I'll See You on the Dark Side of the Loon

Despite my unabiding love for reality television (or, as it's called in my apartment, "television"), I have never watched a full episode of "Trading Spouses." It's on a major network, for starters, and I generally pretend to get my reality TV from upstart, desperate networks like UPN, home of "America's Next Top Model" and basic cable stations like MTV, the Grandfather of Shows in Which Camera Crews Follow Around Mean-Spirited Yet Attractive Young Drunks.

I do make exceptions to this rule. "The Apprentice," for example, even the Martha Stewart version. And the occasional episode of "Hell's Kitchen" or "Brat Camp." But, I don't know..."Trading Spouses"? The one where the two moms switch families for a week and then pretend to understand something about how other people live? It just seems so repetitive, so facile. And it involves young children, for whom I have a natural, built-in disaffection. But this online clip has made me reconsider my stance.

It's a woman from "Trading Spouses" returning home after spending a week with another family. You see, her family is made up of God-fearing Christians. More than 10 times in this 5 minute clip, she refers to herself as "a spiritual warrior." The family with whom she swapped...Well, I don't know actually. She just keeps ranting and raving about how they're from the Dark Side, and how they practiced black magic and rejected God. She interrogates her own children about whether, while the other mom was in the house, were presented with tarot cards or introduced to astrology.

This is clearly a case in which a woman uses her religion to mask severe mental problems. Maybe schizophrenia. The kids and her husband look more bummed out about the situation in the clip than terrified...If my mother came into the house screaming and carrying on and throwing a tantrum like this, we'd call the men in white suits with the big butterfly nets. But for this family, it seems more like business as usual..."Oh, no, Mom's got a touch of the crazies again...Come help me get the hose, we'll use it to force her back into the tool shed."

Check out the clip here. Oh, and my thanks to Andy Sullivan's blog for the link, and for his unending quest to excuse George Bush's Delightful Mid-East Adventure.

As I was viewing the clip for the second time, I made a rather simple observation, but one I had never made before. It's interesting how, for the hyper-religious, the main conflict on Earth boils down to God vs. Satan. This woman, because of her mental illness and years of conditioning, sees herself as aligned with a holy power, with the Christian God (and, therefore, Jesus). So, whenever she's in opposition to anyone - like, presumably, this other woman and her family from "Trading Spouses" - they by definition must represent the Devil.

And so she begins asking her family if they saw any tarot cards or discussed astrology or talked about witchcraft. Because, to her simple mind, those are the manifestations of the Devil.

In reality, the hyper-religious are in conflict with the irreligious, like myself, or the hyper-religious of other faiths. This other family, that doesn't go to church or recognize Jesus as the Lord or whatever pissed this woman off, they're not Satanic. They're probably just not very religious.

Very very few people, aside from confused 13 year old suburban white kids, are Satanists. It just doesn't make a lot of sense, Satanism...If you believe in Satan, you probably believe in God as well, and if you believe in God and his all-powerful glory, it's an awful silly thing to purposefully oppose him.

Although, to be fair, Satan overall strikes me as the cooler, more fun guy to worship for all eternity. Or, failing Satan, Sauron. You know, if I had to choose one ficitonal character over another.