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WIFE SWAP - Medicis vs Grafs

"It's a parent's job to support the children's dream, not the children to support the parent's dream"

That sentence pretty much encapsulates the crux of the conflict on this week's Wife Swap, which introduced us to the Grafs, who run a Bavarian-themed inn in New Hampshire where their kids are the employees, and the Medicis, who run a considerably looser ship in their New York home where son Nick's bodybuilding aspirations take precedence over... well, over pretty much everything.  The Grafs represent the children-as-servants side of the spectrum while the Medicis represent the parents-as-servants perspective.

Of course, this wouldn't be Wife Swap if they hadn't selected the most extreme embodiments of these two schools of thought, and then forced them to live together for two weeks.

For once, one of the moms had somewhat reasonable new rules for her adopted family.  Alex Graf might run her home like a gulag, but all of her new rules for the Medici family seemed kind of reasonable.  It was the usual stuff:  help out with chores, pay more attention to the foul-mouthed and neglected Giuseppe, bodybuilder Nick had to get a job, etc.  Still, the new rules didn't go over very well with father John Medici, who resisted Alex every step of the way.  "You need to admit that you're a lunatic," was one of his more civilized criticisms of Alex. 

But in the Graf inn/bed &breakfast/home/work camp, temp mom Lisa went a little nuts.  She gave the kids a week off from work and lederhosen, made husband Bob bond with his son Bubba, and generally tried to restore a little balance between work and life.  No problem so far.  But one of her rules was that Bob Graf had to put his inn up for sale.

What was she thinking?  Despite the fact that the visiting mom's rules are in effect for one week, there's always some gal on Wife Swap who wants to impose some permanent and radical change on the family she's staying with.  Lisa invited a real estate agent over and even put up a "for sale" sign in front of the inn, which Bob promptly smashed.  I agree with Lisa that the Grafs could loosen up a bit, but is selling the family business out from under them really the answer?  Talk about tough love.

As usual, the Wife Swap experience made each family respect and appreciate their moms a little bit more, which is good.  And I guess I shouldn't complain about the crazy rules changes, because they make the show interesting.  Surreal, but interesting.

--Dave Campbell

WIFE SWAP - The Ultimate Episode

At one point while watching the Sutton/Myers episode of Wife Swap, I thought to myself, “this will be recognized in the annals of history as the ultimate Wife Swap episode.” 

It had the four things you need for a perfect Wife Swap episode.

•  Polar-opposite families.  On the one hand, we have Karen Sutton, married to Kentucky coal miner Tommy Sutton, whose views on women are several centuries out of date. Karen cooks and cleans and caters to Tommy and her three ungrateful daughters. “Karen is kind of like a maid,” Tommy said. “She’s a free maid. I don’t have to pay for this maid.” He really said that, I didn’t make that up. On the other hand, we have Samantha Myers, a professional woman in Illinois  whose ghost hunting family all possesses psychic abilities. I didn’t make that up, either. Sam’s not the warmest mom. She’s cold and logical and doesn’t really shower her quirky kids with maternal love.  And she hunts ghosts.

• Major conflict. The Myers family totally made Karen feel like an ignorant hillbilly, particularly Andrew, 19, who was extra-mean and condescending to her. The whole ghost hunting thing didn’t sit well with Karen either. As she so eloquently summed up her thoughts about the family, “These guys are 110% capital-F-R-E-A-K-S. Freaks!” The demanding Sutton family was equally inhospitable to Sam Myers. When Sam delivers Tommy’s breakfast late, the dude threw his entire breakfast in the trash rather than eat it, just to spite her. Can we all agree that’s a darn rude thing to do, and possibly psychotic?

• Totally unreasonable rules.  It wouldn’t be Wife Swap unless some of the visiting wife’s rules were totally crazy. In an effort to stop the gratuitously verbose Myers family from using big words, Karen’s rule stated that if the kids used a fancy big word that she didn’t know, she would write that word on their foreheads with a marker. In what reality is that a good idea? As you might imagine, that rule didn’t go over well. In the Sutton household, Sam made Tommy wear a blonde wig as he and his stepdaughter role-played each other in order to mend their strained relationship. At first I thought Sam was just doing this to humiliate Tommy, but it actually worked! They had a breakthrough and there were tears and hugs and everything. Tommy took off the wig at some point, which was kind of a shame. 

• Real change. I’ve often wondered if the whole Wife Swap experience made any fundamental change to the families involved, but this one was different. I really felt like this one might have a more lasting impact on the Myers and Sutton family. Tommy magically transformed from a brash chauvinist to a teary-eyed supportive husband.  The ungrateful Sutton girls became a little more grateful. The Spock-like Myers clan began to see value in warmth and kindness. I don’t know, it seems like the changes will last.

As you can see, the Sutton/Myers episode clearly has the crucial elements needed. In the distant future, cultural historians in sparkly spandex suits will regard this episode as the ultimate Wife Swap achievement. 

If I had to choose one Wife Swap episode to load on to a deep space probe and shoot into space, where it could possibly be found and seen by aliens? It would be this one. 

--Dave Campbell

WIFE SWAP - The Colonel and the Glamazon

This episode must have set a Wife Swap record for the number of times the words “prostitute” and sex object” were uttered.

Glori Blankenship, a rock ‘n’ roll mom with bionic breasts and a hard-rocking caveman husband, traded places with Col. Jill Phillips, US Army (retired), who juggles three jobs and “outranks” her doting husband and twin girls on their rural home. You could not have picked two more different women. But then that’s kind of the whole point of Wife swap, isn’t it?

For this two week clash of wills and test of moral endurance, Glori and Jill traded places and lives and hopefully learned a little something in the process. Of course, both women suffered from culture shock when they had to live according to the other woman’s rules. Jill in particular had a hard time stepping into Glori’s high heels and waiting on couch-bound Tim Blankenship hand and foot whilst wearing the latest tramp couture. Even 12-year old Justin said she looked like a hooker. Ouch.

Glori was aghast at the all-work-no-play ethic of the Phillips family and the seemingly subordinate role that husband John took to his wife. When she asked John what his own interests and passions were, he replied, “My passion is Jill.” Glori couldn’t get over how much housework John did to support his busy wife, who drags her twin 15-year old girls along to work at the family’s mobile petting zoo on the weekends.

When it came time for week two and the rules change, the llama poo really hit the fan. Some of the rules were reasonable. Glori wanted John to experience a slice of Tim’s lifestyle and demanded that she serve him domestically for the week while he sat on his butt. Okay, fair enough. Jill ordered young Justin, who plays video games 4+ hours per day, to give them up for a week. That made sense, although if Justin could have made a Jill voodoo doll I’m sure he would have. He actually called her a “torturous spawn of Satan.” Justin clearly had no problems communicating how he felt about the situation.

But once again, some of the rules changes were INSANE.

Jill wanted to give butt-rockin’ Tim a buzzcut, which didn’t go over well. The guy nearly assaulted the barber she brought out to cut his hair. Did she think he would really let his long rocker hair get shaved off without restraints and sedation? Nice try. Then, in an effort to totally humiliate Tim and teach him what it felt like to be a sex object, Jill had him dress up in a leather vest and bowtie and do housework at a local sorority. It looked like Tim lasted all of five minutes before storming out.

Glori wanted the Phillips girls to have a little fun and break out of their seven-day work week, but she wanted them to do it the Glori way. She absolved them from chores around the house and brought in four strappin’ young hunks to take care of feeding and cleaning up after the petting zoo animals – with their shirts off, of course. Then she took the 15-year old girls out “on the prowl” to a street corner and had them collect phone numbers from eligible boys who passed by, with the intention of inviting some guys over to “show them how to party.”

The dad John and the girls were initially taken back by Glori’s proposal, which sounded to them like something a prostitute would do. I think the only reason that John and the girls went along with the street-walking scenario is that he knew there were half a dozen cameramen, sound guys, and producers tagging along. It’s easy to forget when you’re watching Wife Swap or other shows about the invisible factor in all of these shows – the production crew. 

I have to say, despite the culture clash, the Blankenships and Phillips families were apparently open-minded and open-hearted enough to absorb some lessons from the whole thing. As usual, it just made everyone involved appreciate their living situation a little bit more, but I think the experience helped draw both families away from their polar extremes towards a more moderate and balanced way of life. The Blankenship boys seemed to appreciate Glori a little more and Ma and Pa Phillips seemed to ease up on their girls, trusting them to have some semblance of a social life. Note that I use the phrase “seemed to” because I am a skeptic and have a hard time taking anything on reality TV at face value. However, I will grudgingly admit that in this case, maybe the lessons learned from Wife Swap will have some lasting and permanent change on the families involved. Maybe.

What do you think? Can two weeks of reality TV alter a family dynamic that has taken years to develop? 
 

--Dave Campbell

WIFE SWAP - When Worlds Collide!

Wife Swap is all about bringing folks of different backgrounds and world views together… and then watching them FREAK EACH OTHER OUT.

You know the drill:  the wives of two different families exchange places for two torturous weeks.  During the first week the wives must live by the rules of the household they are visiting, which is usually a living nightmare for the wife.  During the second week the tables are turned and the wives impose their own rules on their temporary families, which is usually a living nightmare for the family.

This episode featured Kim and Randall of the liberal Lutheran Beckman Heskett family vs born again fundamentalists Leanne and Chris Childs.  I should have probably put Chris’s name first in that last sentence because he is the man and in his world, men come first.

The Childs clan are a big family raised on traditional values, with husband Chris as the spiritual head of the household.  They are devoted to a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, which means that wife Leanne is expected to be a happy helpmate to Chris and the kids have “cheerful servants’ hearts.”  On the other end of the spectrum, the Beckman Heskett family are Lutherans with a more subjective and intellectual view of The Bible.  Mom Kim is the career-oriented bread winner while husband Randall is the stay-at-home husband. 

Beckman Heskett family = oil, Childs family = water.

Kim is blown away by the patriarchal paradigm that rules the Childs home and thinks that Chris has brainwashed his kids into being obedient miniature versions of himself.  Leanne is gob-smacked by the looser family dynamic in the Beckman Heskett family and is very concerned about the attitude of the two daughters and the impact that dating and TV will have on them.  She can’t believe the way Kim and Randall raise their kids.  “You know who else thinks this is the best way to parent?” Kim asks.  “The devil.”

Equally discombobulated are the husbands Chris and Randall, who are pretty set in their ways.  Chris feels that a wife’s role is to be a happily obedient helper to the husband, who is undisputed head of the family.  His philosophy doesn’t work well with the career-oriented Kim.  Chris chafes against Kim’s liberated ways and the pernicious effect her ideas may have on his kids.  In his eyes she is “teaching with hate” and had brought a “level of darkness” to his family that is unacceptable. 

The other husband, Randall is a Biblical scholar and former preacher with multiple degrees who is fluent in a number of ancient languages – and he wants you to know it.  Randall seems not only distrusting of fundamentalist Christians, but outright contemptuous.  He says grace before meals in an over-the-top, mocking parody of an evangelical preacher and can’t handle Leanne’s judgmental mindset.  It seems like Randall thinks fundamentalists are ignorant, because at one point he says that Leanne has “intellectual limits” and that he “can’t expect her to come up to my level.”  His level is Super Duper Genius, BTW.

The participants in Wife Swap always seem to come across as intolerant and a little crazy.  I don’t know if that’s because they’re thrust into these stressful situations that challenge their core beliefs or because of the way the footage is edited or both.  Chris feels like his authority and control over his family are so threatened by Kim’s dangerous ideas that he physically removes his youngest daughters from the house for a while.  Randall breaks down under Leanne’s moral scrutiny and ends up weeping in bed at one point.  Dude, pull it together.

Some of the rule changes that take effect during the second week of Wife Swap are truly bizarre.  Last week one of the swapped wives tried to teach a rebellious girl responsibility by making her carry a stuffed baby doll around, which was both ineffectual and weird.  This week, Kim tried to undo nearly two decades of upbringing in one fell swoop by making the chaste teen girls of the Childs family go speed dating.  Whaaa--?  I’ve heard of busy adults going speed dating, but do teenagers really do speed dating?  Are their schedules that full?  It just seemed like a kooky idea for any teenagers, let alone fundamentalist Christian teenagers.  Leanne on the other hand, wanted the more secular Beckman girls to write vows promising to refrain from dating until after they were married or something.  That also seemed weird, like Leanne was trying to contractually trap the girls into celibacy.  As it turned out, the Childs girls refused to go speed dating and Kim released her girls from their vows when she returned home, so the whole thing was kind of a wash.

In the end, both wives happily return to where they belong and order is restored to their respective universes.  On some shows it looks like the Wife Swap experience actually enriched their lives, but for the most part I think it just makes everyone thankful for their own families. Have they really learned anything?  I always wonder. 

--Dave Campbell