Re the OP, probably a bit of both. Playing up to the camera and highly selective editing. It comes across as a very hard life for the women, completely subservient to the Men. Disturbing seeing very young girls wanting boob jobs and fake tan. Is that because they really want it, or peer/Male pressure. Mind you this is prevalent in wider society and not just gypsy people.
Some of the people featured are the sort of people you would drive miles to avoid. Others come across as genuinely nice people trying to live normally under very trying circumstances.
Of course it goes without saying, that some scenes are filmed and edited and are over the top. It's car crash tv, it's awful, but yet we watch it. They are presented as not being normal [what is normal by the way?] and even to the point of laughing at them, criticising their cultures and traditions [ of course every group has bad as well as good eggs]. But the way the media present the people in the programme as freaks, have we really moved on from the days of laughing at people at Victorian freak shows, simply because they are 'different'?