DownloadAug. 9, 2004 issue
Good reviews, skepticism greet debut of Amish show
By Robert Rhodes Mennonite Weekly ReviewUPN’s reality series, Amish in the City, which debuted July 28 before 5.2 million viewers, is still being criticized by people who believe it belittles the Amish faith.
Meanwhile, a Mennonite scholar has determined the closely-guarded identities of most of the Amish people in the show.
The series, which debuted with a two-hour episode and was the night’s second-highest rated show, places five young Amish adults in a tricked-out Hollywood pad with six big-city counterparts.
But how authentic is the series and its premise? As sociologist Donald Kraybill has noted, the Amish portrayed in the show are not mainstream churchgoers but have chosen to live at the extremities of their Amish upbringing.
“I think that viewers need to realize [the Amish depicted in the show] are already on the fringes of their communities, if they haven’t already left,” said Kraybill, a scholar at Elizabethtown (Pa.) College and the author of several studies of the Amish.
In the first episode, the group moved into the house, bought groceries, shopped for new clothes and visited the ocean, among other activities.
During the trip to the ocean, 24-year-old Mose Gingerich, a former Amish schoolteacher from Greenwood, Wis. — the only one of the group who has been baptized into the Amish church — appeared to nearly drown. He was rescued from the waves by Ariel, a sun-splashed Los Angeles vegan who also lives in the house.
Mose was not the only one unaccustomed to the urban waters.
In another segment, Miriam Troyer — the daughter of Amish Bishop John D. Troyer of Fredericksburg, Ohio — claims she has never seen a parking meter, a proposition Kraybill believes is bogus and evidence of the series’ loose affiliation with actual reality.
“I find that ridiculous,” said Kraybill. “This is very much a staged performance.”
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