Posted on 12/27/2012 6:50:42 AM PST by PJ-Comix
The Amish Mafia reality show claims to show a small group of “protectors” within the Amish community who drive cars and blackmail bishops.
And its complete fiction, critics say.
Amish Mafia, which is being billed as a reality show, debuts on the Discovery Channel in December. It explores the world of Lebanon Levi and his gang of three men, Jolin, John and Alvin, the Patriot-News noted.
The show starts out with a disclaimer that the Amish church denies that the group exists, and the episode then goes into interviews and re-enactments of the gang as they drink, drive cars, and gamble. Experts who understand the Amish community say that the Amish Mafia reality show is nothing like reality at all.
“When I first saw the trailer [for the show], I thought maybe it was a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit on reality television because it was so far fetched,” said Donald Weaver-Zercher, a professor at Elizabethtown College and expert on the Amish. “My sense is this Amish mafia is about as real as the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in The Office.”
Another expert said after studying the Amish for 20 years, he’s heard nothing about a mafia or anything even resembling it.
But the Amish Mafia reality show may be trying to cash in on a suddenly popular religious group. In April, National Geographic aired a 10-part series called Amish: Out of Order, that showed people who had left the search. TLC aired a similar show in September, Breaking Amish, which followed four Amish and one Mennonite who moved to New York City and experimented with drinking, drugs, and sex.
The Discovery Channel acknowledges that the scenes in the Amish Mafia reality show are re-enactments, ABC News notes, but claims the stories are all true.
So when does Dateline NBC do a show exposing how "Amish Mafia" is fake? And will Dan Rather be the correspondent?
My favorite “Reality” Show person is Barry on Storage Wars. He plays it strictly for laughs. Some of his jokes very risque but quite FUnnie.
With “Moonshiners” and now this garbage, reality TV has finally jumped the shark.
As show writers ran out of ideas, now we are running out of reality.
Of course, the public wouldn't buy that. There is no way they could believe that a Swedish L.C.M.S. pastor could write humorous irreverent parody lyrics at the drop of the hat. More unbelievable than an Amish Mafia.
I live in York County PA and work in northern rural Lancaster County PA and have been to Lancaster City many times, my mom was from the general area and I lived in Amish country (Elizabethtown/Hershey) as a young child before moving to Maryland. Going to downtown Lancaster City, especially the area of N. Queen Street is more like going to downtown Baltimore or Detroit, especially now days and you are not going to find many if any real Amish in Lancaster City central and speaking Pennsylvania Dutch won’t help you, however speaking Spanish or Ebonics would be more helpful.
And if you go to the touristy areas of Lancaster along Route 30 near the big outlet malls and Amish themed attractions, you will probably see lots of “Amish” buggies and lots of “Amish” stores but they are mostly owned and driven by the “English” who are milking money from the gullible tourists. (Hint: the real Amish don’t give buggy rides to tourists although they will gladly take your money and sell you their goods at their small stores and stalls at farmers markets outside of the city).
If you want to see the “real” Amish you have to go east, north or south of downtown Lancaster City or the commercial part of route 30; the rural areas surrounding little towns like Strasburg, Manheim, Lititz, Paradise, Bird In Hand, Blue Ball and the places in between. There is a grocery store near where I work in Manheim that has specially designated parking spaces for buggies. And yes, the Amish go to modern grocery stores. I’ve also seen Amish buggies parked in front of the Home Depot and the Best Buy. I’ve also seen Amish at Penn State Hershey Medical Center, and yes they go to the hospital and to the doctors when they need to, and there is actually a “cottage” industry of drivers, some Mennonite and some “English” who provide car transport when the Amish have to travel farther than practical by horse and buggy. The Amish may not own or drive cars but they will use them for transport if it is necessary and if someone else is driving. Many will also use gas powered engines, electricity and telephones in their barns and workshops for conducting business even as their homes have no electricity and the Amish who work off the farm will use mechanized equipment and ride in work trucks.
There is no such thing as the Amish “Mafia. There are a few Amish kids who occasionally go “bad”, go wild; drink, experiment with drugs, alcohol, sex and rock and roll, usually during their Rumspringa: a few never go back to the Amish ways but surprisingly most do. Surprisingly the Amish population is growing and moving into areas like southern NJ and NE Maryland; there is a rather large and growing Amish community in Cape May County NJ.
The shows Breaking Amish and Amish Mafia are completely fake. There were even ads running not long ago in several Lancaster are newspapers advertising for “extras” to appear on those shows.
I started watching it and when they showed Levi’s arrest record it showed that he was arrested in Shelby, Ohio, a few years ago.
I live 8 miles away from Shelby.
There is a large Mennonite/Amish population is this area. I’m going to ask around and see if anyone’s heard of Levi and what his reputation is.
There’s a ton of Amish around my parts (western Wisconsin), but I’ve never heard of anything like an Amish mafia.
BTW, did anybody else find that incident to somehow be quite hilarious?
Okay, I will be watching the final episode of “Amish Mafia” tonight. It’s my guilty pleasure but the pleasure comes from the unintended laughs at the ridiculousness of it all. The funniest thing is that Amish midget who smashed the windshield of Lebanon Levi with a sledgehammer. What? He hasn’t been arrested for an act of vandalism he perpetrated on national TV?
The original joke was:
clip, clop, clip, clop.....Sinner!...clip, clop, clip, clop.
“Amish Drive-By”
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