Elizabeth Olsen
By Vern Nowakowski
I realize that Rromani's mistreatment and misrepresentation have been in the public eye for only a short amount of time, but it is very real, and I’m tired of it. The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver have always been—and forever will be—Jewish-Romani characters. Yet Elizabeth Olsen continues to mistreat the people she is barely representing.
Ms. Olsen has been told several times that the g-word is a slur against Roma. She has been educated on the history of the word, yet she has not changed her ways. She claims that her particular costumes and character are based on us, yet she doesn’t strive to learn anything about us.
At first, my anger was with Marvel for casting a non-Roma for a Rromani character. But now my anger lies also with Elizabeth Olsen for ignoring my people’s voices who were trying to educate her about a character that wasn’t hers to begin with. She uses stereotypes about Rromani people, calling us vagabonds and slurs that insinuate us to be thieves.
She, along with Aaron Taylor Johnson and a dialect coach, used a stereotypical Eastern European accent. Neither Johnson nor Olsen learned Romanes, the main Romani language, for their characters. You might think that this is too much to learn for an actor. If so, then why wasn’t the part given to a pre-existing Rromani actor that already knows the language?
As a Rromani woman, I am tired of the culture washing of my community.