Unseen Duggar Family Drama: Jinger Exposes the Dark Side of Their Reality Show
Jinger Duggar Vuolo, one of the children from the famous Duggar family featured on “19 and Counting” and “Counting On”, has broken the silence on a family complaint about these reality shows. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar had cameras in their homes, documenting their day-to-day life with nineteen children as they instilled them with Christian values. However, what seemed like a wholesome, exemplary family, hid many secrets behind the curtains.
Several Duggar children have spoken out against their allegedly abusive upbringing, not only by their parents, but as members of the Christian fundamentalist organization Institute of Basic Life Principles. They’ve started their own podcasts, written books, and appeared in the Amazon documentary “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets.”
It is no surprise, then, that reality was not what audiences saw when they tuned in to their shows on TLC. On the sixteenth episode of her podcast, “Jinger and Jeremy,” Vuolo specifically talked about the editing of their footage. “They would send us rough cuts. (…) Maybe we felt like some things might have started to be cut in a way that we didn’t like it, and it was like, well, I didn’t say that, or I rolled my eyes in an interview they put it in there next to something I said about my mom and dad, and it was like ‘no, I didn’t mean that’.” This seems to be a common practice in this genre. Other reality TV stars have been vocal about how editing has distorted their actual behavior, and the Duggars are clearly no different.
Sensationalizing reality
Narratives are often simplified or exaggerated to create more engaging or emotional content for reality TV audiences. Conflict and drama keeps viewers glued to their screens, so no wonder the editors chose to strategically place Jinger’s eye-rolling shot as a response to her mother, fabricating a conflict that perhaps did not even exist. It also makes sense that Vuolo wrote a book about her life during this turbulent moment: “Becoming Free Indeed.” A memoir is proof that she is attempting to gain control over her own narrative and to challenge one manufactured by the network.
The editors for the Duggar’s shows were employees of TLC (The Learning Channel), and the production company, Figure 8 Films. However, it’s likely that Jim Bob and Michelle had some input into how they were portrayed, especially considering Jim Bob was the family manager.
So, when Vuolo writes, “We felt like some things might have started to be cut in a way that we didn’t like it,” which members of the family is she talking about? The kids? Or Jim Bob and Michelle, too? Could the parents have agreed to this alteration of reality for the sake of their TV success? Jim Bob, after all, has been accused of being a “dictator” on set and with his children due to his controlling nature, according to a family source for People. Without more of the Duggar children speaking out, we can only keep guessing what was real and what wasn’t.
