The inevitable battle between two opposite lifestyles happened on the season premiere of WifeSwap, as two families with extreme lifestyles exchanged wives and moms, and the sparks flew.
Representing an overt obsession with outward appearance, the Guastafero family battled it out with Boss family mom Angie, who is a so-called Quaker pastor and who homeschools her children.
To set the scene, you have to appreciate the excesses on both sides. For example, the daughter of the Guastafero's - Alicia, doesn't have to endure a single "no" according to her parents, as mom Karen said “We never say no to Alicia, and was determined to influence her new family, showing them "what’s really important — to sparkle!”
Alicia also enjoys Christmas every day, as the household keeps their Christmas tree up all year long, and whatever Alicia wants Alicia gets.
You can imagine what happened during the week with these opposites at each others throats.
Quaker mom Angie accuses Guastafero dad Ralph of treating his daughter like a piece of meat because of the endless pageants she entered and the focus on her outer image. You had to know something like that was coming.
On the other side of it, Guastafero mom, Karen, calls one of the Boss daughters a "geek" because she didn't go along with her view of life. She also pushed to doll up the other girls in the family rather than teach them. She even told dad Duane that he was turning the three girls into little boys.
During the week, both dads actually blew their stacks, as they had extreme difficulty coming to grips with opposites of their real wives.
Interestingly, after the week was over and more sparks flew when everyone found out what happened, a little bit changed for each family, as Alicia is actually attempting to do her homework somewhat (she didn't do it before). She even attempted to cook some brownies.
For the Boss girls, one was allowed to keep on with her interest in competing in pageants, and the family built a stage at home for Clara to practice on.
The daughter that was called a geek by Karen? She was able to say at the end of the traumatic week that nothing changed with her because of the swap of moms. She may be the one healthy person in the whole bunch.
Overall it was a pretty engaging show. It did highlight some of the extremes people go to; a caricature of something residing in a lot of people.
Actually, that little miss spoiled rotten beauty queen, wasn't that beautiful, or pretty. If you noticed, she had a rather bad lisp because of her bucked teeth. She needs to see an orthodontist badly! Her hair was so bleached out, it looked like straw and that dark make-up around her eyes, made it look like she hasn't slept in months!
I'll have to agree with everyone else on this, the 15 yr old beauty queen DID look like a hooker and acted like an immature Stepford child.
Her parents were more, the laughing stock than their own daughter. The father had this very unnatural red hair color going on, and the mother wore this dark halloween make-up that she thought was glamorous. But yet, they both were fat and dumpy, and dressed like slobs.
The feminist mom had her good, and bad points, but I leaned more towards her good points, and overlooked everything else. Deny it if you like, but feminist mom was right in the end.
The beauty queen's parents were SO ignorant, it was completely laughable, and I can't see how they can't be embarrassed about how they looked, their actions, and what they said in front of millions of viewers. It was totally unreal. Were THEY for real????
I am curious as to how the beauty queen gets away with having her parents do her homework for her. Don't her teachers ever call on the beauty queen in class and ask her how she got her ideas or answers? What about tests in class? Is she above that, or does she actually do work IN her classes? Maybe the parents pay the school off to work it like that? There's something seriously wrong with this picture if this is the case. What kind of principal would allow such stupidity in his/her school?
Anyone else care to comment?
Posted by: Danelle | January 3, 2008 3:29 PM | Permalink to Comment