Amazon Prime investigates Duggars
Streaming on Prime Video, “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets” recalls the dynamics of a once-popular reality show to explore much darker themes.
For years, the Duggars starred on a number of specials and series for Discovery Heath and TLC. These programs profiled the Arkansas-based family’s growing number of children and offered viewers a gawker’s point of view on raising a household at least five times larger than the average family. How do you make casseroles for 20-plus people every day?
The film also explores the political background of Duggar patriarch Jim Bob, who served in the Arkansas legislature before launching an unsuccessful bid for a U.S. Senate seat. His failed campaign and his use of his growing brood as a backdrop drew the attention of reality TV producers.
The film explores the Duggars’ relationship with a little-known religious organization, the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP). The organization and its leader, William Gothard Jr., offered easy answers for all of life’s big questions and created a curriculum for families homeschooling their children.
Cult experts and former members who fled IBLP families and communities describe it as an extremist organization that espoused a “full quiver” movement. Women were encouraged to have as many children as they could physically bear in order to create a vast homeschooled and indoctrinated society of like-minded and obedient followers.
According to some survivors, the IBLP’s philosophy encouraged a kind of Old Testament biblical patriarchy, with men and fathers given absolute authority over their wives, and children subject to many forms of violence and emotional abuse to force them to be calm, submissive and silent.
According to “Shiny Happy,” the child molestation charges that dogged the Duggars’ eldest son, Josh, were symptomatic of a pathology of molestation that ran through the IBLP culture.
The film also describes how the Duggar parents and family members were well aware of Josh’s molestation (of their own kids!) even before they embarked on their propagandistic cable specials and series.
The docuseries makes ample use of the reality series footage as well as interviews with family members, some speaking out for the first time.
We also hear from experts, bloggers and academics who have made a study of reality TV. They discuss how, in many ways, the “And Counting” shows were perfect for that genre. And how it was perfectly insidious to make cable stars of a family covering up sexual abuse and espousing an extremist, cultlike take on Christian family values.
Not unlike the Duggar series, it’s hard to take your eyes off “Shiny Happy People.” And it’s hard to find the most evil villain. Is it sibling-molesting Josh? The dissembling Jim Bob? Gothard’s wackadoodle IBLP?
Or is the true villain Discovery honcho David Zazlav? What was his motivation when he mainstreamed the IBLP freakshow? For his sins, he rode Duggar ratings to great success for TLC/Discovery, enough to buy Warner Bros., a vast media empire that he is currently running.
Or is that ruining?
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› One dead trucker on “FBI” (8 p.m., CBS, repeat, TV-14).
› Auditions begin on the 18th season opener of “America’s Got Talent” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
› “30 for 30” (9 p.m., ESPN) looks back at the history of “American Gladiators.” Part II airs tomorrow.
› A murder in Berlin on “FBI: International” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14).