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Trading Spouses
Two UCSD Staff Members Take Part in FOX Reality Show
Ioana Patringenaru | January 29, 2007
TV crews overran the engineering courtyard, parts of Warren Mall and one floor of Torrey Pines Center North. Cameramen hauled more than 10 pounds of gear as they followed two UCSD staff members around. About a dozen production crew members watched from afar. They shot hours of footage.
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TV crews shot footage
for Trading Spouses, a FOX reality show, this fall on campus.
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A few minutes will make it onto America’s screens Friday and Feb. 9, when FOX will broadcast one of its reality shows, titled “Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy.” The concept is simple: two families trade a spouse for a week and cameras roll as drama ensues. Each family receives $50,000. But the traded spouse gets to decide how her host family can spend the money.
In Friday’s episode, Judy Lane, director of special events and protocol at UCSD, trades places with Julie Chase, a saddle maker from a small town in Oregon. This week’s show adds one ingredient to its usual formula: Lane and her partner, Pepper Lane, are a same-sex couple.
The two said they came away from the show realizing that there are a lot of different people out there and that you have to remain open and accept differences. They also said it reaffirmed their deep love for each other and their family. “To me, the grass is the perfect color green at home,” said Pepper Lane, coordinator of regional and constituent programs for UCSD’s Alumni Association.
She and Judy decided to take part in the show on a fluke. The show’s producers sent an e-mail to San Diego Family Matters, a group of gay and lesbian parents to which the Lanes belong. It sounded like it would be fun, the Lanes said. It’s just another zany thing their family would do, is how Judy explained it. “If life is a picnic, we’re the ones bringing ice cream and cake,” she said.
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Judy and Pepper Lane with their two children, Cory and Shea. |
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The three-day audition in a lavish Los Angeles hotel in early August was fun too, Pepper said. The Lanes told screeners that the show couldn’t create situations that would embarrass, humiliate or otherwise hurt their children, ages 7 and 9. “It was a deal-breaker for us,” Pepper said. They repeated the warning at several stages of the selection process.
They found out they were selected to take part in the show a little while later. A production crew came to UCSD in October to take some environmental shots. The Lanes frantically cleaned their closets for the one-week shoot. They told their children to behave as if they were visiting their grandmother: behave yourselves, mind your language and be helpful.
Pepper said she faced more challenges than Judy. She knew it was going to be a difficult week as soon as she picked up Julie Chase from the airport. She started to make prejudiced comments almost as soon as she got off the plane. It didn’t get better once they got to the Lanes’ home. “I couldn’t believe I was going to be around that person for the whole week,” Pepper said.
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| Pepper Lane and Julie Chase. |
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The following week turned out to be a big emotional roller coaster, with more downs than ups. “I had emotion sickness,” Pepper said. Chase came to UCSD twice and filled in for Judy during an event. She wasn’t impressed, Pepper said. Two days before Chase was set to go back home, the two women faced off. “I let her have it,” Pepper said. “She called me the queen of all bad words.” Finally, they agreed to disagree. “We couldn’t wait for Judy to get back,” Pepper said.
Meanwhile in Oregon, Judy Lane went through a better experience with her host family. Charlie Chase picked her up at the airport and the two had a nice talk on their way to the Chases’ home. The family put on a dinner party to introduce Judy to their friends. They all were wonderful. “That was uplifting because they made me feel so welcome,” she said.
The Chases’ two daughters, ages 15 and 17, were another matter. They played mean-spirited pranks on their father and Judy. “I was totally blown away by how their behavior towards their father would never be acceptable in our home,” she said. After one and a half days of that kind of treatment, Judy told the two teenagers to stop. Amazingly, they did. They became kinder and playful – but in a good way. “They saw it was possible to have fun and be silly without hurting each other,” she said.
Judy started cooking with one of the girls, who wants to go to culinary school. She took the other to a nature reserve, where they watched grizzly bears from up close. Every night, the girls, their father and Judy played games.
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Judy Lane with Charlie Chase
and his two daughters, Kaci and Cyndi. |
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Judy went through some difficult moments, though. The Chases’ two girls were consummate athletes and she drove them from practice to practice every day. Sports are not her thing, she explained, and she was tired. During one practice, parents were screaming at their daughters. “I wanted to go over and kick them,” she said. Finally, she wandered away from the field. A little further away, she saw a family throwing a birthday party for their children. She thought about her daughter and her son and wondered if they were doing okay. She started to cry. “Being helpless is not a good place for me,” she said.
The Lanes now say they wouldn’t do it all over again. The experience turned out to be much more difficult than they imagined both emotionally and physically, Judy said. It messed up the children’s routines, Pepper chimed in.
This Friday, one of Judy’s relatives will watch on the show on the East Coast and call them to warn them about any potential problems. “I hope nothing will embarrass my children,” Judy Lane said. “As long as that goes well, I don’t care. Northing is going to embarrass me at this point.”
And one more thing: “remind everyone the camera makes you look 25 lbs. heavier and we had no make up,” Judy said.
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