Shiny Happy People

I want to start by saying, that no group of survivors is a monolith. We all have different opinions and feelings. We all have different experiences, and we all come to different conclusions. And that’s okay. What’s not okay, is when we try to silence each other, call each other liars, or condemn each other for speaking up or speaking out.

I am an IBLP survivor, and I speak for myself, alone.

This last week has been heavy. Lots of emotions, triggers, and arguments. Opinions on the Amazon Prime docuseries, Shiny Happy People, have become a source of tension, disagreements, and arguments amongst a lot of survivors. But here’s my opinion on it. And while I don’t represent a monolith of survivors, I also am not an island. There are others I know who share my opinions.

I thought it was good, overall. But with a few caveats.

1. The producers relied heavily on the testimony of Jim Holt. He’s a former ATI father who used to be friends with the Duggars. While he spoke to some important issues, the producers made no disclaimer about his fairly severe abuse of his wife and kids. So severe, that his wife, and youngest kids have a 10 year restraining order against him. He also started dating his wife when he was 19 and she was 14. That’s predatory. The producers knew about these things, and they did not acknowledge them in any way within the series.

I literally startled when I saw his name on the screen, because I know what he’s done. The series is supposed to highlight the voice of survivors, and yet it also highlights the voice of a known abuser?

2. It weirdly focused on The Joshua Generation, which while what I’d call “ATI adjacent,” it’s not ATI. The same with the Pentecostal YouTube couple- who aren’t even ATI adjacent. There was so much more content they could have taken from ATI/IBLP, but they didn’t.

3. While Tia’s testimony was powerful, in my opinion, it gave the incorrect impression that domestic discipline contracts were common in the IBLP. They weren’t, and Gothard didn’t teach domestic discipline, either. It did happen in some fundamentalist circles, but the IBLP wasn’t one of them.

Again, the docuseries overall was good, and more or less gives a good overview to those unfamiliar with the IBLP, ATI, or Bill Gothard.

Let me know what you think, and if you want me to do an episode-by-episode breakdown of it!