Discovery Channel’s Amish Mafia: Is There An Amish Mafia? Don’t Amish Trust Police?
November 20, 2012 by Hollywoodite
Breaking Amish has concluded with the airing of its reunion special during which most of the cast admitted the lies that were told during production. Leaving fans of the TLC franchise wanting to know more about the Amish way of life (which they’re not going to get on a reality show). Sister channel Discovery aims to fill the gap with another show about the Amish, Amish Mafia.
Where Breaking Amish claimed to be a reality show, Discovery admitted in its press release that Amish Mafia is basically fake; it’s a series “reenactments” to “protect the identifies” of people in the local community of Lancaster, PA where Breaking Amish filmed only months before.
There’s already been criticism of the veracity of the claims that will be made about the Amish and the supposed Amish “Mafia” that no one can seem to agree exists. And there’s concern over the verisimilitude of the portrayal by cast members who may not even be Amish.
Donald Kraybill, an Elizabethtown College Professor, “one of the nation’s top scholars on the Amish,” tells CBS 21 the show’s also a fraud contrived to illicit viewers: “This is trash and it’s disgusting and the images about Amish people that are articulated in these kind of media treatments are generally false. The whole purpose is to gain viewership, increase market share and sell ads. Unfortunately the truth suffers.”
As for whether there would be any need for mafia in the community, Kraybill says: ”That is just bogus, the Amish people will call the police if there is a crime going on, they will call 911. That is exactly what happened at Nickel Mines when somebody walked in and started shooting Amish girls, they called 911.” So, that would appear to be a “no.” The Amish can and often do defer to the local police.
Asked why the community don’t make their concerns heard, Kraybill says real Amish wouldn’t interact with the media (another reason Breaking Amish is replete with ex-Amish, and Amish Mafia will be too): “Genuine Amish people won’t face the camera and won’t talk on television. There is nothing really the Amish people can do about it. They don’t have a public relations official. The bottom line is they are not saints, they don’t walk on water, they are human beings like the rest of us.”