Vol. 23 No. 1 (2020)
Articles

Food for thought in the ‘Bread and Circuses’ documentary

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  • Boyan ZAHARIEV,,
  • Ilko YORDANOV

Published 06/10/2020

Keywords

  • ethnic prejudice,
  • changing stereotypes,
  • impact of art

How to Cite

ZAHARIEV, B., & YORDANOV, I. (2020). Food for thought in the ‘Bread and Circuses’ documentary. Psychological Research (in the Balkans), 23(1). Retrieved from https://journalofpsychology.org/index.php/1/article/view/62

Copyright (c) 2020 Psychological Research (in the Balkans)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The article presents an empirical study testing experimentally to what extent good documentary films can serve as a tool for influencing deeply rooted beliefs and attitudes towards the Roma. The study is based on a rare experiment involving students and a series of discussions with teachers that fit into the theory and tradition of deliberation for internal and external change. The main conclusion is that the strong professional message of the cinema makes a positive shift in the attitudes towards the equal integration of the Roma. The film “Bread and Circuses” from director Jackie Stoev provides an example how negative attitudes of young people towards one of the most stigmatized groups in Bulgarian society can be overturned.

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