Amish in the City
by Frederick Meekins

The first season of UPN's "Amish In The City" has concluded. Looking back over the series, it was not as exploitive as a number of cultural watchdogs such as Prison Fellowship's "Breakpoint" broadcast led the public to believe.

If anything, the program did a service by exposing the hypocrisy of liberal tolerance as the contingent of city dwellers, which included a raving homosexual and spaced-out vegetarian, mocked and berated the Amish youth for not living up to progressive 21st century expectations. The series also helped viewers realize that the Amish aren't any better than the rest of us.

Truth be told, most of the Amish youths featured on the show were actually a bit wilder than Christian young people of comparable age from other denominations.

One of the girls got her bellybutton pierced; one of the lads had earrings dangling from his lobes. Both of the girls smoked and were surprisingly at ease trouncing around three-quarters naked on the beach in skimpy bathing suits. If this is how young people from even the most solemn of religious backgrounds conduct themselves nowadays, God help us all.

Many critics expressed concern that the series would promote misconceptions about the Amish among viewers. If anything, the program's format no doubt left the Amish kids with a skewered view of what their sect refers to as the English world. How often, as one of those wild city people, do you go parasailing or take helicopter rides to Catalina Island?

Throughout the series, the Amish seem to have the impression that life here in the modern world is one big playtime and those that inhabit it exceedingly lazy. "Amish In The City" would have been a bit better had the Amish participated in more real life activities rather than the contrived, pretend ones endemic to reality TV.

The cast didn't get around much to these matters until nearly the final episode when one Amish lad went to discuss with a Fuller Seminary Professor whether one could leave his sect and remain a Christian and a number of the girls went to speak to an admissions counselor at a nursing school. One of the Amish kids did acquire his GED, which added a bit of interest to the obligatory episodes of generalized carousing and barhopping.

Overall, "Amish In The City" is one of the few manifestations of reality television worthy of a second season since, despite its faults, is surprisingly mild in light of the maggot and entrails-eating antics of "Fear Factor" and the trivialization of marriage and romance inherent to shows such as "The Bachelor". Since none of them returned to the Amish at the end of the season finale, as part of the second season or as part of a stand alone reunion special, producers should track down these participants and update how these young people fair in the real world apart from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.

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