A lot of the early scenes go toward establishing that whatever the region calls itself or however it looks to anyone else, to Johnny it's a cold, damp, slogging place where he's trapped and there's nothing of beauty in it for him.

It's the irony in the title I was trying to make sure people caught :)

It's considered a slur here, too. Not formally as far as I can tell, but Romani Americans have been as clear as Gheorghe about not wanting to be called that.

Here we have the Gypsy Council as the national representative group, so it's not the word itself that's the problem (we have others that are), but the nuance can tip very easily into abuse. My assumption on reading your description, not having seen it, is that Gheorge is objecting as a non-Romani to being called one, but I haven't seen the film. Is it established in the movie if he's Romani or not?

There's an unfortunate amount of nuance in just making him Romanian. There's a lot more negative reaction to Romanian immigrants than to, say, Polish.