Academics Submit To Reality Show Fame With Appropriate Skepticism
Having exhausted virtually every personality archetype around which to build an hour of televised domestic disintegration, the producers of Trading Spouses are now turning to the heretofore untapped, stereotype-rich subculture of nerdy college professors. InsideHigherEd.com, a website for the tweed-and-corduroy set, will not submit without a fight, however:
For one episode this year, [Trading Spouses] wants to feature two families in which one or both of the parents are professors. [...]
"I would guess that they're trying to look for eggheads or absent-minded professors," says Jeffrey McCall, a professor of communication at DePauw University in Indiana, who has studied the reality TV genre. "Producers of reality shows thrive on generating and maintaining stereotypes. [...]
"Up until now, these shows have focused on trashing low-income people," says [associate professor of political science at Chapman University, Fred] Smoller. "They taunt them into acting out class stereotypes. Now, clearly, the time has come to punk upper SES individuals."
The educators have reason to fear that their personas may be used against them, though the producers are assuring applicants that that is far from the case. Ideally, they hope to acknowledge individuality by swapping a crusty Yale law professor with an English teacher from a small liberal arts college for spoiled rich kids. Just watching Mr. Ivy League trying to impose his highly elitist methods for preparing Kraft Dinner on the far more relaxed, "let's-add-a-can -of-cream-of-broccoli -soup-and-see-what-happens," open-structured methods of the other family should be enough to throw both households into comedic disarray, while providing valuable insights into contrasting domestic dynamics.
