I have watched a few
episodes, of 19 Kids and Counting but
after last weeks reading and our lecture, I felt more intrigued by the family. I
was also interested in the depiction of the family in the reading in comparison
to the actual family. As we saw in class there were some disputes about the gender
roles and lack of definition of religion that the article outlined in
comparison to what we discussed in class.
While it was evident in that women did take on many stereotypical roles (like
doing the laundry and cooking) it was also evident that some of the article
seemed embellished. To me, at least, I saw the scary underlying issues (such as
their child being born premature) that the article discussed, but much of their
religious and negative gender roles seemed to be downplayed. It was also obvious that the family was
religious, but did not specify their religion. This was until I saw a question
and answer episode, where viewers would write in questions and the Dugger’s
would answer them. Some of these questions give further insight to some of the
themes of the reading, which we did not see in the episode in class. For
example one guy sends in a video asking what would I have to do to date a
Dugger daughter? Two of the daughters simply answer that he would have to ask
their father. This highlights the point that although they may respect their
children, they do not allow them to make their own decisions (even big life
decisions, such as who they want to date and marry) especially their female
children. Another very interesting question, which points to the Dugger’s religion,
was: How do you stay so humble in the lord with all the publicity that a
television show gives? This to me was an interesting question because the
Dugger’s are a very religious family that follows values that are extremely
traditional, however they allow their lives to be filmed and shown to millions
of viewers, this seemed like an odd juxtaposition of values. The Dugger
daughters answer swiftly and say that they see it as a ministry and as a way to
spread their message, while the parents answer that it is to encourage people
to enjoy their families.
Throughout the
episode there were many interesting questions asked about the Dugger’s morals,
way of life and their religion, these were just two that I decided to focus on.
Here is a link to the episode.
