Romanian Instances in US TV Series – NCIS: Los Angeles Part 2
In the first part of my attempt to discover and show Romanian instances in American television, I pointed out the TV series called NCIS: Los Angeles, which is a part of the larger concept of TV series focusing on the naval services, which also include NCIS (based in Washington DC) and NCIS: New Orleans. However, this one located on the West coast of the United States seems to concentrate on relations between the US and Eastern Europe, unlike the other two.
The first episode of the third season comes as a continuation of the last episode of the second season, presenting Romania in a rather confusing manner. The Romanians presented there are mainly gypsies and they use romani at first, but the viewer can hear some instances of Romanian phrases or words, such as “Asteapta aici” or “Dulceata”. However, I am not very sure whether the American viewer can make a clear difference between the two languages or the two ethnicities. This makes me feel quite concerned regarding the way in which Romania and the Romanian people is perceived by the foreign eye.
In the first part I mentioned the family name “Comescu”, which had the suffix “-escu”, so common in Romania. Besides this one, the Romanian characters which are mentioned in this episode have, in most of the cases, authentic Romanian names, such as Ion, Vasile, Alexa or Nicolae. I made sure to point out that not every name used there represents my country’s realities, as there is one character called “Dracul”, meaning “Devil”. That made me think a bit of our history, of Vlad the Impaler, whose father used to be called “Dracul” as well. However, I doubt that this was the intention of the Hollywood producers.
Besides the use of Romanian names and phrases which increase in usage, there seems to be an employment of Romanian-like music during a chasing scene. The musical instrument which gives the Romanian vibe, at least to me, is the hammered dulcimer.
Seeing Romania given attention by foreign television makes me feel happy until a certain point where, if my country is presented as something which is not, as a stereotype of the former Communist block, I tend to question the interest they put in portraying any other country, not only mine.
