5 Amish Reality Shows To Watch: There is something irresistible about Amish reality television. A community built around simplicity, faith and separation from much of modern technology being turned into television drama is a slightly bold concept, and yet for two decades television networks have kept returning to the Amish.
Amish Reality Show
An Amish Reality Show usually refers to an unscripted television series that focuses on the culture clashes, lifestyle changes and personal drama in the traditional lives of Amish communities or follows people transitioning between the Amish world and the modern “English” society.
The cultural shift portrayed in the shows explores the complicated space between tradition and freedom. So, if your curiosity has entered the stage where you want to actually know what happens when Amish people meet the outside world, here are five shows to put on your list.
Amish in the City
Before Breaking Amish became the big TLC name associated with “Amish Reality Shows”, we had Amish in the City on UPN Network.
It is a 2004 series that brought Amish teenagers to share a house with non-Amish young people in Los Angeles. The Amish participants experienced the outside world during the period associated with rumspringa, a period when they were legally allowed to participate in a Hollywood television show without breaking church laws or facing shunning.
The premise is peak early-2000s reality television: people from different cultural backgrounds under one roof with unfamiliar technology, new friendships and inevitable cultural clashes. The show was not simply about Amish traditions, but about young people trying to figure out what they wanted when they were presented with choices they never had before.
Amish: Out of Order
If Amish in the City was about discovering the outside world, Amish in the City was more interested in what happens after you actually leave.
This 2012 National Geographic reality series followed former Amish people. The central character of the series was Mose Gingerich, former Amish, who helped other ex-Amish youths as a guide, mentor, and safety net.
Leaving is not merely represented as “freedom”, and that is where this Amish reality show speaks volumes. There can be consequences involving even identity. The series follows people trying to figure out life after leaving the Amish.
Breaking Amish
We enter the TLC world, where things turn to becoming messier. Breaking Amish followed five young Anabaptist adults—four Amish and one Mennonite who move to New York City to experience life outside their communities.
The show again has the classic reality TV formula intact, which is to put people in an unfamiliar environment and see what happens to them. There is also the question of what would happen if there is a reality beyond what you were raised with.
Return to Amish
Return to Amish came as an official TLC spin-off of Breaking Amish. The series explores their relationships with family, questions of shunning and the tensions between the lives they have built and the communities they came from, and that is exactly where the show becomes more than a simple “city versus countryside” plot.
The show is packed with family conflict, emotional reunions and complicated relationships with the very question of belongingness as their lives gradually change.
Suddenly Amish
Here comes the plot twist.
Suddenly Amish is a recent TLC reality show that follows non-Amish people who try to integrate into the Amish community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
So now, instead of Amish people experiencing the outside world, the show puts the outsiders to become a part of the community: with rules, routines, work and cultural expectations. It is basically an Uno-Reverse of sorts.
So, Which Amish Reality Show Should You Watch?
Now, that completely depends on your area of interest. If you want a TLC core reality show, Suddenly Amish or Breaking Amish can be good picks, but if you want to feel the emotions, Return to Amish or for an older version Amish in the City.
One must remember that these shows can be entertaining, but they should not be treated as the only definitive window into Amish life. Reality TV always does what it does best: exaggerate and sensationalise; thus, one must remember to look at the trusted sources for information about the community rather than relying on a reality TV show.
Have you watched any Amish Reality Show? Which one do you suggest to others, and what is the problem you find in them? Tell us in the comments below!
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