Hiding in the shadows of a neon-drenched cityscape, smoking silently as you listen to the screams of civilians. Bullets lace through the bustling streets, wracking into the wall, shattering the concrete beneath. A man falls from the sky, shattered glass around him. He dusts himself off, black hair flat against his head and pulls a gun from the holster around his waist. You raise your own gun and aim it at his head. You recognize the man – John Wick. Or as the contractors call him, the Baba Yaga.
But you knew him before he was both. You knew the boy named Jardani Jovonovich. A boy who had an accent and fought only to survive. That boy is more than a myth—he’s Romani.
The Romani (commonly known as ‘gypsies’ although this is a derogatory term) feature as a main group in the John Wick franchise, shedding cinematic light onto a marginalized community.
The John Wick franchise subtly unveils that Wick is of Romani descent, specifically Ruska Roma—a subgroup found primarily in Russia and Belarus. The Romani people are not Russians or Romanians. I repeat, the Romani people are NOT Russians or Romanians – it is such a common misconception.
The Romani people are a diaspora of people who migrated from India to Europe centuries ago, having undergone centuries of persecution and slavery in many European countries. While stylized for the screen, this narrative touch opens a portal to explore Romani identity, rituals, and the systemic injustices Romani communities face in the real world.
And yet, amid all the gun fights, sword slashing, horse riding and blood oaths, how accurately does the John Wick movies come to proper Romani representation?
The Ruska Roma in the John Wick movies
In the movie, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, the audience is introduced to The Director, a matriarchal figure. The Director a crime lord who leads an assassination academy that resides at Tarkovsky theatre, is the key to unlocking Wick’s roots.
She is the leader of the Ruska Roma and is John Wick’s adoptive mother. She leads a shadowy organization that trains children in ballet, wrestling and assassination—echoing a matriarchal and communal form of upbringing loosely inspired by real Romani traditions. She calls Wick by his birth name, Jardani Jovonovich, marking him by his origins.
In real life, the Ruska Roma are one of many subgroups within the Romani diaspora. Their origins lie in northwestern India, from where their ancestors migrated over a thousand years ago, eventually settling across Europe. In Eastern Europe, particularly Russia and Belarus, the Ruska Roma often face systemic challenges—limited access to documentation, marginalization in education, poor healthcare, and exclusion from political systems.
Romani representation is very rare to see in movies and television – the John Wick movies portraying such powerful figures as belonging to the Romani diaspora is already taking leaps and bounds in bringing awareness and interest into the struggles of the Romani people.
Romani culture, often falsely homogenized, is rich and diverse. It includes spoken dialects like Kalderash and Sinti, traditional music that influenced flamenco and jazz, and communal values rooted in honor, respect for elders, and close-knit family structures.
The films’ reference to Wick’s training in a communal, matriarch-led system reflects some of these values, but the culture is stylized rather than authentically represented. Although the John Wick movies don’t explore the culture of the Ruska Romani in-depth, with every new movie, and with the varying exploration of the new Ballerina movie, we see little peaks into the fantasy version of the Romani culture the movies have invented.
If we had one complaint – we’d love to see more Romani representation. Show their struggles, show the truth behind the oppression behind the Romani people. Although the slow unveiling of the culture certainly adds to the intrigue, mystery and arc in the John Wick movies.
Accuracy of Romani representation in the movies
Despite being raised in a Romani clan, John Wick never speaks a Romani dialect on screen. Although this isn’t expected as the Romani value the secret nature of their language, using it to identify fellow members of Romani subgroups, it still would’ve been nice to see John Wick using a few phrases and greetings of the Romani language. Especially considering how many languages feature in the John Wick movies. The films omits Romani customs, music, or even the rich folklore that forms the backbone of many communities. Instead, they adopt a theatrical lens—cross tattoos, holy relics, ballet as combat, and rituals that borrow Orthodox and Romani visuals without fully exploring them.
Real life hardships of the Ruska Roma
While this makes for compelling cinema, it glosses over the real stories of Roma across Europe. According to a 2020 report from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), over 80% of Roma live below the poverty line. Romani communities face widespread discrimination in housing and education.
In many EU countries, Roma children are placed in segregated schools or labeled mentally disabled. Roma women often encounter severe obstacles in accessing reproductive healthcare. Forced sterilizations have been reported as recently as the 2000s in countries like Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
In Russia and Belarus, many Ruska Roma remain stateless, lacking birth certificates or citizenship papers, cutting them off from public services and legal protection.
These systemic inequities stand in stark contrast to the elite, power-wielding assassins portrayed in the John Wick universe.
Romani Identity and Community
Romani culture is as diverse as it is misunderstood. The term “Gypsy”—often used derogatorily and as a slur against Romani people—is a colonial label that fails to capture the ethnic, linguistic, and regional diversity of Romani groups.
From the Kalderash to the Lovara, from the Romanichal in the UK to the Sinti in Germany, the Romani people have cultivated a history of resilience, oral storytelling, and vibrant cultural expression despite centuries of persecution. They are not just carnival dancers, or tradesmen, and across media we either see them presented as criminal or being sexualized.
Community is at the heart of Romani life. In the real Romani world, when a child is orphaned, it is common for extended family or the broader clan to take them in. This communal upbringing echoes through the Director’s role in John Wick’s early life. She adopted him and thus still calls John by his first name: Jardani Jovonovich.
The name Jardani, is thought to be a tribute to the God of War. With ‘Jar’ meaning being the Slavic God of War and ‘dani’ meaning ‘tribute’ in Belarusian. Romani identity and culture often blends religion with ancestral practice—Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Catholicism. The Ruska Roman have deep rooted connections to slavic culture and the area of Belarus.
The intersecting of culture, languages is intrinsic to Romani culture and shows how their constant relocations have affected their progression as a people. These cultural components can be seen in John Wick being able to speak many languages and being comfortable in many places and cultures. John Wick’s alias, as the “Baba Yaga” is reference to the eastern slavic, Russian folklore story of a witch that lives in a house with chicken webs, adding Russian culture to the swirl and further cementing him as a Ruska Roma.
Representation and Cultural Responsibility
While the Wick films do a better job than most in hinting at Romani presence, they fall short of true representation. No Romani actors play key roles. No Romani advisors are credited in the cultural design. No explicit acknowledgement of the centuries-long struggle of Romani people is given. This is a missed opportunity.
Hollywood has long ignored Romani narratives or relied on harmful stereotypes of fortune-tellers and thieves. John Wick, if written with depth and honesty regarding his roots, could be a powerful counter-narrative to this lack of representation and could’ve cemented him as a beloved character in the Romani communities – instead he lingers on the border of that. Being Romani, but in such a delicate way, its not obvious.
In fact, you’re probably here because the movies didn’t explain who exactly the Ruska Roma are. Some fan theories and Reddit discussions applaud the franchise for even suggesting a Romani backstory. But others rightly criticize the superficiality. “Give us more than tattooed aesthetics,” one fan wrote. “Give us language. Give us memory.”
A marker for the under-represented Romani people
John Wick is a man of focus, commitment, and sheer will. But he’s also a man without a home—a wanderer, a revenant. In that sense, he mirrors the Romani struggle: survival against odds, movement across borders, silence in history.
If future films or spin-offs like Ballerina delve deeper into the Ruska Roma, they must bring cultural consultants to the table. They will hopefully explore stories of identity, survival, and belonging that relate to the Romani people.
Behind every bullet John Wick fires is a silence waiting to be broken—a truth about a people still erased. He is more than Baba Yaga. He is Jardani. And that name carries centuries of story.
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