Wife Swap: A Whole Lotta Lovin'

I am wary of the ideology that TV is bad for you. It seems to be the popular sentiment and it is very seldom contradicted, especially in the company of intelligent people. As an analyst or critic, I like to think that I would look for the good in TV, even if it is only now and then.

The other night I was watching Wife Swap . Now, the popular response to this kind of viewing is negative. "It is rubbish, useless, bad TV, waste of time etc. etc." Indeed I would agree with this analysis of Wife Swap, almost completely.

In the company of my twelve year old daughter and my wife I was watching a typical episode. I don't remember the characters names and they are not relevant. One family fitted the urban description with more interest in appearances while the other was a rural/hippie type family. One husband was bearded and well-fed. One was fit and clean-shaven. One mother was of healthy weight and the other was well-fed. One mother was interested in being perceived as motherly, and the other wanted to have colored hair and make-up. One father was grumpy and difficult to communicate with obviously, and the other father was extrovert and not so obviously difficult to communicate with.

The event which I am getting to happened when the heavier and obviously grumpier father was forced to have a heart-to-heart chat with his teenage daughter. He listened to her plead for more talk, communication, and love. He listened and then asked, "are you done?" She answered in the affirmative and then the show cut to a close-up of the father talking about the heart-to-heart without any real emotional change. The teenage daughter had asked for love.

As we watched and listened and, I noticed, fell into the typical reaction of denouncing the characters,we laughed at them and scorned them and wondered at the uselessness of the show while we continued to watch. The teenage daughter said that she didn't remember the last time her dad had hugged her.

I thought. We laughed. And then I jumped up of the couch, faced my twelve-year-old daughter and said, "Maybe I don't hug you enough. Maybe you need a big hug from Daddy right now." She smiled. My wife smiled. I looked at her and then I smothered her with a bid hug. She laughed and laughed. I laughed through my advances of huggery and my wife laughed. We three laughed together for the sake of laughing.

Instead of laughing at the characters on the TV we were laughing and hugging in reality. Is this a positive result from watching some "useless" TV? I think so. So now when I see Wife Swap or any other similar rubbish, I think that maybe, just maybe, there will be an opportunity for some laughter and love in the final analysis.