#MIHAELA DRAGAN

[djuvlipen]

Came across this tiktok by Mihaela Dragan, a Romanian Romani feminist.

I strongly disagree with her on whether Romani feminists should reclaim the figure of the "Gypsy witch". To me, calling female crafts traditionally practiced by Romani women "witchcraft" is othering and applying a Western, Orientalist glance on Romani culture. I think the "Gypsy witch" is a fantasy entirely created by Gadje, a misrepresentation of our crafts and skills to justify the oversexualization of Romani women and sexually assaulting us in slavery and genocide.

However I appreciate that she dares to ask the question: why shouldn't we reclaim it? Often times, Romani activists frown upon the figure of the Gypsy witch. In Romani activist circles and especially on the Internet, it's almost taboo, as a Romani person, to say your female relative does tarot, reads palms, etc. If you admit it, it is used against you to say that actually, you must be white because you're adhering to the "Gypsy witch" stereotype.

What is usually referred to as "Gypsy witchcraft" is often skills and trades traditionally practiced by Romani women: tarot and palm reading (to me, these primarily have to do with social skills and being able to quickly get to know the person in front of you), herbal medicine, or more rarely things that have to do with weaving and basket-making.

So it is interesting that Romani activists are making it a taboo to talk about "Gypsy witchcraft". It is totally acceptable among Romani activists to say your ancestors practiced traditional skills like making music, taming wild animals, holding an itinerant theater or trade show -- skills mostly associated with Romani men. Yet the only career it's acceptable to claim your female ancestors had, is dancing. It's acceptable to say "my grandmother was a dancer/singer", an entertainer who performed for a mixed male/female audience and who was mostly celebrated for how beautiful her clothes and body are (in Romani women's case at least). Yet it is not acceptable to say your female ancestors were tarot readers or were healers, lest you reinforce racist stereotypes. Any Romani traditional career gave rise to racist stereotypes: training bears was used to say Roma were violent against animals, being a showman was used to say we were con artists. But it's crafts associated with Romani women that are being made taboo and called with the Orientalist word "Witchcraft".

I think it's interesting that a part of Romani women's crafts, skills and culture are being erased from history by Romani activists, to the point where you're called a race faker if you acknowledge them, and that this is happening while the Roma are being converted en mass to the Evangelical Christian faith, which explicitly condemns ""divination"" and female autonomy, entrepreneurship and skills

[scarlet--wiccan]

what do you imagine the maximoff's accent's to sound like? they're usually made to sound romanian which i like but assuming they grew up speaking romany would their english sound any different?

In this context, I'd suggest spelling it "Romani" with an "i".

I tend to read Wanda and Pietro's dialogue with mostly hard consonants, long vowels, and "i"s pronounced like "ee"s. Don't really know where I got that from. I can tell you, based on what research I have done, that I'm pretty sure "Wanda" and "Wundagore" should be pronounced with a "V" sound-- so that's "Von-dah," which has been used a couple times in comics. The Maximoffs don't usually get phonetic accents the way other characters do, which is probably for the best, but it is making hard to answer this question.

Usually, if Wanda's accent is addressed, it is by characters expressing confusion. Nobody can really place it correctly. Jean thinks she sounds Russian. Clint thinks she sounds Lithuanian. Those are two very different things. I can tell you from experience that my grandmother was the same way-- she had a lot of different linguistic influences, so her accent was unique and very hard to place when she spoke English. That's not a specifically Romani thing, it's just something that can happen when you've moved around a lot and learned languages through immersion, rather than formal education.

On the other hand, we know that Wanda and Pietro are both polyglots. I would believe at this point that they are able to speak flat, unaccented American English, but I do not choose to assume that, because it's boring.

Unfortunately, though, all of this is outside my scope of expertise. My family is not from that part of Europe, and the Calo dialect, in my experience, sounds pretty different from the ones you might hear in that region. Generally speaking, I do think most people or communities have regional accents that are influenced by the majority culture. So, yeah, it is a perfectly safe bet to say that Wanda and Pietro have "Transian" accents-- which would be very similar to Romanian or Bulgarian, as those are the real-world countries that Transia is analogous to.

Again, I'm not familiar enough with that area or those languages to distinguish a generic Romanian accent from anything else. Y'all know I'm a huge fan of Mihaela Dragan, and I believe she's from Bucharest, so her speaking voice in English might be a good place to start. I have her interview from Romanistan linked here.

[goalhofer]

2024 olympics Romania roster

Archery

Mădălina Amăistroaie (Suceava)

Athletics

Alin Firfirică (Timișoara)

Andrei Toader (Râmnicu Vâlcea)

Alexandru Novac (Adjud)

Andrea Miklós (Cluj-Napoca)

Stella Rutto (Bucharest)

Delvine Relin-Meringor (Bucharest)

Joan Chelimo-Melly (Bucharest)

Alina Rotaru-Kottmann (Bucharest)

Diana Ion (Bucharest)

Elena Taloș (Câmpulung)

Bianca Ghelber (Roman)

Daniela Stanciu (Buftea)

Boxing

Lenuța Perijoc (Siret)

Canoeing

Oleg Nuță (Bucharest)

Ilie Sprîncean (Criuleni, Moldova)

Cătălin Chirilă (Tulcea)

Cycling

Molnár Ede-Károly (Suceava)

Fencing

Mălina Călugăreanu (Bucharest)

Gymnastics

Andrei Muntean (Sibiu)

Ana Bărbosu (Focșani)

Lilia Cosman (Deva)

Amalia Ghigoarță (Lugoj)

Andreea Preda (Constanța)

Sabrina Maneca-Voinea (Constanța)

Annaliese Dragan (Bucharest)

Judo

Alex Creț (Oradea)

Rowing

Andrei Lungu (Bucharest)

Iliuță-Leontin Nuțescu (Suceava)

Andrei Mândrilă (Chișinău, Moldova)

Bogdan-Sabin Baitoc (Bucharest)

Claudiu Neamțu (Dorohoi)

Mihai Chiruță (Suceava)

Andrei Cornea (Broșteni)

Marian Enache (Târgu Cărbunești)

Florin Horodișteanu (Dorohoi)

Ioan Prundeanu (Fălticeni)

Florin Arteni-Fîntînariu (Suceava)

Florin Lehaci (Câmpulung)

Sergiu Bejan (Suceava)

Ștefan Berariu (Dumbrăveni)

Ciprian Tudosă (Fălticeni)

Marius Cozmiuc (Suceava)

Constantin Adam (Călărași)

Mugurel Semciuc (Suceava)

Mihăiță Țigănescu (Suceava)

Adrian Munteanu (Orșova)

Emanuela-Ioana Ciotău (Radauti)

Ioana-Madalina Moroșan (Siliștea)

Alexandra Ungureanu (Bucharest)

Ionela Cozmiuc (Câmpulung Moldovenesc)

Gianina Van Groningen (Gura Humorului)

Nicoleta Bodnar (Vatra Moldoviței)

Simona Radiș (Botoșani)

Patricia Cireș (Bucharest)

Roxana-Iuliana Anghel (Câmpulung Moldovenesc)

Iona Vrînceanu (Târgu Neamț)

Adriana Adam (Văleni)

Amalia Bereș (Pașcani)

Maria Lehaci (Câmpulung)

Maria-Magdalena Rusu (Vaslui)

Victoria-Ștefania Petreanu (Constanța)

Sailing

Ebru Bolat (Constanța)

Swimming

David Popovici (Bucharest)

Vlad-Ștefan Stancu (Bucharest)

Rebecca-Aimee Papuc-Diaconescu (Las Vegas, Nevada)

Table tennis

Ovidiu Ionescu (Buzău)

Andrei Ionescu (Buzău)

Szőcs Bernadette (Bremen, Germany)

Elizabeta Samara (Constanța)

Adina Diaconu (Slatina)

Tennis

Irina-Camelia Begu (Bucharest)

Ana Bogdan (Cluj-Napoca)

Jacqueline Cristian (Bucharest)

Monica Niculescu (Bucharest)

Triathlon

Felix Duchampt (Clermont-Ferrand, France)

Water polo

Marius-Florin ��ic (Oradea)

Francesco Iudean (Bucharest)

Matei Luțescu (Bucharest)

Tudor-Andrei Fulea (Bucharest)

Andrei-Radu Neamțu (Bucharest)

Andrei Prioteasa (Slatina)

Andrei Țepeluș (Bucharest)

Nicolae Oanță (Slatina)

Silvian Colodrovschi (Aix-En-Provence, France)

Vlad-Luca Georgescu (Bucharest)

Sebastian Oltean (Bucharest)

Levente Vancsik (Bucharest)

Eduard Drăgușin (Bucharest)

Weightlifting

Mihaela Cambei (Dofteana)

Loredana Toma (Botoșani)

Wrestling

Răzvan Arnăut (Constanța)

Alin Alexuc-Ciurariu (Botoșani)

Andreea Ana (Mangalia)

Ince Kriszta (Sfântu Gheorghe)

Cătălina Axente (Galați)

[perseph]

Niko G x Kali -- Roma Stars feat. Bianca MV

Niko G x Kali is a part of Giuvlipen, the Romani feminist theatre company.v Roma Stars is their first music video off of their debut album, Tehno-Vrăjitoarele [Techno-Witches]. 

[createandchaos]

Mihaela Drăgan as MCU Wanda Maximoff

.

I didn’t want to do any shading so here’s the drawing with just the flats 

[vjestyca]

love that when you google alina serban, the other three top wanda fancasts are right there when you scroll down, love y’all babes!! ❤️💥🌹

[phoenixdark08]

[claudeleine]

*sobs* we could’ve had it alllllll

[felicitousfaceclaims]

MIHAELA DRAGAN | ROMANIAN ROMANI | 1986

[djuvlipen]

Mihaela Dragan, Romanian Romani actress and feminist, on white privilege, colorism and being mixed

Mihaela Dragan is the founder of a Romani feminist theater in Romania, called "Giuvlipen". The plays she writes deal with issues such as early marriage, anti-romani hate speech, hyper-sexualization, eviction, and heteronormativity. Giuvlipen also developed its own artistic movement ("Romani futurism"). This means a lot for the development of Romani art

(fyi, though Mihaela Dragan is definitely influenced by radical feminism, it seems that her plays take on a more liberal approach when dealing with certain topics, such as sex positivity, but I'm not familiar enough with her works to talk about it more)

[scarlet--wiccan]

If you could approach any artist to make an album/soundtrack for her who would it be?

(I also stole this from twitter bc it’s a good question but I have no answer)

I feel like this would be a great question for somebody who listens to nerd-folk, which I, unfortunately, do not. I also haven't really thought that much about Wanda's musical taste-- my gut instinct is to say she listens to the music my mom listens to, but that would probably make more sense in the 80s or 90s than it does now. With the sliding timescale, Wanda's closer to my age than my parents'.

I'm looking over my own Spotify catalogue, and I really liked Rina Sawayama's writing about her relationship with her mom, immigrant experiences, and personal healing. Might be a good fit for Wanda-- Catch Me In The Air is on my Maximoff playlist, for sure.

Mihaela Dragan has an album out with her musical act, Niko x Kali, called Tehno-Vrăjitoarele, which translates to "Techno Witches." Mihaela and her theater company, Giuvlipen, do a lot of work with Romani futurism and the reclamation of the witch archetype, and as you can imagine, that's present in several of the songs and videos off of this record.

So, if you want to hear contemporary Romani artists, from the region where Wanda was born, singing about witches, give it a listen!

Just thinking of other Romani artists, Riah Knight is a great songwriter who could come up with some cool concepts based on the character, and I feel like Ayo and Mina Rose could both be a neat fit, based on sound.

[nellemakes-old]

MIHAELA DRĂGAN AS WANDA MAXIMOFF - 2 / ∞

cap source.

[super-hero-confessions]

[stephaniebrowngf]

❝ you married the vision.

what about him?

‘him’? ‘he’ is a machine. you might as well have wed a microwave oven. ❞

BÁLINT JASKÓ as PIETRO ❝ QUICKSILVER ❞ MAXIMOFF

MIHAELA DRAGAN as WANDA ❝ THE SCARLET WITCH ❞ MAXIMOFF