It gives one some degree of satisfaction to note the progress that I-A Activists have made over the last 3 years. I'm proud to be associated with people like Dona De Sanctis, Manny Alfano, John Mancini, Don Fiore, Franco Giannotti, Bill Dal Cerro, Ben Lawton, Ted Grippo, James Mancuso, and a number of select others who know who they are, that work tirelessly to advance the pride and dignity of our community.

I'm particularly pleased and encouraged to see the building of momentum in the ferocity and number of attackers we are fighting back against!

With that said, we need our OSIA, NIAF, UNICO to review their strategy in view of the following article. I keep telling them that the I-A PORTAL that I have been recommending for 4 years IS the Answer, but if they can come up with something better, then lets do it!!!

Currently, Italian Americans are faced with "The Sopranos", and "Sharks Tale", and the torrent of Mob, and disreputable Guido Movies.

As of now the Amish are facing a TV Series "Amish in the City" that says will demean them by presenting them as curios. They ARE getting attention!!!

But when 200 THOUSAND  Amish can get far more respect than 23 MILLION Italian Americans, on a far less egregious matter, something is wrong with our strategy!!!
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From Bert Vorchheimer:

The Center for Rural Strategies has stirred up enough interest regarding a forthcoming TV reality series about the Amish to get its complaint published in the main section of this morning's New York Times. The article, which is accessible on the Times' web site (below), notes that fifty-one legislators have expressed their concern about the program's Amish stereotyping to Viacom's president and COO.

The story has already been picked up by the BBC and "rebroadcast" around the world (also below).

Last Sunday, the New York Times published a comprehensive report about Italian American organizations' campaign to remove an insulting Italian stereotype from DreamWorks' forthcoming, multi-million dollar "Shark Tale." The report appeared in the paper's regional New Jersey section. Regional sections are never accessible on the Times' web site.

There are about 200,000 Amish Americans.

There are about 23 million Italian Americans.

Maybe someone should get in touch with the Center for Rural Strategies.

-- Bert
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UPN SHOW IS CALLED INSENSITIVE TO AMISH
Los Angeles Times
By Bernard Weinraub
March 4, 2004

LOS ANGELES, March 3 — Several weeks ago UPN, a sister network to CBS, announced a new reality series tentatively called "Amish in the City," in which Amish teenagers would face the shock and temptations of the big city for the first time.

The idea seemed similar to CBS's plan last year to fashion a reality comedy out of a 1960's sitcom, calling it "The Real Beverly Hillbillies", which was to follow the lives of a rural, lower-middle-class family as it moved into a luxurious Beverly Hills house. That plan foundered when rural groups protested that the show was intended to denigrate the rural poor.

"We couldn't do the `Beverly Hillbillies,' " Leslie Moonves, the CBS chairman, who also oversees UPN, told television critics and reporters in January. But the Amish, he joked, "don't have quite as good a lobbying effort."

Mr. Moonves may have been mistaken. Within the last few weeks a campaign to stop the show has been started by lawmakers, rural groups, Pennsylvania Dutch tourism officials and representatives of the Amish. The opposition to the Amish show seems even more powerful than the one that has grounded the prospects of a new "Beverly Hillbillies." Chris Ender, a CBS spokesman, said of the "Hillbillies": "It's an idea that's still being considered, but we haven't made a production commitment toward the show."

The Center for Rural Strategies, a nonprofit organization based in Whitesburg, Ky., has helped organize opposition to the Amish show, at the request of groups representing the Amish. Dee Davis, the president of Rural Strategies and a former documentary filmmaker, singled out Viacom, the owner of CBS and UPN. "Once again Viacom has created a reality show where rural people were going to be these curios," Mr. Davis said. "Viacom's got plenty of ways to make money without ridiculing rural people."

Tim Marema, vice president of the group, said: "From our perspective this is a replacement series for `The Real Beverly Hillbillies.' It's another way of attacking rural people and employing scorn and ridicule on a group of Americans because of where they're from, what they look like, what they sound like. What CBS and Viacom are saying about the Amish is they're rural and therefore they don't count."

UPN, in a statement in response to criticisms of the show, denied that the series sought to demean the Amish and said it would depict them with the "utmost respect and decency." No date has been set for the series. The statement said that since the show "is still in the early development stage, we sincerely hope that any judgment will be reserved until the show is produced." UPN and CBS officials declined further comment.

But what has clearly surprised CBS and UPN is the level of anger about the show. Fifty-one lawmakers, including Pennsylvania's two United States senators, Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, both Republicans, have sent a protest letter to Mr. Moonves and Mel Karmazin, president and chief operating officer of Viacom.

"We know of no other reality series that singles out the beliefs and practices of a specific group of people as a subject for humor," the letter said. It added, "For almost three centuries, the Amish lived the way they do out of Christian piety and conviction, not out of ignorance. If, by producing this show, you fail to respect that, you will be opening yourselves to charges of bigotry."

Wendy Nagle, president of the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she was offended by the comments made by Mr. Moonves and urged a halt to the show.

Appearing with Dawn Ostroff, the president of UPN Entertainment, who picked up the show from New Line Television, Mr. Moonves insisted at a Hollywood press tour for reporters and critics in January that the series was "not intended to be insulting to the Amish, but to have people who have never had television, who will walk down Rodeo Drive and be freaked out by what they see."

"I think it will be somewhat interesting, but, yeah, this will not be denigrating in any way," Mr. Moonves said. He added that the idea behind the reality show was "fish out of water," similar to Fox's "Simple Life," in which two rich and pampered young women, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, worked on a farm. "This is in a certain way a reverse version of that," Mr. Moonves said.

Ms. Ostroff, in announcing the series in January, said it would involve five young Amish who go through a rite of passage called "Rumpspringa," a Pennsylvania Dutch term that means running around. During this period some teenagers elect to experiment with the world outside that is not otherwise available to them. In doing so, some of them drive cars for the first time, listen to current music, dress in contemporary style. Most return to the faith.

Herman Bontrager, secretary-treasurer of the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom, a group of lawyers, ministers and academics who support the Amish, said there are about 200,000 Amish in the nation, mostly in eastern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and northern Indiana. "The Amish are probably more knowledgeable about the world than the CBS and UPN people give them credit for," said Mr. Bontrager, an insurance executive from New Holland, Pa., who grew up Amish and is now a Mennonite.

Mr. Bontrager said emphatically over the phone, "I just find it reprehensible that corporations, especially media corporations in this country, would find it acceptable to make a mockery of a religious group. They just plain don't get it. For Amish people, their religious faith and everyday living are totally intertwined."

The Amish themselves dress simply, live quietly, often reject technology and automobiles and work in rural communities. The Philadelphia Inquirer, in an editorial in January about the show, said, "The Amish, young and old, aren't hapless innocents but in fact know a great deal about the real world (which is why they choose to keep a distance from it)."

UPN Show Is Called Insensitive to Amish
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/arts/television/04AMIS.html
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BBC NEWS

AMISH TV SHOW RUNS INTO TROUBLE

TV viewers look unlikely to see a reality show about Amish youth facing
the modern world following protests.

The programme, tentatively called Amish in the City, planned to show five young people from the reticent religious group living with mainstream youth.

But more than 50 US lawmakers have written to Viacom accusing the media giant of exploitation and bigotry.

CBS television - which Viacom owns - put a show with a similar concept on ice last year after criticism.

CBS chairman Leslie Moonves joked earlier this year that although a reality TV series called The Real Beverly Hillbillies had been shelved, the Amish "don't have quite as good a lobbying effort," the New York Times reported.

But a group has encouraged people to write to Viacom to protest against the Amish show.

Tim Marema of the Center for Rural Strategies told the New York Times the show would be "another way of attacking rural people... because of where they're from, what they look like, what they sound like." "What CBS and Viacom are saying about the Amish is they're rural and therefore they don't count," he charged.

And two senators from Pennsylvania - which has America's best-known Amish community - wrote to complain.

"We know of no other reality series that singles out the beliefs and practices of a specific group of people as a subject for humour," the letter from Senators Arlen Spector and Rick Santorum said.

"For almost three centuries, the Amish have lived the way they do out of piety and conviction, not out of ignorance. If, by producing this show, you fail to respect that, you will be opening yourselves to charges of bigotry."

MediaPost reported that Mr Moonves had been ambiguous about the status of the show in a conference call with reporters this week.

He said it was in development but "has not been pushed forward".

Rumspringa

The Amish shun contact with the wider world, living in tight-knit communities with little modern technology.

But young adults can explore modern life in a custom called rumspringa, which could allow some to participate in the proposed show.

CBS halted work last year on a show based on popular 1960s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, about a poor mountaineer who becomes rich when he discovers oil on his property.

Members of the United Mine Workers of America, which represents 100,000 workers, said the show would be offensive to rural communities.

"This plan - to take a poor rural family, place them in a Hollywood mansion and ridicule them on national television - is repugnant to me and to the union members
I represent, " union president Cecil E Roberts said last year.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Amish TV show runs into trouble
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/3533295.stm