This documentary gives more inner life and personality to horses than women. The quotes uphold a particular status quo that tells the outside world to think of the Amish as quaint “others”, rather than as fully formed, complex people and deserving of human and Constitutional rights.
The media establishment eats up these marketing campaigns with a voracious appetite. Consumers love watching the Amish remind them of a lost glory, while they never know or understand how an Amish individual’s freedom of choice is ignored.
“Learning or reading is seen as detrimental, as they do not prepare a person with the practical skills and tastes needed for life in an Amish community.” – from a 1975 PBS documentary written, directed, and narrated by all Mennonite males and featuring all male interviewees
It is as if the documentary were looking at the Amish as a set of dolls, fitted with a dollhouse and toy carriages. This toy set exists for outer society to gaze at and admire, as they only feel nostalgia from children’s books and Biblical tales.