for independence to her parents, but does not yet have the legal or emotional power to enforce them.

In nine months, however, she will turn 18 – just in time for a rebirth.

2. Take a Bow!

While she was allowed to express her individuality as a teenager in Wales, upon her arrival in Poland, Gita is reminded by her mother of her social role: a daughter is a reflection of her father, so her behaviour affects him and thus the entire family. Her individuality in terms of language, thinking and clothing is no longer accepted here – she is expected to slip into the role of the obedient daughter who has a responsibility towards the family. If she plays this role correctly, they will be saved from shame and poverty. To pay off her father's debts, the daughter's female body is promised to another man without her consent. 

From the moment they cross the border into Poland, her mother expects Gita to follow Romanipen. This dictates that a woman should be modest and observe various taboos relating to her body. Accordingly, Gita is no longer allowed to talk about her period or other physiological processes, or use “unclean” words. In order to be a Romani woman in Poland, she must also wear a skirt. She refuses to accept this item of clothing, to conform, and replies: “Then I guess I'm not Roma.”

The category "Roma" had played less of a role in society in Wales, so that she was able to live out her identity primarily as a teenager there. In Poland, being Roma becomes a performative act that goes hand in hand with certain codes that are incompatible with Gita's personality. Despite her defiance, she is visibly moved when she sees her family again, especially her grandmother. 

In her uncle's large house, where several families live together, Gita does not have her own room. She is still seen as a child and has to share a room with her younger siblings and cousins. The fact that she still wears shorts leads her aunts to accuse her mother of raising her daughter incorrectly. When she realises that her behaviour is having a negative effect on her mother, Gita decides to give skirts a try and tie her hair up. Still trapped in her role as a daughter, Gita wants to protect her mother, but this goes against her feminist principles. She finds the rules of the Romanipen outdated and patriarchal and would like to rebel, but this would hurt her parents. Her identity dilemma thus takes on another dimension: how can she position herself as an autonomous female subject in this world? 

She is surprised to learn from her grandmother the story of her great-grandmother, who had tattoos on her face and was highly respected in the Roma family. Her grandmother says that Romanipen dictates that one should follow wise people and not necessarily those who wear trousers. However, it is precisely this strictly binary world, in which people are dressed according to their biological sex and assigned social roles, this either-or, that Gita cannot identify with. Nevertheless, her great-grandmother's story gives her hope and opens her up to a feminist sisterhood as she realises that women can only fight successfully against patriarchy by working together.

The philosopher Silvia Grasso, quoted above, also emphasises that feminism is a relay race. Through her grandmother, Gita takes over the baton from her great-grandmother and will later pass it on to her younger sister. 

However, Gita not only has to constantly negotiate her individuality and belonging to her family, but also wants to be part of a peer group as a teenager. Because she comes from Wales and looks cool, she is quickly accepted into a group of school friends who even warn her about “gypsies” with friendly advice. Because of her clothing style and attitude, her peers in antigypsyist Polish society do not perceive her as Romani. She takes advantage of this opportunity, lies about her origins and thus finds herself in another inner conflict.

When her aunts out her as Romani and she is rejected by the whole school, Gita is initially desperate and alone, but this also forces her to confront her ambivalent identity.

She is not fully accepted by either side. For the Roma, she is different: the women are sceptical of her because she does not dress, eat, speak, sing or behave in the way that Roma women are expected to. For the patriarchs, she represents territory to be conquered or a danger. Her uncle Stefan says to her father: “To ride a wild horse, you have to break it. Can you break her?” And her future father-in-law expresses his despair: “The girl is like a weapon. You never know when she'll go off.”
At the same time, Gita is rejected by her Polish peer group because of her ethnicity and her lies. In this identitarian no-man's-land, she decides to accept her own ambivalence and flaunt it in her defiant style. She combines skirts and trainers, the old with the new, the traditional with the modern, thus constructing an identity with elements from both worlds in a mélange that represents her personality: 

Ruffles and Nike together/Look ahead, add flowers/What difference does it make/How your classmates see you/To hell with prohibitions, I'm totally cool/Gold earrings are so gypsy style/So take a bow/Snaps her fingers/The same brand new me/You were my family/Are you still there for me?/I stand by myself, Gita/I'm not hiding/Look at me/And take a bow. 

To the song Falbany

In this important step in her coming-of-age process, Gita begins to realise that she can't have everything. The unconditional acceptance of her family and friends depends on her conforming to certain social roles that are incompatible with her individual self-image. Until now, fear had prevented her from standing up for herself. She had tried to please both sides by splitting herself in two and lying, but with the onset of maturity comes the realisation that the inner conflict will only be resolved when she lets go of her fear. 

3. Shame

Betrayed by her family, her friends and Tagar, the man she loves and has slept with, Gita decides to take ultimate control of her body and attempts to take her own life. This desperate act brings her family back together and reconnects her with her friends. Even her aunts take pity on her and try to cheer her up. However, Gita realises that they have not given up on the idea of marrying her off. When she hears her grandmother talk about the sanctity of female hair, she decides to shave her head.

Dressed in her white wedding gown, she shaves her head and renounces her lush, dark hair to the choral adaptation of Aqua's song Barbie Girl. This is an act of self-empowerment and emancipation, showing that she refuses to be a doll that her family can manipulate and dress as they please.

When the women see her with her head shaved, they react desperately: “Think what the other Roma will say about us!” Only her parents knew that she was not a virgin, but her bald head is a visible change that the Roma women consider a disgrace to the family. They still expect her to play the role of a social object and do not accept the development of her individuality. 

Gita explains: “This is my hair. And my life.”

When the men planning her wedding are not deterred, she takes her rebellion even further by shooting a trash-the-dress music video and baring her breasts to ensure that there is truly no turning back. Nine months after arriving in Poland, she tells her friends, “If I upload this, I'm as good as dead”, to which one replies, “Or maybe you'll be reborn.”

The conflicts with her parents, extended family and friends, her love story with Tagar, her conscious decision to have her first sexual experience, her suicide attempt and Tagar's death are stages that transform Gita in a nine-month process of rebirth from teenager to woman, from social object to individual. Like the strange Barbie in Greta Gerwig's film, Gita can only construct herself after she has been excluded from the social order. She has nothing left to lose and can finally free herself from fear:

Fear is just a thought/Let go, let it fly away (Tagar)
My mind, my people are bleeding today/Treated like a label, lifeless, lost/The table is not round/Our voices silent/No love from the others?/Let us live our love, selflessly/Let us love each other, Tagar/He made this beat/You wanted to erase him/But he will live on here/Of hatred I'm sick/Bad blood makes me sick/Blood flows inside of me/Full of dirt and reproach./Who am I?/I am the path I walk/I don't run/I do everything with flow/Hey, hey, hey/We gotta get outta here/Forward/Nothing changes/The status quo/Fuck 'em all!/Like a phoenix from the ashes/I rise every morning/Hope in my feathers/But my heart is like lead/Born every morning/Without expectations, impersonal/No reservations, no considerations/No hair on my head/I am nothing/Nothing is space, freedom/Fuck your stupid slavery/Shame was entrusted to me/Makes me special, not bitter/Keep doing your deals/Here comes the real Gita!/I have a mix of genes/X problems/The Styx divides the world/Yours here and mine there/Better not to complain/Adapt/Justice is blind/Are you looking away too?/Who am I?/I am the path I walk/I don't run/I do everything with flow/Hey, hey, hey/We have to get out of here/Forward/Nothing changes/The status quo/Fuck them all!

To the song Infamia

The events in Poland helped Gita overcome her fear of breaking away from social expectations that were incompatible with her individuality, despite resistance and losses at the community level. By conquering her own body, she managed to transform herself from a social object into a female individual. Now she says goodbye to her parents and can set off alone into the unknown. Before doing so, she passes the baton of female empowerment to her sister by giving her her bicycle, the symbol of mobility and autonomy.

In Gita's case, growing up as a woman means developing from a social object into an individual self. It is a process of grappling with her different, overlapping identities and with the people, norms and structures that surround her. With the help of a non-stereotypical “gypsy figure” in a stereotypical “gypsy world”, society asks itself whether and how women can meet social expectations while at the same time shaping their own identities. 

We know from sociologist Pierre Bourdieu that it is not possible to define oneself completely outside patriarchal norms. However, the multitude of competing discourses in today's world opens up opportunities to adapt these norms and reinterpret them for oneself.

The conclusion?

This text was produced within the framework of the sub-project Antigypsyism-Critical Film Analysis, which forms part of the collaborative research initiative Mediale Antiziganismen – von der interdisziplinären Analyse zur kritischen Medienkompetenz (MeAviA).