Don’t waste your time on this one

Well since I don’t watch a lot of television, apparently I missed the show American Colony: Meet the Hutterites when it first aired. When I saw it was on my Amazon Video listing as something I might be interested in, I clicked on it.  Wow – what garbage.  My opinion of my Amazon Video account has lowered because of this offering.

I thought it would be neat to take a look into the lives of these communal families and figured since it was by National Geographic it would be legit.  After about three minutes in, it was obvious that the show was scripted and the “drama” was all staged.  There were only one or two lines in the entire first episode that didn’t sound completely setup.  If you are going to do a fake show – call it a drama – not “reality tv” – and hire some actual actors.

I jumped on the internet once I started feeling scammed and first was surprised to find that the show actually aired back in 2012.  (Told you I don’t watch much TV)  I then went on Facebook to look up some of the people in the show and sure enough, just like the Duck Dynasty scammers (I have still never seen an episode of that one) I found the Hutterites not in their traditional garb working on the farm but playing golf, going to NASCAR races, attending college etc., all dressed in very mainstream attire.

In researching how this show was created, I came across a report that shows not only were the viewers deceived, but the Hutterite community too was scammed.  Told that National Geographic was doing a documentary about their lifestyle, they were roped into creating this travesty of journalism and threatened with lawsuits if they didn’t play their “fake” role.

I don’t now what is more disgusting…  that ‘producers’ continue to try to pawn these scams off as reality or that they are so devious in their methodology.  Yes, I know I am late to the game on this one but I just now saw it.  On the bright side, services like Amazon Video do allow us to find things we’ve missed – even if we have to weed through some chaff.

Chris Doelle