It’s a little difficult to know whether or not to feel angry or kind of sad for the type of minds that would come up with something as ridiculous as Amish Mafia. Not only do the two words not go together at all, the idea of a fringe sect of the Amish community trying to look out for the rest of them without being completely ostracized is extremely suspect. This is unfortunately the direction that reality TV is going since the producers of this show had to fabricate every little thing in order to make this show possible. It’s like taking Goodfellas and putting it Amish country, but the problem is that not only do the Amish not have any need of a mafia, they would like excise it from their ranks the moment such a thing came to exist. Someone must have been extremely bored or perhaps intoxicated to come up with this idea.
Here are a few points just to make it clear how insane this show was.
10. The star has been accused of selling Amish secrets.
Another member of the Amish community decided to out Lebanon Levi for making money off of their culture and promoting their lifestyle in a tell-all book that blatantly told people just what went on in an Amish community. Seriously, if you pick up a history book or visit one of their communities you should be able to get the gist of it.
9. None of the main cast members were one hundred percent Amish.
So the cast wants to claim that they belong to the Amish community with the option to be baptized at a later date. The problem is, THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS. And one more thing is that by agreeing to be on camera they would have already been breaking tradition since most Amish keep well away from modern technology.
8. There is no such thing as the Amish Mafia.
If you have to be told this then reality TV has it’s hooks deep into you already, but if you had the sense to question the joining of the two words then kudos since you’re one of those free-thinkers that can piece together your own thoughts in order to make sense of something.
7. The agency that holds Lebanon Levi’s arrest record doesn’t exist.
The Lancaster City Police Department exists, but the Lancaster County Police don’t. Levi is so proud of his record, prouder than many people would be on TV in fact, but the problem is that the pride he feels is manufactured and the tough-guy image he has is about as real as this show.
6. The Amish aren’t as confrontational as the show’s cast.
When was the last time you heard of an Amish individual filing a lawsuit or trying to get legal protection for themselves or their family? They tend to take care of things in-house as much as possible and what’s even more telling is that to make this show real the Amish would have to be just as bad as the rest of us, and most of those that work with them say this just isn’t so.
5. One business that was shown paying ‘protection fees’ denies this ever happened.
The shop played along with it and put up a sign that said “Protected by Lebanon Levi”, more as a joke since they never paid him a single thing. In fact if you have trouble believing that the Amish have a diehard group like this then believing that they would stoop to collecting protection money should leave you rolling on the floor laughing.
4. The accents and dialects were all wrong.
When an entire community of people speak with the same accents and dialects since they’ve been pretty well self-contained for so long it’s easy to spot those that have no place in the community or are outsiders since their speech patterns are going to be all wrong.
3. The show almost got canceled after the producers showed a desire to blow up a car.
This is when the locals had had enough. The Amish weren’t going to speak up and the idea of blowing up a car had to mean that someone saw the low ratings and wanted to juice it up a bit to make the show a little more flashy. That being said, purposefully igniting a car bomb in a little town is not the best way to get on with the locals.
2. A lot of the cast were actors and paid professionals.
A lot of the cast weren’t even Amish to begin and had no ties to them. This makes you wonder just how messed up the producers had to be in order to really think that this was a good idea.
1. Lebanon even admitted that the producers came up with the name of the show.
Levi saw the writing on the wall, as the saying goes, and as far as being a self-proclaimed Amish community member he was quick to denounce the show as being unreal and that the producers had made up the name. When the stuff hits the fan the weakest-willed individuals are usually the first to duck and run.
Go on and laugh now, I know I did the entire way through.
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