The Farmer's Wife: When a story of surviving motherhood isn't force fed

We're a little late with our final Farmer's Wife post due to some other Kate-ish news coming up, but better late than never! 

Realitytvkids.com will be organizing an official summer "book club" screening of The Farmer's Wife. Watch Part 3 this week and discuss it as you go with all the interesting folks here. If you missed Part 1 it can be found here and Part 2 here.

Audrey, Abby, Whitney and Juanita, 1996.

David Sutherland never intended to find a woman like Juanita. However when he did, he didn't succumb to the temptation to write the script for her, give her labels, define her. For three years, he stepped aside and let Juanita just be Juanita. What resulted was not just a beautiful story of a wife's devotion to her husband and one woman's strength in incredible adversity, but a poinant portrait of motherhood. Juanita listened to her children, was there for them as much as she could be, worked hard to improve their situation and give them a better life, and always showered them with positivity and love.

In part three, Juanita takes her family's destiny into her own hands by furthering her education and getting a job in crop insurance. Due to her hard work from the ground up, the family's hard times finally seem to turn around as this wonderful documentary comes to a close. Today, although Juanita is divorced and no longer lives on a farm, she reportedly still works in the farming sector on the business side, helping out the farmers of Nebraska. Darrel reportedly still lives and works on the same farm featured in the documentary. 

Reality T.V. today loves to "define" characters. Kate is the "mother of 8," and has made a career out of this definition. We prefer authenticity, which Sutherland was lucky to find in a little town in Nebraska in 1995.

Whitney, Audrey, Juanita and Abby, on a family trip to Mexico, 2009.

The Farmer's Wife: A rare case of when not paying a family for their work is a good thing

This week: Part Two

Realitytvkids.com will be organizing an official summer "book club" screening of The Farmer's Wife. Watch Part 2 the week of August 12, and Part 3 (link to come) the week of August 19 and discuss it as you go with all the interesting folks here. If you missed Part 1 it can be found here .

Juanita faithfully cleaned houses to make ends meet during filming.

The public was outraged when TLC disclosed in 2010 that the first time they ever set up a trust fund for a portion of the Gosselin children's earnings wasn't until November 2009, some four years after they first put the children on T.V. in May 2006. Up until then, the children had never been directly paid (Jon and Kate however have always been paid.)

Many advocacy groups for entertainers believe that reality stars, adults and children alike, should be treated as SAG members and paid fairly for their work (SAG regulations require that actors make a minimum of $4,800 per week). However some reality show productions do not pay, often because they cannot afford to.

Such was the case for filmmaker David Sutherland, the creator of The Farmer's Wife. His tight budget simply didn't allow him to give the Buschkoetters any payment for their three years of work. He even dipped into his retirement savings to fund the $1.3 million project. (Many donations from around the country however came in once the show aired.)

The result was a virtually untouched, brutally honest story of one family's struggle to make ends meet and save a marriage. The filmmaking was so intimate, the crew even once followed Juanita to a meeting with a particularly stubborn creditor as she negotiated their debt with him, successfully.

There were no "make-over" episodes or luxurious trips or other nonsense. Instead we watched a family fall down, hard, then pick themselves up, brush themselves off and figure out a way to make it on their own. If Sutherland had paid the family, it certainly would have helped them put food on the table. But would the story be as "pure"? Would we still be talking about this film fifteen years later? Probably not.

"It's tough watching it," Juanita was once quoted, "Only because it's really what life was like the last three years, really real."

Indeed, the "realest reality show" ever was not Jon and Kate. It was The Farmer's Wife.

The Farmer's Wife: When a reality show tells a truly important story

This week: Part One

Realitytvkids.com will be organizing an official summer "book club" screening of The Farmer's Wife. Watch Part 1 this week, Part 2 the week of August 12, and Part 3 (link to come) the week of August 19 and discuss it as you go with all the interesting folks here.

The Farmer's Wife first aired on PBS in 1998, a three part documentary, which was in essence a reality show, following three years in the life of Nebraska farmer Darrel Buschkoetter, and his strong but tender-hearted wife Juanita, along with their three sweet young girls.

The Farmer's Wife is one of the few great reality shows to ever grace our small screens. The Farmer's Wife had it all: tough, sincere characters, and a compelling story of hard work and perseverance in small-town America. Heartbreak, struggle, a marriage on the rocks, and the hope to keep a vanishing tradition alive drives this story.

Filmaker David Sutherland originally intended to profile several farming families in Nebraska. However as the project progressed, he became captivated with Juanita's story, and revamped the entire project to focus on her. Said Sutherland: "She spoke from her heart, and her love for her husband Darrel's dream touched me deeply."

In the first episode, Juanita reflects on the plans they used to have to have six children. However it turned out three were all they could afford. Although Darrel never said so, Juanita worried he longed for a boy. And yet, said Juanita, "Sometimes I'm almost relieved we don't have a boy ... I'd be scared if we had a boy, he'd be the same way, and I don't know what the future for farming is."

Juanita's soft-spoken candor, and love and dedication to her family and to the farm, was a beautiful character study.

Most reality television out there has been better suited for the dust bin. Most stories need not and often should not be shared. Reality T.V. should just go away, especially shows that feature unprotected children. But once in a great while, a story comes along that should be told. Juanita's story does just that, capturing a moment in time in the late 1990's where a way of life in middle America was fading away, never to be the same again. Sutherland's series is both heartbreakingly tragic and inexplicably beautiful. Enjoy.