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“It
was a pretty good experience for me," she
told the McAlester News-Capital early this month. "I
got to do a lot of mother-daughter things I never get to
do," she said. "I got to experience what it's
like to have teenage girls in the house." She even
went to dinner a few times with the “husband” of her new
family.
Yes
despite her “pretty good experience,” Melissa Bedford supports
her husband’s claims and says she would not participate
in the show again. "I wouldn't do it because of the
trauma they put our family through," she said. "They
thrive on the thing that upsets you the most. They plotted
and planned this out."
Ya
think?
Bubbliciousness
aside, the part of this tale that interests
me the most is that the twist itself didn’t disturb Melissa.
Whether she expected it or not, she went with it. She took
responsibility and opened herself up to an experience outside
her norm.
If
only her husband did the same. If only Wife Swap
took itself more seriously.
Say
what you will about the bevy of reality shows on air, but
Wife Swap offers something the others don’t. At a
time when we’re all seeking refuge from people and groups
that are hostile toward us or even simply unlike us, Wife
Swap invites us to step out of our comfortable clusters
of agreement and walk in the shoes of our opposites for
two weeks. The show asks participants to hang out with strangers
and be uncomfortable for a short while in the hope that
discomfort will lead to understanding or, at the very least,
tolerance.
It’s
a brilliant idea. But, unfortunately, the brilliance is
sabotaged by the main ingredient of reality TV: manipulation.
In
its efforts to get great ratings while meshing two extremely
different families in such a short time, Wife Swap
pushes the participants toward its goal. But the push is
as subtle as a rocket launcher.
Take,
for example, Jeffrey Bedford’s claim that the gay
swap participant invited a “gay coalition” to join in his
Bible study. There are reports that indicate the “gay coalition”
— a Muskogee couple named Calvin and Joyce Rock — was invited
by Wife Swap producers, not the gay swap participant.
"ABC was looking for someone with strong spiritual
ties that the Bedford family could relate to," Joyce
Rock told the Phoenix.
The
Rocks are PFLAG members. Calvin Rock is an ordained deacon
in the Baptist church. And Jeffrey Bedford is still a blockhead
who got exactly what he signed up for.
That
said, though, I don’t blame Bedford at all for being upset
that a few queers crashed his Bible study. A line was crossed,
and it was crossed not in the interest of bringing people
together, but to cause a row.
Meanwhile,
back in Seattle, more boundaries were being trampled. Melissa
Bedford handed out abstinence pledge cards to the daughters
of her new “family.” The McAlester News-Capital reported,
“Bedford said she talked to the girls about abstinence and
she gave them pledge cards to sign. She said she didn't
ask the girls to make their decision in front of her. "I
told them that was between them and God — not between them
and me," she said.”
Whose
idea was it to introduce the girls to pledge cards? A person
claiming to be Jeffrey Bedford posted the following to an
online discussion group: “It was not my wifes [sic] idea
in any way shape or form to give out those pleadge [sic]
cards. You may thank RDF Media for that one, as well as
the PFLAG people who were brought to my home.”
There’s
plenty of ‘he said, she said, they said’ to go
around, but even with all the published reports, it’s still
unclear what’s true and what’s not, and who did this or
that. Right now, Bedford’s claims are just claims. But one
thing that’s perfectly clear is that week after week Wife
Swap sets the stage for thoughtful debates on timely
issues — and then stages the debates.
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