Wife exchange is eye-opening viewing

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Friday, December 10, 2004

Wife exchange is eye-opening viewing

By MELANIE McFARLAND
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER TELEVISION CRITIC

The question at the heart of both Fox's "Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy" and ABC's "Wife Swap" is: "Is the grass greener on the other side of the domestic fence?"

After watching several episodes, green isn't the dominant color. Try red and blue, in deep, scorching, "direct viewing may cause blindness" shades.

No other shows on television better demonstrate the chasm between liberal and conservative America as honestly. In their most basic interpretations, "Wife Swap" and "Trading Spouses" are about experiencing different household styles. The idea is for wives, and the occasional pair of husbands, to immerse themselves into another's concept of marriage, parenting and gender roles and expectations in modern society -- the very issues at the core of the marriage and family values debate.

Of course, politics aren't the main drivers here. One has no idea as to which way any of the eligible voters shown in these shows ended up swinging, if they bothered to vote at all.

What we're talking about are the wildest imaginations about red and blue states of mind, as seen on KCPQ/13 Mondays at 8 or KOMO/4 Wednesdays at 10.

For instance, "tree hugger" often is flung around these days as a derisive term. Few people have actually seen such a person in his or her natural habitat -- that is, until Monday, when "Trading Spouses" viewers got a load of Carl Abbott, a wacky Taoist who rails against shoe addiction (as in, wearing them, period) petting a redwood and mumbling something about it giving you a sense of eternity.

Weeks ago, "Wife Swap" gave us South Carolina's Glenn Smoak, a Confederate-flag-waving gun nut forced to temporarily co-exist with Arkansan Amy Beaver, an animal-loving layabout prone to hysterics. (A few of the greatest ideological brawls occur between families from two red states.)

"Glenn," she begged in the episode's darkest moment, "I love you in spite of your beliefs. I need you to love me in spite of my beliefs."

"Nope," he responded, taking a swig of beer, "... 'cause I think your beliefs suck."

Here, in front of us, are representatives of polar opposites on the political and social spectrum or, put more accurately, representatives of our biggest stereotypes of America's alien others. It could be Mommy Dearest flipping positions with a woman whose child-rearing methods put the lazy in laissez-faire. It could be akin to "Trading Spouses' " fabled Nakamura/Biggins exchange, in which an entitled, blond trophy wife rolled her eyes at her modest, black family's tastes. She was a little bit country; they were a little bit ready to pummel her unconscious.

If some of these specimens were hirsute, The Crocodile Hunter would be putting them into headlocks. That's part of the joy of watching from a safe distance. We may be a television nation of clear divisions, but most of these episodes allow us to sit, agape, at the freakishness of both broods.

"Wife Swap," an import from Britain, is the higher quality of the two programs, focusing more on the spiritual benefits of the experience as opposed to its clone "Trading Spouses," which treats its trades as cartoonish spectacle. (The ABC show is also higher in the Nielsen rankings, clocking in at a modest 46th place last week. "Trading Spouses" trails at 53.)

Last Monday's "Trading Spouses" introduced the Lowes, a loud family living in a Tennessee palace, swapping matriarchs with the Abbotts, barefoot, furniture free Taoists from Santa Cruz, Calif.

Vicki Lowe's idea of family time is to creatively cuss and tackle her children. Leslie Abbott serenely plays bluegrass and does yoga with her teenage boys, who are learning Chinese to prepare them for what their father, Carl, believes to be the coming of China's global dominance in the next century.

Wednesday "Wife Swap," had Cristina Aguirre, mother and wife to a punk rock brood, tagging into Wendy Ray's Southern Baptist household. Wendy embraces her husband Bill's idea that housework and cooking is the woman's duty, expecting her to have the place spotless and dinner on the table when he gets home.

Game on!

(At least the Abbotts and Lowes each get $50,000 for their discomfort. Wife Swappers go home with crazy stories and little else, monetarily speaking.)

Although we won't see how the Lowe/Abbott adventure concludes until the second part airs Monday, it didn't look good. When we left them, Vicki was threatening to get the kids sneakers and play a few R&B tracks for them. Leslie, in the meantime, was crying on the Lowes' front porch, strumming a tune on her guitar. (Those cuckoo-clocks you may have heard going off are from your internal soundtrack, not Fox's.)

"Wife Swap's" Wendy Ray, though, loosened up enough to take in a punk rock show.

Which brings us to something else the shows have in common: They usually end with each party's lives changed for the better, especially the more rigid of the two involved.

So in their own small ways, "Wife Swap" and "Trading Spouses" enable us to see the merits and flaws within belief systems that collide with our own. While they illustrate how at odds America's citizens can be with each other, they also are inadvertent proponents of finding the tiniest bits of common green ground between fall's most prominent clashing colors.

P-I TV critic Melanie McFarland can be reached at 206-448-8015 or tvgal@seattlepi.com.

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