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Is anyone watching Meet the Hudderites?


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I just started watching this and I have to say so far I am excited to see people pushing boundaries and at other times I am sitting on my couch doing :angry-banghead:. I think Claudia is great and I love how she pushes boundaries. Also watching tonights episode where the 25 year old guy had a heart attack scare, I thought this is what needs to happen to Josh. The whole series is ripe for discussion on so many levels.

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I've seen three episodes (Pilot Ep, Shunning Ep, and iPad ep) and I have to stand by my original opinion that this shit is SO staged. They all look like they've rehearsed, and are staging scenes and shit. It's pretty boring too, although that guy Claudia met in the first ep was pretty cute.

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The staging is really obvious which makes for great snark. Also I would appreciate them giving us more information as to what the Hudderites believe. I keep going okay they are like the amish but different and what is the history and what not. You would think National Geographic would do a better back story history gathering effort. Also watching tonight I was reminded again how much fundamentalist religions devalue education in general. The show is definately more interesting than the Duggars or the Bates. There are at least arguments and they show the kids rebelling. I did miss the pilot so I didn't get to see the guy Claudia was with. I was shocked when they said Wesley was 25, I was like holy crap he looks more like 35.

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I've watched 'em all! The only thing I get from it is: ew, their food looks like the stuff the Mennonites I knew ate. No seasoning, other than salt and maybe pepper, lots of grease and a lot of rabbit. And gross white bread and cakes from a box. Yuuuuuch. The one positive is that their accents are super fun. I love parroting it back and/or randomly saying "Clau-dia".

I totally hate how staged it is, too; you can really tell that most of them dropped out of school because they just can't read without struggling and -sounding- like they're reading. Mr. Burps and I have a theory that the show exists to make people believe that it's OMGFUN to be Hutterite, thus possibly expanding the colony so that it can last another generation. But we're cynics. :)

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Please tell me I was hearing things! The young woman was threatened with a punishment of kneeling on stones if she was caught again doing "men's work"? This was the show where the two women fixed fence, chopped off chicken heads and nearly stuck their hands up inside the cow.

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I've watched it and probably will continue to, but I'm really disappointed in National Geographic Channel--if this were TLC I would understand the cheesiness but this was supposed to be a real look at an "American Outsider" community and it's just so awful. Realizing that any "look" at a closed community is bogus (usually you see what they want you to see), I think in this case NGC took advantage of some very naive people. Supposedly all of the Hutterites are up in arms at this--don't like how it makes them look) and the community that was filmed has said that they were in dire financial straights, made the agreement with NGC without understanding it, has begged forgiveness from "the elders" and received it--who knows?

I am in love with Bertha, for probably bizarre reasons that I don't understand. But there are so many contradictions--Claudia goes to a party at the colony with an uncovered head and that's a scandal, and goes to a party in that dress she made, and yet when she gets a "forbidden" job at a restaurant she talks about how strange it is to not have her headscarf on (also interesting that the "shawl" that they all talk about suddenly becomes a "headscarf," which is most often used to describe Muslim hijab. Also, there is constant talk about nobody "finding out" what you are doing, but Hutterites watch TV, so of course the rest of the people will find out about what you are doing--eventually.

It's just all so staged and cheesy that I don't think by watching it anyone will know or understand more about the Hutterites, which is a shame. It's like Real Housewives of Bumf**k, Montana.

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I've watched it and probably will continue to, but I'm really disappointed in National Geographic Channel--if this were TLC I would understand the cheesiness but this was supposed to be a real look at an "American Outsider" community and it's just so awful. Realizing that any "look" at a closed community is bogus (usually you see what they want you to see), I think in this case NGC took advantage of some very naive people. Supposedly all of the Hutterites are up in arms at this--don't like how it makes them look) and the community that was filmed has said that they were in dire financial straights, made the agreement with NGC without understanding it, has begged forgiveness from "the elders" and received it--who knows?

I am in love with Bertha, for probably bizarre reasons that I don't understand. But there are so many contradictions--Claudia goes to a party at the colony with an uncovered head and that's a scandal, and goes to a party in that dress she made, and yet when she gets a "forbidden" job at a restaurant she talks about how strange it is to not have her headscarf on (also interesting that the "shawl" that they all talk about suddenly becomes a "headscarf," which is most often used to describe Muslim hijab. Also, there is constant talk about nobody "finding out" what you are doing, but Hutterites watch TV, so of course the rest of the people will find out about what you are doing--eventually.

It's just all so staged and cheesy that I don't think by watching it anyone will know or understand more about the Hutterites, which is a shame. It's like Real Housewives of Bumf**k, Montana.

This, esp. about Bertha. She seems like a wonderful soul. But they all appear to be reading their confessions, which makes me wonder why NG didn't even make an effort to distinguish it from all the other reality crap. I imagine they could be really colorful people if they weren't forced to fit into the reality show mold.

And I have to wonder: where were these disapproving elders when NG first came calling? I rather thought big steps like outing your dirty laundery to the world at large would never be done with out elder approval. And the one guy on the show--Marvin?--is the "Money Boss," which if I recall is like being the president of the chapter, though not in spiritual matters. He's in every episode. So how can the "elders," whoever they are, claim they didn't know what was up? The people, esp. the men, don't seem all that naive to me. They seem to mingle with the English world quite a lot.

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From what I can gather, this colony agreed to be filmed because they thought NGC was a legit organization and they decided to allow themselves to be filmed to solve some severe financial problems. And I think they were probably naive in the sense that they didn't understand the implications or what NGF would do to them. I'm inclined to believe it because I was naive enough to want to watch it (and I've been a newspaper editor for decades and should know better) and think that it would be a fairly responsible look at a very interesting culture: a close-knit community that for one thing practices group ownership without being Godless commies.

Disappointing all around. Still, if it weren't for the Christian/gender role/conformity/hard physical work thing, I would want Bertha to be my mother.

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The crappiness of the show can't surprass Bertha's sheer awesomeness, I will be surprised if Claudia stays on the colony in the long run.

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The crappiness of the show can't surprass Bertha's sheer awesomeness, I will be surprised if Claudia stays on the colony in the long run.

^^^This. Watching Bertha snowmobiling the other night made me smile. She must have it tough; have they ever discussed any reason for her husband's suicide? Were I she, I would butt my sons' heads together: Clinton for his laziness and Carver for his petulance. Claudia got all her mother's gumption, that's for sure.

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Yea, I guess what's really annoying about the show is that these people have genuinely compelling stories that aren't being told -- instead it's all staged fluff.

I'm sure that (if the show wasn't already bent on catering to the lowest common denominator of reality shows) there is a lot of authenticity that could be captured in their way of life -- good, bad, & ugly.

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  • 5 months later...

This started 10 minutes ago on Nat Geo for anyone in the UK with Sky.

I just felt I had to :lol:

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I was so disappointed in it. It was so scripted. Like The Hills with dreadful clothes. I did admire the mum's frankness re her husbands suicide. I read up on the history of Hutterites. They're like a cross between fundies and communists! Unusual!

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We've lived near and have experience with Hutterites here in North Dakota and when we lived in Montana. I could explain them fairly well if there were any specific questions ! They are fascinating.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I've seen three episodes (Pilot Ep, Shunning Ep, and iPad ep) and I have to stand by my original opinion that this shit is SO staged. They all look like they've rehearsed, and are staging scenes and shit. It's pretty boring too, although that guy Claudia met in the first ep was pretty cute.

The Hutterites (inbreeding much?)is on Dutch telly and I have the same question, is it staged?

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I was so disappointed in it. It was so scripted. Like The Hills with dreadful clothes. I did admire the mum's frankness re her husbands suicide. I read up on the history of Hutterites. They're like a cross between fundies and communists! Unusual!

This is the perfect description. :lol:

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I just started watching this and I have to say so far I am excited to see people pushing boundaries and at other times I am sitting on my couch doing :angry-banghead:. I think Claudia is great and I love how she pushes boundaries. Also watching tonights episode where the 25 year old guy had a heart attack scare, I thought this is what needs to happen to Josh. The whole series is ripe for discussion on so many levels.

I watched the entire series when it first came out, turns out it was heavily scripted like most "reality" shows. What I noticed most is that males could go anywhere and not be identified as being in an old-time separatist religion, but the women sure couldn't. The females in their 50's looked like they were in their 70's. Can't fundamentalists use moisturizer? Bertha colored her hair, so why can't they do just a bit more so they don't appear so different from the men?

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There's a show about Hutterites? I can go around here and visit them myself. Ha!

I don't know much about them except they pick all the huckleberries if you don't get there before them, and my mom told me the guys drink a lot.

ETA: I just remembered a couple more things: my grandma likes their chickens better than store chickens, and I've never seen them drive anything but a black vehicle. Always black. Always.

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They are not Protestant, they are one of the four branches of Anabaptists. They are an original off-shoot branch, unlike the Amish who seperated from the Mennonites later in the 1700s and a segment of them returned to Mennonite (often referred to as either Amish-Mennonites or Old Order Mennonites) in the late 1800s.

All of the Anabaptist groups have some very basic core theological beliefs that are similiar. Among them are communal living for believers. The Hutterites took the communal living to a degree FAR beyond the other Anabaptist branches. However, they also did an interesting twist of never rejecting modernization and techonology, but requiring their use before the good of the community and not to cause division and seperation.

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