Of "Amish" Movies

Over the years I have read thousands of books. Among all those books there is one thing that has become glaringly obvious to me, and that is, no author should write about anything that they don't know about. For as sure as they do, there will be someone who reads them that will become vastly amused at the ludicrous things they try to write about knowledgeably.

I remember chuckling over the book that was talking about the vast cattle spread a rancher had that covered 120 acres and how they had a helicopter to go from one end of the ranch to the other. At the time I was living on a 160 acre farm and knew that it only takes a matter of minutes to walk from one end of the farm to the other.

Another book tried to tell me how they needed the Jaws of Life to rescue someone that was trapped inside a buggy after an accident. They obviously never saw a buggy close up, or a buggy accident, which after a bad impact will be nothing but a pile of splinters.

I have read a few of the Amish fiction books that seem to be so popular. I won't buy any but occasionally someone gives one to me and I generally end up reading it. I always come to the same conclusion. But I digress.

Last evening we watched the movie "Saving Sarah Cain" that a friend generously gave to us to watch. I tried to put myself into a mindset to enjoy a good clean movie, but there is still enough Amish blood in me that the entire movie was ridiculous.

It left me wondering, do the coverings Amish girls and women wear, look that way to anyone who has not been raised Amish? No Amish woman would be found wearing the sorry looking rags they wore. Though I have to chuckle at the thought of anyone being behind the scenes starching and ironing coverings correctly for a movie.

And the hair. Apparently they never saw or else paid no attention how Lancaster Amish girls wear their hair. Those two things alone, had me cringing all the way through the movie. And then they had to add those juicy tidbits to show their complete ignorance. The scene where everyone was burping was downright despicable. Amish do not burp to show their appreciation of food. I have been in lots of different Amish communities and have never met any that were that badly mannered.

When Caleb tried out for wrestling and said he used to hold cows down when they were birthing, had us in stitches. How ridiculous can you get. Cows are very calm creatures who rarely ever move around much in the process of birthing, and even if they decide to stand up it doesn't hurt to do that.

Taking walks through cornfields. Why would anyone want to do that? Unless the corn isn't taller than knee high. Normal cornfields are not pleasant places to take a walk, unless you enjoy cuts similar to paper cuts on your face and arms.

They did not speak the language of the Amish, and instead used German and that wasn't very good either.

There were other things too but again I digress.

My belief that you should not write or make movies about things you really don't understand has been cemented even more firmly.

I don't begrudge anyone the "joy" of reading Beverly Lewis, and Wanda Brunstetter books, or watching "Amish" movies for entertainment. Which is why they were produced. But I will be finding other things to occupy my spare moments.