I’m not a reality tv person. I watched the first episode of The Apprentice because it dealt with project management but that’s the extent of my reality tv viewing. Last night, however, in a lull between watching all my taped programs, I switched to Fox’s Trading Spouses. Have you seen this show? Apparently, people get paid to trade families for a limited amount of time. I’m not sure how long or what the requirements are but from the 30 minutes I saw last night, they pair you up with a polar opposite for sensationalism.
Last night, the wife swap consisted of a self righteous Louisianan and a 40-something, mid-life crisis lady. I’d say the 40-something lady was a hippie or new age but honestly, her husband was more new age than she. She just seemed in a transitional stage in her life. She seemed more apprehensive to declare her beliefs which only lead me to believe she’s still trying to hash out what she does believe in.
The Louisianan lady clearly has had some hardships and a lack of verbal communication skills. Both women seemed apprehensive to each other’s lifestyles. Neither really tried to open up. The only person I saw making a real effort was the Hippie father who politely said grace at mealtime.
Personally, I really didn’t find anything he did as paganistic as the Louisianan would have you believe. He even held a summer solstice party which in my opinion looked like a lot of fun. They weren’t killing chickens or burning effigies. They simply looked like they were celebrating a wonderful summer night with family and friends.
The Louisianan woman totally wigged out and apparently at one point puked on their lawn. Instead of expressing her dislike of their lifestyle all she did was curse and rant to the camera. She criticized and judged them immediately.
Fear seemed to have played a big part in her tantrums. Now, I’m not an authority on Christianity, but didn’t Jesus say, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself?” What gives you the right to determine whether a person is saved or not? Isn’t that a seven deadly sin? Isn’t tolerance and compassion a part of the Christian lifestyle?
As for the ‘new age’ mom, she just seemed to be more afraid of people judging her that she closed herself off from allowing others to get to know her. I’ll give credit to the Louisianan’s oldest daughter who made the good faith effort to learn about ‘new age’ mom’s hypnotherapy. For me, the Hippie chick should have been more open to their daily lives. Sure, Louisianan’s mother’s friends were all kinds of evil to her but grow a backbone lady. Stick up for what you believe in. So what if they hate you. No matter what you do, they’ll continue their indignation towards you so you might as well just be you and screw them.
Speaking of backbone, the Louisianan’s husband needs to be a little more authoritative. The previews of next week’s conclusive episode had him standing there with his children, all with their mouths agape at their mother’s mental breakdown. Holy moley! My husband even asked me to rewind that outburst of hysterics. Her rant consisted of references to heathens, missing bibles and devils. I was waiting to see a cleansing ritual.
After being sucked into the vortex of Trading Spouses, I read about twins that are white nationalist pop singers. Holy moley! What the heck is going on? I first thought this was a Mel Brooks joke but it’s real.
Maybe I’m just in shock because I live in a metropolitan city whose residents within a two block radius holds a representative from each ethnicity known to man. I just find it incredibly outrageous to see this kind of intolerance nowadays. We’re so much more connected to each other. Years ago our lives revolved around our own little world. Now with the internet and 24 hour news, we're that much closer to each other. Come on people. Stop being ostriches and stick your head out from the dirt long enough to realize it’s one bloody world we live in.
