The Duggar family effectively left the TV landscape when Counting On was canceled in the wake of Josh’s arrest on child pornography-related charges. Now, however, they are the subject of a new streaming TV series Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. The doc dropped earlier this month, and now its producers are touching on the fandom surrounding the family and what viewers were essentially doing when 19 Kids and Counting initially hit the TV schedule back in 2008.
Cori Shepherd, who produced the IBLP documentary that is currently streaming for those of you with an Amazon Prime subscription, opened up about the current landscape surrounding the show and the fans who tuned in for years. The producer noted there’s specifically been a major change in the way the family and their lifestyle is perceived now compared to in previous years, noting what fans were watching was essentially "misogyny as entertainment" before.
A lot of young people who are now growing up, having their own families and starting to question, 'Wait a minute, what the hell was I watching? We were consuming misogyny as entertainment. Consuming, watching, intellectual abuse happen, educational abuse happen, and seeing it as like, 'Oh, isn't that wacky? They make tater tot casserole.'
Speaking to People, the producer opened up about how an “entire generation” followed the Duggars on the small screen during their TLC run, growing up on them in particular during the 19 Kids and Counting run but also watching them on the subsequent spinoff Counting On. Now that generation is “starting to deconstruct their own upbringing” and what happened to the Duggar daughters in particular can be seen in a different light.
We're seeing this blow up huge on the internet right now. TikTok is just going crazy. ... There's just so much discussion about it that we're already seeing from an entire generation who grew up either under IBLP, or under institutions that were heavily influenced by these ideas. I mean, this thing went so wide that there are people where you don't even hear the words, the acronym IBLP, but the teaching is deep in whatever it is they're doing. There's an entire generation that is already talking about this as they're starting to deconstruct their own upbringing.
Meanwhile, family matriarch and patriarch Jim Bob and Michelle have not remained quiet after the release of Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. The Duggar heads released a statement a few days ago calling the documentary “sad” and “sensationalized.”
These days, many Duggar family members are off doing their own thing. Some of them, including Jill and Jinger, have been outspoken about the teachings they grew up with, with the latter even writing a book about the “harmful” impacts of the IBLP. Others, like Jessa or Jana, have been quieter about their upbringing. What the Duggar daughters all have in common though? They are building their brands on their own terms away from the TLC spotlight on social media in places like YouTube and Instagram. They are praying about choices in the past and trying new things, like wearing pants. They are building their own families on their own terms.
It’s unclear if eventually any of them will deign to share their lives on the small screen in the future, but if what the Shiny Happy People producer is saying continue to hold true, the bent would likely need to continue to evolve if it did.
