[amc] 2nd Chance to see "Amish in the City" Tonight, 7:00
- From: "Ray Gingerich" <RGingerich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Austin Mennonite Church" <amc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:34:04 -0500
Hi All,
Tonight at 7:00 p.m., UPN (Channel 23 on Cable-Austin, Channel 2 on antennae
TV), is re-airing the opening episode of Amish in the City.
Ray
TWO-HOUR PREMIERE EPISODE
Wednesday, July 28, 8PM ET/PT
Preview of series premiere
Watch now
AMISH IN THE CITY, a new reality series, will provide a unique look into
the Amish journey of discovery, known as rumspringa, through a group of young
adults who have left their spiritually devout, rural communities to experience
life in the big city, with six roommates from various metropolitan areas.
Learn more about the Amish Read now
The show will follow the stories of five Amish young adults (three men,
two women) and their six roommates from diverse backgrounds (three men, three
women) as they come to Los Angeles and learn to live with each other in an
ultra-modern Hollywood Hills home. This one-hour weekly series chronicles how
relationships develop and viewpoints collide in a house shared by young people
from very different cultures, while also introducing viewers to the intensely
personal Amish coming-of-age experience, called rumspringa (a Pennsylvania
Dutch word loosely translated as "running wild"). During this religious rite of
passage, young Amish men and women are allowed to leave their homes to explore
the outside world until they decide whether or not they want to join the Amish
church and be welcomed back into their families or stay in the outside world.
From moments serious and significant to lighter and trivial, cameras
catch everything as the Amish journey outside their quiet rural areas and are
gradually introduced to both the delights and challenges of modern metropolitan
life. At the same time, the Amish kids give their city counterparts insight
into their beliefs, values and a lifestyle dedicated to faith, modesty and
unadorned means.
Interview with Ruth & Mose Read now
*Excerpts from a press question & answer session with AMISH IN THE CITY
participants Ruth and Mose
REPORTER'S QUESTION: What was your sense of this experience and are you happy
that you did it?
MOSE: Absolutely. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I don't know about
Ruth here. I think she liked it, too, didn't you?
RUTH: My experience has been great. I have experienced so much on the show, I
can't even tell you guys how much I've experienced. It's meant a lot to me.
REPORTER'S QUESTION: From what I understand, part of the whole idea of
rumspringa is that you then have the choice to depart from the church forever
for the rest of your life. How could you make that decision? How could you feel
free to make that decision knowing that you would go to hell if that is part of
your religious upbringing?
MOSE: I guess that most of me is saying the reason that I left the Amish on
rumspringa is because I wanted to experience the world and I wanted a deeper
meaning in faith, and I wanted to see if I could explore my faith more than I
could among the Amish even.
REPORTER'S QUESTION: Why did you want to do the show in the first place? Here
you are embarking on something that's bound to be very strange under the best
of circumstances and it seems surprising that you would want to share your most
intimate thoughts and feelings about that with 200 million drooling Americans.
MOSE: I will tell you why I did, and Ruth can explain why she did it. I left
the Amish to do my period of rumspringa, and what better way to complete that
period and explore all the things in the world than to do something like this.
That was part of it. Another part of it is ever since I have left the Amish,
there have been so many thousands of people that have been curious about the
Amish way of life.
RUTH: The reason I kind of wanted to do the show is because I have not had very
much experience. I had never seen the ocean or the beach or ever had an
airplane ride. And I knew I was going to get this stuff, and I experienced a
lot more than a lot of Amish people did back where I come from.
REPORTER'S QUESTION: Were you aware of the controversy about the show, and did
you feel exploited during the making of it at all?
MOSE: I came into this show knowing that there's going to be a lot of
controversy, even among the Amish. Like, even my family, some of my best
friends are going to really disapprove of it. I was prepared for the whole
controversial thing. So did I feel exploited throughout the show at any point
in time? Absolutely not. If I had to go back and do anything over, it would not
involve being exploited at any point.
RUTH: I feel there was so much controversy about this. I had second thoughts
about doing the show because I didn't know what [I was] coming into and what [I
was] going to be doing. But once I did get into the show, I was so happy. You
know, I didn't care what the people thought or what they're going to be
thinking of me. I just decided I'm going to do it.
REPORTER'S QUESTION: Rumspringa begins at age 16. How long do your families and
does the church allow you to go through it before--I mean, at a certain point,
do they just say, "You have to decide now"? Mose is 24.
MOSE: I think that the average is probably from 16 to 24, but they will not
treat you much [differently]. I mean, the Amish aren't going to say, "You're
done with your rumspringa. Come home." That's your own choice. They will treat
you the same if you're 59 when you come home. You might be looked at a little
[differently], but they will take you back into church the same amount of time,
unless your hair doesn't grow out as fast anymore or whatever.
*Additional excerpts from the session, featuring a Q&A with show participants
Kevan, Ariel and the show's producers will be posted soon.
*********************************************************************************************
UPN in 'Amish' country again
Tue Jul 6, 9:18 PM ET
Variety.com
In a stealth move designed to head off potential critics, UPN and New Line
Television have quietly wrapped production on a reality show mixing Amish youth
with their urban counterparts.
What's more, the series -- now officially dubbed "Amish in the City" -- is
scheduled to premiere in less than three weeks. UPN will air back-to-back
episodes from 8-10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 28; series will then air Wednesdays
at 9 p.m.
Separately, UPN is expected to roll out another reality show -- dating skein
"The Player" -- in early August, slating the series Tuesdays at 9 p.m. after
repeats of the original "Top Model" wrap up.
New Line exec VP Jon Kroll ("Big Brother") exec produced "Amish in the City,"
along with Stick Figure Prods.' Steven Cantor and Daniel Laikind, the
documakers who made the critically acclaimed Amish doc "Devil's Playground."
Filmed in secrecy over the past two months, "Real World"-esque skein puts five
Amish youth and six streetwise roommates into an ultramodern Hollywood Hills
home and captures what happens when the two cultures come together. Amish young
people are allowed to leave their rural communities as part of a coming-of-age
ritual known as rumspringa .
"Amish" came under immediate questioning from TV critics when UPN first
announced plans for the show at its portion of the winter TV Critics Assn.
press tour in January ( Daily Variety, Jan. 19). Politicians entered the fray
not long after, with 50 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signing a
letter urging UPN to drop the project.
Some critics assumed their protests had paid off when UPN failed to mention
"Amish" at its New York upfront presentation in May. But the net has never said
it was killing the project.
Indeed, UPN execs in recent months have largely stuck to a no comment policy
regarding the project -- until now.
Preem poised
Net will officially announce the premiere of "Amish" as soon as today, and with
several episodes in the can, the hope is that critics will wait to see the show
before judging it.
"Foremost in our minds as we went forward was to treat with the highest respect
the young Amish people who were entering a world they had never before
experienced," said UPN prexy Dawn Ostroff. "In working with our producers, two
of whom produced 'The Devil's Playground,' a film that touched on many of these
same issues, we believe we have succeeded in developing a program that is both
serious and entertaining and ultimately very thought-provoking."
Kroll said he and his fellow exec producers were "a bit surprised about some of
the conclusions people came to" about the project when it was first announced.
"The assumptions were diametrically opposed to what we wanted to do," he said.
"This is a show that was always intended to be a journey of discovery, a
compelling, positive story that people can embrace."
Kroll said UPN ultimately decided to let the producers "shoot the show as we
always intended, with some of the concerns (of people with close ties to the
Amish community) integrated into the process, and then let the show speak for
itself. I'm very pleased the network stood by the show. They'd didn't have to."
There's no game element to "Amish" and no financial payoff for any of the Amish
should they decide not to return to their native communities.
During their stay in L.A., the Amish worked with the mentally disabled, walked
the red carpet at a movie premiere, visited the ocean for the first time and
took a helicopter visit to a resort island. Producers wouldn't say if the Amish
took their first airplane trips on the show, though Laikind hinted the idea
prompted some drama.
"In the (first episode), you see how kids react to the idea," he said.
The Amish's urban roommates -- including a party girl, a busboy/musician and a
hunky swim teacher -- took part in all the activities as well.
Wiser than most
"The most surprising thing for me was that, despite their lack of experience in
the outside world, the Amish people proved to have more wisdom about life than
anyone," Kroll said.
Many typical reality conventions were thrown out the window during the
production of "Amish."
Recruiting Amish youth for the show couldn't be done in the typical reality
cattle call style. Instead, producers spread out over eight states, mostly in
the Midwest, and took up residence near Amish towns for several weeks.
Producers got to know some of the townsfolk and Amish and reached out to youth
on rumspringa who might be interested in doing the show.
While many Amish don't stray far from home during rumspringa, some end up in
very unsafe situations, as documented in "Devil's Playground." Pic showed some
Amish youth exposed to drugs and alcohol.
With all of the supervision and pre-show screening involved in reality TV, a
case could be made that the Amish youth in UPN's skein were less exposed to
harm than some of their peers.
In any case, Laikind said many people have inaccurate impressions of Amish
people's ability to interact in the urban world. "Just because people are
devoutly religious and don't watch TV, it doesn't mean they're naive or easily
exploited," he said. "They're perfectly capable of handling themselves."
Kroll believes once critics view "Amish," they may change their mind about the
project.
"The Amish people were approached and treated respectfully, and the importance
of their journey was honored," he said. "If you talk to any of the Amish
participants, you won't find a single one who regretted the experience."
New Line is prepping "Nightmare on Elm Street: Real Nightmares" for CBS, while
Stick Figure Prods. (with Cactus 3) has a 10-episode order from HBO for the
docu skein "Family Bonds."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ray's review of the first episode: I didn't expect to be writing this so I
didn't watch the show critically (in fact, I was flipping channels--also trying
to watch the Dem convention--what a contrast!!)
The "English" kids show up at the hollywood mansion first. They don't even seem
to be aware that it is decorated "Amish" with murals of quaint Amish farms, a
wall of Amish hats and bonnets, simple sturdy beds with Amish quilts, etc. When
the Amish young people (hereinafter referred to as "kids") arrive in
traditional garb, the English kids start talking about how they didn't know
they were going to be sharing space with Amish kids and many remarks were rude,
arrogant, condescending and demeaning: made in front of the Amish kids as if
they were not even present. The Amish kids initially reacted "non-resistantly,"
not acknowledging their feelings (except non-verbally--facial expression, etc).
After some chit-chat, "Instructions" arrive (by pneumatic tube apparently from
the people who concocted the show) that instruct the group to choose their
beds. There are only two dorm-like bedrooms, and the English kids are the more
assertive in this task and choose beds in the two rooms without regard to
gender. The Amish kids take what's left without complaint or comment. (Later,
it seemed to me that the bedrooms were separated according to gender--I must
have been watching the convention when this was sorted out).
Before long, the Amish abandon their Amish clothes for English clothes, and the
English women are assisting the Amish women with make-up and choice of attire
as the men are with the men. It was quite striking to me how the change of
attire changed my expectations as to the behavior of the Amish kids. Yet, their
English-as-a-second language accents were still there. And, even though the
enter the world of the verboten, their basic values remain intact. "You can
take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy."
In the second half, instructions from on high require the English kids to don
Amish clothes. Again, there are disrespectful comments, but relationships are
forming and they at least acknowledge the presence of the Amish kids. When the
entire group goes shopping and to an amusement park in their "switched"
attires, the thought came to my mind that it must be akin to having to go
public in gender-opposite clothing. They talked about the experience with one
another and you experience empathy building with them. Quite wonderful, for me,
actually.
A conflict develops with the Amish males not picking up after themselves. This
time there are some grounds for comments, but they are still comments of
prejudice against a labeled people rather than directed at the behavior.
Interestingly, the Amish women suggest that this behavior is likely because of
Amish women picking up after their kids and men. Seems like she had never
questioned this practice before. (Barb has questioned the male part of this
practice, oh, probably 5 minutes into the honeymoon). But, a somewhat serious
conflict is in the air. I was rather touched that Mose goes to his German Bible
and searches for answers for conflict resolution, reads barely audibly, then
closes the Bible, kneels and prays (in German, barely audibly) a long time.
Randy or Jonas then confronts the English group with the rudeness of their
behavior, but he does it without raising his voice and by inviting the English
to try to feel what it is like to be the subject of ridicule (invites empathy).
I'm sure the Amish parents are horrified that their young people would be
involved in this adventure. But, I found it a touching and powerful witness for
Anabaptist principles even though these kids are supposedly "running wild."
*************************************************************************************************************
"There is no way to peace; peace is the way." A. J. Muste
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