The holy grail of responsible pleasure tv is hands-down early 2000s actuality TV. Whereas each early 2000s actuality TV present had issues that haven’t aged effectively, there’s one thing timeless and refreshing concerning the sensationalistic spin of leisure in that period.
Again then, any consideration gave the impression to be good consideration to the leisure business. Cancel tradition had but to weed out the dangerous actors in media. For higher or for worse, it was a less complicated time with easy pleasures like televised prepare wrecks.
Each now and again, I revisit the wreckage of these proverbial disasters for kicks.
These days, Spouse Swap has been my Y2K cringe-inducing indulgence. As a lot because it ruffles my feathers and shocks me typically, it finally makes me recognize how far we’ve come as a society in slightly below twenty years.
What Is Spouse Swap?
If it’s been a minute because you’ve watched the present, TV Passport summarizes it properly:
“Cameras comply with two girls from totally different backgrounds as they commerce houses and households for 2 weeks. The ladies spend the primary week following one another’s detailed directions on how one can mum or dad, socialize, and run the family. Issues change within the second week when they’re allowed to impose their very own guidelines and run issues as they please. On the finish of the 2 weeks, the ladies and their spouses meet for an often-heated dialogue, assessing one another’s life decisions and the impact the experiences had on their households.”
Whereas the premise sounds easy sufficient, the households featured on the present infused it with sufficient selection to maintain me bingeing the primary season for days on finish.
In a single episode, a vegetarian spouse may swap with a spouse whose partner loves looking and hanging the spoils of his looking journeys on the wall. In one other episode, a lesbian middle-class spouse swapped with a conservative wealthy spouse.
Like all actuality TV, the present featured risky arguments, dramatic crying spells, and tomfoolery. On the floor, it was simply one other trash TV present. In the event you delve somewhat deeper, you’ll see that it’s a capsule of Y2K tradition and societal norms. Dramatics apart, it documented the battle between totally different lessons, political persuasions, and geographic areas of the USA throughout a time of immense social change.
The issues with Spouse Swap:
The largest draw back to Spouse Swap is how bigoted it seems to be in 2023. From the “mammy” cookie jars {that a} household in Missouri proudly owned in S1E11 to the anti-marriage equality rhetoric spewed by one spouse in S1E14, the attitudes round race and sexuality in Spouse Swap mirrored the backward instances.
In some episodes, like S1E8, sexist beliefs round a person offering and a lady performing all family and childrearing duties contrasted the other household dynamic with a stay-at-home father and high-powered government spouse.
The place racism, homophobia, and sexism flared, an image of an equal, empowered dynamic countered. That is the place Spouse Swap gifted viewers a glimpse of the social change that was to return and redeemed what might have been a deeply offensive nightmare, in my view.
One of many darkest features of Spouse Swap, to me, was its willingness to showcase households who appeared to frame on toxicity and even alleged abuse.
In S1E7, Spouse Swap introduces viewers to 2 vastly totally different households as regular. Within the Bittner household, the tight-knit West Virginian crew appears to spoil their kids. On this family, feelings run excessive however there appears to be a degree of mutual respect on the finish of the day.
On the opposite finish of the spectrum, the Reimers run their household with “military-like precision.” On this conservative, Christian household, the youngsters are homeschooled on a regimented schedule and disciplined with a leather-based swap referred to as “the wacker.” Every baby had a “wacker” held on their door as a reminder of the implications of disobeying one of many many guidelines within the house.
The Reimers’ kids additionally accomplished the entire chores within the house. This family was all about controlling the children and maintaining tabs on them always. To me, this smacks of toxicity if not downright abuse. Within the early 2000s, we simply noticed this as strict parenting.
In the present day, I’m not so certain that it could have prevented commentary on the possibly abusive nature of the “wacker” and the exploitative nature of shifting family obligations onto the backs of the children.
The genius of Spouse Swap:
Whereas Spouse Swap had inflammatory opinions spewing left and proper from the mouths of their members, the present itself didn’t take a stand on both aspect. As a substitute of claiming “Look how ridiculous this excessive lifestyle is,” they merely sat two opposing, extremist life aspect by aspect and let viewers see the absurdity of each methods of life for themselves.
Granted, I’m certain that manufacturing performed a task in slanting the character arcs and storylines within the favor of 1 household or the opposite at instances. Nonetheless, the present gave these households a platform and allow them to communicate for themselves, irrespective of how inappropriate or bigoted they could have come off.
Even households with views and life-style decisions I’d be hard-pressed to cosign have been painted in a humanizing gentle.
As a cherry on prime, the present transports me again to a time when gaudy Y2K vogue was all the trend and an MP3 participant was the best piece of know-how a 12-year-old might personal. Regardless of its flaws, Spouse Swap is as high-quality leisure as trash TV could be.
Maya Sturdy is a author who has spent the final six years running a blog about relationships, LGBTQIA+, psychological well being, life-style, and cultural commentary on-line.
