Photos: Rick Rowell; Guy D'Alema / ABC
Laila Ali vs. Angie Stone Is Really Organic Bananas vs. Cupcakes
The Greatest Of All Time Jr. swaps lives with a diabetic R&B diva/soul food enthusiast, with predictable results.
Our Players
Hello, I'm East Coast Editor Sarah D. Bunting.
Hello, I'm West Coast Editor Tara Ariano.
The Scene
My favorite moment from this latest Celebrity Wife Swap was Curtis, Laila Ali's husband, having to admit that pedicures beat going to the gym. Real talk from a former pro-football player, people.
Totally! So many times, people try to trick you into exercise by acting like it's so much fun, or that you just need to find an activity you like, when really the only convincing argument is "It sucks, it will always suck, but you have to."
Laila might have had better success if she'd taken that tack.
Can we talk about Angie's "I'm not good with time" refrain? Because I know you have thoughts.
Yeaaahhhhh, I don't know. The thing about that is, we didn't really see her being bad with time; we just heard her laughing it off and her husband complaining about it. I would get all up on my fascistically prompt high horse about it if we'd gotten the Lindsay-style chyrons about how late she is, but she kind of had nowhere to be in her regular life that we could see? So...whatever? I was more horrified by her fun-mom attitude towards the teenagers' visitors who were coming in all sketch through the basement door.
Oh my god, yes. Does she not watch any MTV reality shows? That's how people get pregnant!!!
I want to see the cut footage of that one girl's "don't play that" dad, because seeeeriously.
Well, yeah. I assume her dad also doesn't know that she's going into a boy's house when the boy's parents don't know she's there, because...why would any parent of a teenager predict or guess that another teenager's parents just shrugged that off? And based on Angie's reaction to Laila's rule change at the final meeting, I got the impression that Angie was less okay with that practice than her fiancé Ashanti was, but that she hadn't said anything because of his whole "I'm the king" attitude.
Angie's attitude towards the whole process was interesting; she did seem to want Laila (or whomever it ended up being) to lay down some laws she didn't feel comfortable laying down, and even to force her to confront her bad food choices. (I mean, delicious-looking, in her defense, but: the diabeetus is not a joke.)
And did we really see Laila making yams using Angie's recipe of ten packets of "sugar drink"? Because yikes.
Right? Just use bourbon like a normal person, girl.
Or don't make yams. Yecch. One thing I liked about this episode was how frank everyone was with everyone else. Sometimes (like last week), when there's cross-racial switching, the white half of the equation can be kind of tentative about stuff when you can tell they think it's bullshit but don't know how much of what they have a problem with is cultural. But here I felt like both wives had no problem expressing themselves, which is more fun to watch.
No, I agree. I suspect the producers prefer the former situation because there's always the chance that somebody is going to make an ignorant -- read: "headlining" -- blunder, and a different and more straight-up documentary show could be really insightful about that sort of hesitancy. But this is Wife Swap, and in this scenario, I prefer it when they can just be like, "Actually I WILL tell you how to raise your kids." And let's not forget that in this specific episode, one of the Wives is demonstrably able to knock you the fuck out if you don't straighten up with the vegetables. When's the last time Laila Ali had to mince a word -- the '80s?
Also, do we think that the producers are really that good at finding families where the male head of household is still, in 2014, as Archie Bunkerish as Ashanti and their female partners are fine with it, or do the participants just amp that up for the cameras? Because I feel like we see a lot of husbands who get breakfast in bed (like Ashanti) or their clothes laid out for them in the morning or driven to appointments or whatever the hell, and I just can't believe there are still dudes who demand that OR women who play along. But maybe I'm just naïve!
I think that does go on, but I also think the producers look at the general routines of the house, and then make them -- and especially husbandly three-paces-behind-me shit like that that actually isn't the black-letter law of the house -- into the Rules, and literally hard-bind them. So, like, if Angie is passing through to get her sandals or something, she'll bring him a plate, but it's not every morning and he's not going to be calling her from bed all "where's my waffle?!" But the show doesn't have time for nuance.
Nor would I want it, probably.
I mean, if I did this show, it would look like I cook and clean and do Dirk's laundry all day when he's at work. And I do that stuff, but not all day, and he has chores, and blah blah blah this isn't a Frederick Wiseman film. ...And it probably wouldn't "look like" I cook because I don't, but you get my point. ORDERING IN IS TOUGH, TARA.
YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW? Anyway: I think what I learned from this episode is that I don't want toddlers, or teenagers, or a gym in my house, or to marry Ashanti. You?
I learned that Laila Ali is probably a terror at Game Night, and that I would like to Wife-Swap with Angie and eat cupcakes and do errands from a limo.