Are you just glad that all that Christmas junk can go back to the attic, SBS6 will come on January 3 with a double-thick Christmas special of URK!. For no less than two hours we see hairdresser Teun Föhn, barmaid Jacomien, and the other Urkers putting up the Christmas decorations and preparing the Christmas dinner: „Yes, your ass! It’s only Karst once.”
This is the fifth season of the popular reality program on SBS6 about the peninsula in the IJsselmeer. The inward-looking village is regularly in the news with crime and violent resistance to the corona measures. The Orthodox Reformed community has a very low vaccination rate of 35 percent. Half vote SGP, a quarter vote far right.
But despite the capital letters and the exclamation mark, we see in URK! no rioting youths, no burning test streets, or churchgoers driving into journalists. We see the rippling, everyday life of the Urkers – in many ways not much different from that of many other Dutch people. The mischievous twins Gerda and Mathilda throw the party clothes that no longer fit, due to weight fluctuations, in the bin of the Salvation Army and start trying on new Christmas dresses. While Teun Föhn, the star of the show, is in the hospital for an examination, Fred discovers at his home that the turkey does not fit in the oven. No problem, he just goes to Ap on the other side and slides the animal into the oven. This way we see more examples of warm neighborly help. Greetje discovers on Christmas Eve that she has accidentally thrown away her gourmet set, but she just rings the doorbell at some houses in the street and soon gets a gourmet set on loan. Greetje’s dog is wearing a red Christmas sweater.
It is just like in many Dutch households, but you also see that Urk is special. This is apparent, for example, from the beautiful, lilting Urkers: a unique language that cannot be categorized with a rich timbre.
Close to the riots
SBS6 would like to show the good side of the village, but also shows the heated discussions about corona. Those are the moments when you feel that beneath the joviality lies a lot of dissatisfaction. The program skims past the riots – as if the cars are burning a few blocks away and just don’t come into view.
You hear it on the wafer evening in the cafe, and you hear it in the tirade that fishmonger Tony gives when he watches a press conference by Prime Minister Rutte: the trade and the catering industry are unnecessarily killed by the elite who only take good care of the own ‘left canal belt’.
Even in this corner of religious antivaxxers you can discern all kinds of nuances. Jacomien from café De Ommele is getting vaccinated. Colleague Ap is strongly against it, but goes with her anyway. To please her, he even disinfects his hands and puts on a mouth cap, with his nose over it. But that same day, while preparing Christmas dinner (she has curlers in it; very charming), we see Jacomien argue to Fred that vaccination doesn’t help. Confusing. The very good Fred is not an Urker, he cannot always follow it (“You always speak your language.”) and often expresses opinions that are very common outside of Urk. In this case: vaccination is a civic duty, you do it for public health. Jacomien decides to let the matter rest: “We’re not going to talk about jabs, it’s Christmas.”
That late URK! to see in a calm, empathetic way how a small but present minority of vaccine refusers live. That, and the language and customs, make this reality series fodder for sociologists, ethnists and linguists.
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