Check it out! It’s our first Buy Religious podcast, hosted by Rob, owner of BuyReligious.com. On this week’s episode, Rob talks about Shiny Happy People, a documentary about the Duggar Family and their connection to a controversial homeschooling ministry. You can stream the documentary for free on your Amazon Prime Account.
Show Transcript:
Please note: the show transcript may not be 100% accurate.
Greetings and welcome to our very first podcast right here on BuyReligious.com. My name is Rob, I am the owner of Buy Religious, and thank you so much for tuning in to the first episode. For now, I’m just calling this the Buy Religious podcast, maybe you can help me come up with a little snazzier title. You can email me with ideas at ask @buyreligious.com.
So about a month ago, I logged into my Amazon Prime Video account and lo and behold, the first thing I see is this docuseries called Shiny Happy People. I didn’t have to go looking for it. It was literally waiting for me front and center. It was almost calling my name. Now obviously, Amazon wanted me to watch this series, which might have been a really good reason not to watch it. I don’t particularly trust Amazon’s algorithms, but in this case, I decided to watch the show because I had already heard about it, which I’m sure Amazon somehow figured out, and I was interested.
There were two reasons I wanted to watch this docuseries. First, I am fascinated by the different flavors of Christianity in this country. There are so many of them and they are all unique and I love learning about them. Second, I have some personal connection to the subject matter in this docuseries. Now it’s true that the Duggars are the main attraction in this Amazon series, whether they like it or not, but this show is not just about the Duggars. Oh, no, it goes much deeper. This show is actually even more about a ministry called IBLP in which the Duggars, and tens of thousands of other homeschool families were also involved. Now unfortunately, IBLP is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to acronyms in the show. IBLP stands for the Institute in Basic Life Principles but you’re also going to hear about IBYC, ATI, ALERT, and maybe a few others mixed in there as well. So get ready to have a bunch of random letters swirling around in your head. Now, my family dabbled in IBLP when I was growing up and I was quite surprised to see some places I recognized in the docuseries and even a person on screen who I had known. I recall seeing the Duggar family in person up on a stage singing years ago. I think it was at a conference my family attended. I don’t know them, I’ve never met them personally, but they were certainly well known in my world growing up.
Now, look…the subject matter in Shiny Happy People is very polarizing, not unlike everything else in America right now. There are some pretty heavy topics in the show dealing with sexual misconduct and spiritual abuse among other things. Based on what I have observed, most of the people who were involved in this movement as children think this documentary is a long time coming and support it, but let’s just say that the people who love this documentary really love it, and the people who hate it…well they think it’s a hit job, and packed with a bunch of lies. Now look, there are many different types of documentaries out there today but what seems to be most popular are these exposes, which put the spotlight on a person or a movement, or both, and usually it is not a positive spotlight. Think Bernie Madoff or Waco or Warren Jeffs. That’s exactly what we have here with Shiny Happy People and you have to go into this knowing that yes, the people behind this docuseries have an agenda – they are trying to expose what they believe is hypocrisy, dangerous teachings, harmful child rearing, and so on …this show is not meant to be an infomercial for IBLP or for the Duggar family. If it was, no one would watch it!
But one reason I was willing to watch Shiny Happy People is because the creators did manage to get one of the Duggar kids to participate in the show. Now, I suppose that’s not so impressive when you consider that there are 19 kids in the family, and they only managed to interview one of them, but at least we get to hear directly from one of the Duggars themselves, which I think lends credibility to the show.
So here’s what I didn’t like about the show. Yes, there were quite a few aspects not to like and they were easy to spot and I know I’m not the only one out there talking about them. First, there were some pretty wild statements made by the people interviewed in the show. Like the statement that this ministry which the Duggars were apart of, IBLP, turned every father into a cult leader. This is demonstrably false. I know fathers who were involved with IBLP and they did not turn into cult leaders. I think you have to be careful about using the word all. There was another claim made that was very dubious…that the rise of homeschooling in this country was rooted in a racist response to desegregation… that white parents were so mad about their kids schools filling up with minorities, that they pulled them out and and started homeschooling them. I think just looking at a timeline of when Brown Vs. Board came down and when homeschooling started to explode pretty much destroys this claim. Now I’m sure there were plenty of lawyers involved with this show to make sure the show wouldn’t be sued for slander, but I do think the creators got away with some big whoppers.
I also think the format of the show was a big hot mess. It was a hodgepodge of footage from conferences, interviews with ex-IBLPer’s, clips from the Duggar’s TV show, and a whole bunch of dramatic music which of course made it all look and sound ominous. The producers spliced all of this together and you really feel like they make some very big jumps at times and you’re left wondering about the reasonableness of the connections they are trying to make. I mean, it’s a four part series, and at least one of the episodes is under 40 minutes, but I couldn’t binge it. I had to watch it over a couple of days. It was just too much to take in all at one time.
And then we have the people who were interviewed for the show. This was not a documentary where you have a deep commanding voice narrating the events. The show is really just much made up of people who were involved with the Duggars or IBLP, along with a few so called experts. I think the person I am most sympathetic to in the docuseries is Jill Duggar Dillard, who is the fourth child, and second daughter in the Duggar family. She was one of her brother’s reported molestation victims, and she was right in the middle of all of the controversy that led to the Duggar show being cancelled and really nearly destroyed the family. She was even pushed to go on FOX with one of her sisters and basically defend her brother, who was alleged to have molested her and a couple other siblings. It’s pretty admirable that she was willing to go on this docuseries and speak out against her parents. But I definitely have second thoughts about some of the other characters in the series, especially Cousin Amy, who is quite prominent throughout the docuseries I mean, here is a girl who even though she came from a different background, she got to watch TV, put posters up on her wall, wear pants, whatever, she was welcomed into the Duggar household and it look like she was treated like a daughter. You see footage on the show of her Uncle, Jim Bob, the father of the 19 Duggar kids, baptizing her. It seems whenever she is with the family, she is having a great time. A lot of Amy’s commentary about the family just seems like sour grapes to me, like she has an axe to grind, it just doesn’t come off as if she’s doing this because she cares about the family. I feel like she’s taking advantage of her moment in the spotlight and trying to make the most of it.
I also think we could have done without the husbands of Jill Duggar Dillard and Cousin Amy on the show. I get it. They were there to support their wives but to me, their contributions were pretty much meaningless. They could have supported their wives just out of view of the cameras. You know, Amy’s husband would interject now and then when she was telling a wild story about the Duggar family and he say “well that’s just crazy” and I’m thinking okay, let the viewer decide if it’s crazy or not. We don’t really care what you think. You weren’t even there. And as for Jill Duggar’s husband, Derick, okay, sure he was on the Duggar’s TV show, and had some weird encounters with Jim Bob while he was courting Jill, but I just didn’t find his perspective helpful in the least bit. I didn’t need to hear from him.
So what did I like about Shiny Happy People? It was definitely entertaining. I wanted to keep watching it. Even though it was a mess, it was still a well done mess. I do think there are a few key takeaways from the show, one being that it is always dangerous to look to one man for answers to all of life’s problems, whether that man be Bill Gothard, the leader of this huge homeschooling movement, or Jim Bob Duggar, the head of the Duggar clan, or your local pastor. The show reminds us that unquestioned authority is a recipe for disaster, and that mass conformity, which you do see a lot of the same clothing and hair styles, and rules about dating in this series, while it may look all nice and pretty on the outside, can actually be covering up some pretty ugly stuff. And hopefully, this show might even persuade people to take a closer look at the spiritual authorities in their own lives and ask questions, or even push back.
So should you watch the show? Well if you were in anyway involved in this big homeschooling movement, or thought highly of the Duggars, you meant find the show triggering, but I for one really enjoyed it. I went into it knowing full well that it’s entertainment and also that the creators have an agenda. I think if you watch it with those two things in mind, you can actually come away with a balanced view.
Well speaking of hot messes, that’s how I feel about the review I just gave you right now. I didn’t want to divulge too much about the show, in case you decide to go and watch it. I’d definitely recommend at least making it through one episode to see what it’s all about. It’s called Happy Shiny People and it is available on the Amazon Prime Video streaming service.
Thanks for listening to our first Buy Religious podcast. Feel free to get in touch with me. My email address is ask@buyreligious.com. Check back soon for our next podcast. Good day to you all!
