Tartanry

Tartanry is the stereotypical or kitsch representation of traditional Scottish culture, particularly by the emergent Scottish tourism industry in the 18th and 19th centuries, and later by the American film industry. The earliest use of the word "tartanry" itself has been traced to 1973. The phenomenon was explored in Scotch Myths, a culturally influential exhibition devised by Barbara and Murray Grigor and Peter Rush, mounted at the Crawford Centre at the University of St Andrews in the Spring of 1981. Related terms are tartanitis, Highlandism, Balmorality, Sir Walter Scottishness, tartanism, tartan-tat, and the tartan terror.

Definitions

In its simplest definition, tartanry is 'sentimental Scottishness'. More broadly, tartanry is the perceived reduction of Scottish culture to kitsch, twee, distorted imagery based on ethnic stereotypes – such as tartan, kilts, bagpipes, caber tossing, and haggis. Often the image presented is that of the Highlander as noble savage. While there are strong, legitimate cultural traditions behind Scottish clan societies and the older textile designs that preceded the modern tartans and kilts, and instruments like bagpipes are a part of the living musical traditions, tartanry is when these things are tokenised, caricatured, or attached to fabricated histories. While Scottish Gaelic is a living language, that has developed and grown with modern culture, tartanry presents it as a dead relic and curiosity, and those acting from this perspective may simply redefine words, or change their spellings to gibberish, for no other reason than to appear quaint or exotic.

Tartanry is defined by literary scholar Cairns Craig (2015) as "the false glamour that Scott had foisted on Scotland and which had turned it into Brigadoon." David McCrone (1992) defined it as "a set of garish symbols appropriated by lowland Scotland at a safe distance from 1745, and turned into a music-hall joke." Lauren Brancaz (2016) defines tartanry broadly, as "the derogatory term ...