WEEKLY COLUMN:
JDM vs the WORLD

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FINE PRINT

Last Wednesday, my wife and I watched ABC’s new reality series, “Wife Swap.” I suppose there’s some irony in this. But anyway, I’m sort of agnostic when it comes to reality television. I’m not a true believer; for me, a new season of “The Bachelorette” isn’t like falling in love all over again. But I’m not a reality TV atheist, either. I don’t believe it’s the death knell of Western civilization. Nor do I find the need to call it “so-called reality TV.” I understand it only rarely reflects reality, but I’m over it. I’m willing to watch a new show before condemning it. I’ll give it a shot. It’s just that I won’t give it the benefit of the doubt.

So if you’d told me a week ago I’d not only like “Wife Swap” but like it enough to write about it, I don’t think I would’ve believed you. And even if I did, I still would’ve thought today’s column would start off like this: “You know, I hate to admit it, but ABC’s ‘Wife Swap’ is actually pretty good.” But now that I’ve watched it, I have to admit I don’t hate to admit it at all. “Wife Swap” is pretty good. And there’s even some value in watching it.

Let me explain.

Each week, “Wife Swap” introduces two completely different, completely imperfect families, who trade moms—“but not bedrooms,” as ABC points out—for two weeks’ time. The families in last Wednesday’s episode were the Smoaks and the Beavers, who live a few hundred miles—but really whole worlds—apart. Both are neurotic in their own special ways.

The Smoaks, for example, are your stereotypical Southern family. And when I say “stereotypical,” I mean stereotypical. The only thing they’re missing is teeth. Everything about them screams Blue Collar Comedy Tour. The man of the house is named Glenn, who drinks domestic beer, belches, and owns a bunch of rifles. Inside the house, he displays dead animals; outside, a Confederate flag. Then there’s his wife, Aletha, who hasn’t let him sleep in her bed for more than ten years. We’re told it’s because of Glenn’s snoring. One suspects, though, that it’s really because he’s a poor, repulsive excuse for a teddy bear. But whatever the reason, Aletha needs her sleep—she works hard, keeps clean, and apparently entertains 30 cousins every Sunday for lunch. In her mind, she’s a real mother (take that as you will). Kids in her house are seen but not heard. If she were any more conservative, she’d have to put oil on her moving parts just to keep herself from squeaking.

But then we meet the Beavers, who, if I didn’t know better, I’d think were only aboard the Good Earth awaiting their Mothership Connection. To put it bluntly, they’re a bunch of tree-hugging, animal-loving suburbanite hippies, who in all likelihood sprung forth organically from big bowls of dirt (I mean that in the nicest possible way). Husband Jeff wears his hair in matted brown dreadlocks; I have to imagine his first words ever were, “Mama, dada, I come in peace.” Wife Amy, meanwhile, is professionally unemployed (no doubt as a statement against the ruling class). She wakes up at 10 am and tries to balance her time between writing poems and working to ban the NRA. In short, the Beavers lean so far left they might as well walk sideways. They love the planet, fly no flags, and treat their 10-year-old, Emily, like their peer. Whatever they drive, I’m sure it’s a hybrid. These people would pull over and hold a funeral if, God forbid, a bee ever hit their windshield.

About the only thing the Smoaks and Beavers share is the fact that they’re human. But after a while, you start to question even that similarity. The contrast is clear from the moment Aletha and Amy switch roles.

For the first few days, each mom must adapt to the existing rules of her new home. Aletha skips dinner her first night, skeeved by how filthy the house is; she struggles the next day to fill Amy’s unproductive shoes. Amy, on the other hand, breaks down and cries while doing dishes; she compares motherly chores to chattel slavery, and you can tell it’s a heartfelt comparison. But all of this is just a prelude. It’s merely Act I. The real fun begins halfway through the show, when the moms get to ditch their new homes’ old rules and write a few of their own. This is when worlds collide.

Aletha Smoak takes her cue and starts assigning chores. She demands that precocious young Emily Beaver end every sentence with “ma’am.” Then she makes Jeff Beaver buy an American flag, which he displays, as instructed, in his yard. He isn’t happy about it (if I remember correctly, the words “holier than thou” were tossed around), but he feels so bad about arguing that he brings home fresh flowers as a “peace offering.” Aletha yells at him for using a dirty vase, and she remains unimpressed when Jeff starts to cry.

Back at the Smoak homestead, Amy Beaver gets rid of Glenn’s guns and animal trophies, and makes him take down his Confederate flag. It’s a symbol of “mass murder,” she says. He insists it’s a symbol of heritage, but she buys into it about as much as he buys into her line about loving one another in spite of their beliefs—which is to say she doesn’t buy into it at all. So Glenn follows Amy’s marching orders, but fittingly rebels against her: He moves his Confederate flag, all right, but only as far as a nearby field. Amy wins the argument; Glenn wins the war.

In the end, the wives are reunited with their husbands. Both couples sit down for a little face time and proceed to lace into each other. The Beavers accuse Aletha of not being nice to their dogs and daughter. Likewise, the Smoaks accuse Amy of being too loosey-goosey. There’s also a precious moment when Glenn accuses Jeff of looking like an aborigine. Jeff’s response is something along the lines of, “Good.”

Throughout the show, my wife and I had a running discussion on which family we’d least like to be a part of. My wife said she’d take the Smoaks over the Beavers because the Beavers had no discipline. I see her point and sort of agree. As people, the Beavers lacked focus. As parents, they lacked leadership skills. I don’t have kids and can’t speak from experience, but if there’s a line between letting your kids flourish and letting them walk all over you, the Beavers have stepped so far over it that they would need to go all the way around the world just to get back to the other side. But that said, I’d take the Beavers over the Smoaks. The Smoaks had good old fashioned family values, and I admire them for that, but it all seemed so cold to me. It seemed like they cared more about family values than their actual family. And if that’s the case, why care at all?

Really, though, I believe both families are irrevocably screwed. But, to me, that’s the beauty of the show. I would never sign up to star in an episode; I think you’d have to hate yourself, your family, or quite possibly both to invite ABC’s cameras into your home. Like Fox’s “Temptation Island,” the show, itself, is the temptation. If you’re on it, you’ve already given in. But on the flipside, if you’re on “Wife Swap,” you’ve also given other Americans a window into a lifestyle that may not be their own. What an invaluable service.

Nowadays, we hear an awful lot about there being “two Americas” at war with one another. But the mediums through which this message is spread—TV, radio, newspapers, the Web—exist, without prejudice, in most American homes. It’s as if we’re being homogenized and made one by this “two Americas” theme. We’re leading ourselves to believe our country isn’t big enough for multiple cultures. Yet America consists of nearly 300 million people spread out across 50 states stretching many thousands of miles. How many towns are there? How many families? Why must they move to the beat of just one drum? Can’t they have their own drums? America’s big. There’s plenty of room for drums.

It would be so easy to watch “Wife Swap” and come away thinking the Smoaks and the Beavers epitomized the great Red State/Blue State divide. After all, the experience only reminded them how much they loved their own lifestyles; it didn’t make them appreciate each other’s. But as happy as each woman was to return to her home, her husband, and her kids, the point is she got to return. She got to resume the life she wanted, without interference from those who want otherwise. That’s the moral of the story. It’s a lesson in coexistence. Each family has its neuroses, sure. But they have their neuroses. And what family’s complete without ‘em?

It’s just a shame a presidential debate will preempt this week’s “Wipe Swap.” I think it’s pretty clear which one can teach us more.

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