Who Wants to Win the Oil? is the latest satirical TV panel show where smart-mouthed comics comment on the day’s events. But there’s a twist. Who Wants is a daily show, it’ll feature big-name comedians and they’ll all be competing to win five liters of crude oil sitting in barrels in the studio. Sick and tasteless given the recent Iraq war? Well, yes, but Who Wants to Win the Oil? is actually on Iraqi TV and is part of a new wave of satire sweeping the country.
In the five years since the fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, comedy, particularly satirical comedy, has flourished on the 47 new TV channels to launch in Iraq.
One show, ostensibly called Government, has a slight twist in its Iraqi Arabic name so it also means “help me, I’m dead.” The sketch show riffs on a spoof ministry for explosions, arguing that the best way to stop bombings is to kill everybody, and the health minister deals with a dearth of doctors by making illness illegal.
There is a bitter truth in this skit. The station that broadcasts the show, Al Sharqiya, was banned in 2007 under anti-terrorism laws on the grounds that it was provoking people. The station now broadcasts from Dubai and makes its casting choices accordingly.
Al Sharqiya’s Dowlat Al Rayeesa (“Her Excellency the President”) stars belly dancer Malayeen as the recently widowed president’s wife who ends up in charge of the country.
“We chose comedians because people suffer in Iraq and we want to entertain them,” Alaa AdDahaan, Al Sharqiya’s program editor, told Agence France Presse recently. “Most of the Iraqi artistes are based abroad after fleeing the security situation in Iraq, so all the scenes were shot in Syria.”
It is, at least, an improvement on all the people who are actually being shot in Iraq. But if the professional comics are leaving the country, its citizens are lining up to fill their shoes. Rivalling Who Wants to Win the Oil? in the ratings is Iraq’s version of The X Factor — Comedy Star on Baghdad-based Al-Rasheed.
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