{"id":293,"date":"2010-03-12T12:48:01","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T16:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/?p=293"},"modified":"2023-02-08T14:58:58","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T18:58:58","slug":"amish-grace-is-exploitation-film-that-has-no-redeeming-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":"‘Amish Grace’ is exploitation film that has no redeeming value"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Patriot-News Editorial Board<\/a>
\nMarch 11, 2010, 7:32AM<\/h4>\n

Is there such a thing as \u201cmust-miss\u201d TV?<\/p>\n

If so, put \u201cAmish Grace\u201d <\/a>on your list. The Lifetime Movie Network film, which airs March 28, purports to recount the shooting of 10 Amish girls in a Nickel Mines schoolhouse by Charles Carl Roberts IV on Oct. 2, 2006.<\/p>\n

\"CHRIS<\/a>

CHRIS KNIGHT, The Patriot-News Movie about the Amish is shameful.<\/p><\/div>\n

There has always been a fundamental contradiction in the fact that the \u201cEnglish\u201d \u2014 as the Amish call non-Amish \u2014 make money off an intensely private people who reject the values of modern society.<\/p>\n

Lancaster County has spawned an entire industry of Amish tourism, with busloads who ogle at horse-drawn buggies and men in straw hats.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that the Amish supplement their farming by selling handmade crafts and foods to tourists. But selling a few quilts and shoofly pie at a local craft store is light years from the crass exploitation that is \u201cAmish Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few who know the Amish wanted a piece of this horror show. The fictional film is based on the nonfiction book \u201cAmish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy,\u201d by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt and David L. Weaver-Zercher. Kraybill is an Elizabethtown College professor and senior fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of respect to our friends in the Amish community, and especially those related to the Nickel Mines tragedy, we declined the producer\u2019s requests to consult and assist in the development of a film,\u201d the authors said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

It is easy to see why.<\/p>\n

This film has about as much to do with understanding the Amish as \u201cAvatar\u201d has to do with understanding the Masai.<\/p>\n

As Patriot-News writer Ivey DeJesus described <\/a>it, in the world of \u201cAmish Grace,\u201d the men all wear squeaky clean boots with no trace of farm mud and the women all sport manicured fingernails.<\/p>\n

More importantly, the film distorts what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t stand this place anymore,\u201d says a character who lost her daughter in the shooting and lashes out at her husband.<\/p>\n

In reality, the Nickel Mines tragedy only caused the Amish to affirm the bedrock values of their community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe media descend on the town and criticize its Amish leaders for their notion of unconditional forgiveness of the shooter,\u201d trumpets the movie\u2019s Web site<\/a> (right next to a promo for \u201cKim Kardashian\u2019s Most Memorable Hairstyles.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In reality, the public \u2014 including this newspaper \u2014 marveled at the Amish for truly living their deep faith.<\/p>\n

It is inevitable that Hollywood tries to idealize and romanticize just about any hardship, from slavery to poverty to cancer.<\/p>\n

But there is a special irony in glamorizing a people whose entire life is dedicated to eschewing individual attention.<\/p>\n

You cannot see a shadow by shining a light on it. You cannot capture smoke by grabbing it with your hands. And you cannot celebrate the humility of the Amish by making them the stars of their own Lifetime movie.<\/p>\n

If the film\u2019s producers really wanted to honor the Amish, they would have said a prayer for them and let them be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Patriot-News Editorial Board March 11, 2010, 7:32AM Is there such a thing as \u201cmust-miss\u201d TV? If so, put \u201cAmish Grace\u201d on your list. The Lifetime Movie Network film, which airs March 28, purports to recount the shooting of 10 Amish girls in a Nickel Mines schoolhouse by Charles Carl Roberts IV on Oct. 2, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[174,177,175,176],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amish-in-the-news","tag-amish-grace","tag-charles-carl-roberts","tag-lifetime-movie-network","tag-nickel-mines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}