Hypocrite, Thy Name is Kris – Kris Gillespie from ‘Wife Swap’

When Kris Gillespie appeared in the Boone Luffey/Gillespie episode of Wife Swap, sparks flew like never before. A show known for its contrived controversy, pitting polar opposite families against each other week after week, suddenly found itself with some truly painful moments when Kris locked horns with Kristine Luffey, the lesbian who had swapped places with her for ten days.

What made Kris so loathsome? For starters, she gave off the clear vibe that she was superior to everything that moved. Every aspect of her life was "excellent," and she strove to be "excellent" in everything she did. She wore huge diamonds and seemed to regard her husband, Brian, as little more than a supplier of money with which to buy the jewelry. At the same time, she claimed to be a devout Christian faithful to Jesus's teachings. That brings us to the second reason why Kris is loathsome: She is a hypocrite.

Never mind that amidst all of her gloating about material possessions, she seemed to have missed the New Testament passage about camels, eye of a needle, and rich men; Kris's hypocrisy was most glaring in the way she treated Kristine's relationship with her partner Nicki. Kris is an African-American who bears an eerie resemblance to Condoleezza Rice, married to a white man.

From the moment Kris discovered that Kristine and Nicki were a lesbian couple, she forgot Jesus's message of tolerance and assumed that their coupledom was the reason for Nicki's daughter Lizzie's somewhat bratty behavior. She called them "depraved" and selfish for exposing Lizzie to a lifestyle that might not be "natural" to her. All the while, Kris never considered the parallels between the Boone Luffeys and her own mixed marriage: that fifty years ago, black women would have been forbidden by law from marrying white men, and that many Americans viewed a mixed marriage as immoral… and some still do.

Yet rather than consider that hostility toward lesbian relationships could be as misplaced as hostility toward her own, Kris just insisted that her situation was completely different because Nicki and Kristine could "pass" as straights and be treated as equals, while blacks pre-Civil Rights Era could not. In some respects she had a point, but as Nicki rightly pointed out, why should she want to pretend to be something she's not? Would it change the fact that society discriminated against her for no reason other than the gender of her partner? Did light-skinned blacks who "passed" in white society pre-Civil War ever feel truly accepted?

Kris's sole defense of her prejudices came from Jesus's admonishment against homosexuality. Oh wait – there was none. But there were plenty of admonishments against gluttony. Still, Kris sliced and diced Biblical messages at her convenience.

At this point, viewers who didn’t catch this episode might be wondering what the fuss is about. Kris Gillespie is hardly the first judgmental hypocrite to appear on the show. She isn't the first person to flaunt her wealth, and she doesn't even have the most obnoxious personality (an honor shared by Cindy Bittner and Amy Beaver). Furthermore, she at least followed the rules of the household, unlike several participants from past episodes.

What earned Kris an induction into the Reality TV Hall of Shame was her attitude during the final meeting of the two couples: She accused Kristine and Nicki of not being a real family unit, and Kristine of being a sexual predator who made her fearful for her 12-year-old daughter! Not that Kristine's influence would turn her daughter into a lesbian, but that being a lesbian meant that Kristine was incapable of basic morality and likely to commit the worst of crimes.

When previous wives had strong objections to their swap families, it generally had to do with specific issues, like too much clutter or too much order. When Paulette Stallone swapped with Elizabeth Ghani, she didn't object to Ghani being in a mixed common-law marriage, but to her kids not being able to watch television. Similarly, Kristine Luffey didn't spend ten days criticizing conservative Christians and denouncing Republicans, but rather focused on the fact that the Gillespie kids had too many chores. Kris Gillespie could have used her time during the final meeting to criticize Nicki and Kristine's relaxed parenting methods, or the state of their messy household. Instead, she attacked the relationship itself, acting as though all the wrongs she had witnessed were due to them being lesbians and depraved.

Never mind that the most "disturbing" thing Kristine did at the Gillespies was give the kids blessing to mess up Brian's sock drawer. Never mind that Brian himself had said that Kristine was nice and fun, and had taught the family to loosen up a little. In Kris's mind, gay = immoral lifestyle = social monster. This is an assumption that none of the previous wives had made, a line that none of them had crossed. Even Wendy Baker, the conservative Christian wife who initially thought that the Aguirres were devil worshippers, was still able to see them as basically good human beings.

That Kris had made up her mind about Kristine even before their meeting makes her accusation that much more outrageous. And even after leaving Kristine in tears, it is unclear whether Kris ever had second thoughts about her behavior.

For being the most mean-spirited, hypocritical, and judgmental person yet to appear on Wife Swap – and one of the worst on all of reality TV, Kris Gillespie has earned a place in the Reality TV Hall of Shame.

Kara doesn't care if you agree with her. She considers herself to be a contrarian, which means she's technically not allowed to agree with anyone. You can reach her at kara_wild@dslextreme.com, or visit her website, The Contrarian's Corner.

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