ABSTRACT
Tal Kurt and Miri Talmon offer a comparative critical study and an interpretive intercultural comparison of the Israeli Imma Makhlifa (Mom Swap) with the British original format, the reality series Wife Swap (Channel 4, 2003–2010) and its American version (ABC, 2004–present). The comparative study of these different versions of the same reality television format illuminates the unique construction for television of the Israeli every day and especially that of mothers, and at the same time examines the adaptation and domestication of the British and American formats into a unique Israeli cultural context. A major finding of this study is that in fact this reality show offers a continuing, serial discussion of different versions of “Israeliness,” which transcend and challenge stereotypes of ethnicity as it intersects with class. The process of make-over and transformation in the show, a didactic process that entails reflexivity and learning, encourages an understanding that the different lifestyles in Israel as documented and represented in the show are not merely and stereotypically organized around clear cut gender, ethnic, religious versus secular categorizations, or any predetermined sectorial categories and social hierarchies. Rather, each episode constructs open-ended types and facilitates an open-ended interpretation of social and ethnic types. The liminality of the swapping situation creates a negotiated, creative space, in the Israeli version, for a complex discussion of “Israeliness,” which, at its core, is in a state of becoming and creation, highly negotiated over its definitions.
